This thesis explores how scientists within the controversial scientific field of gene  transfer make their research doable. Based on in-depth interviews with gene transfer scientists and key individuals from different regulatory agencies and advisory boards in Sweden and the U.S.A., the study focuses on how scientists describe and reason about how they handle the various problems that confront them as they work in a technically advanced and highly controversial field of research. Drawing upon Clarke and Fujimura’s concepts of situatedness and doability, Latour’s concepts of enrollment and translation, Strauss’concepts of articulation work and alignment as well as Gieryn’s concept of boundary-work, the study analyzes how doable problems are constructed within gene transfer, from basic science to clinical application on human subjects. Doable problems were constructed by enrolling allies on different levels, translating interests and creating alignment of interests and activities of the allies enrolled. The study covers how scientists handle questions of funding, research cooperation and choice of scientific material as well as the ethical complications involved in gene transfer research and its applications. For the U.S. scientists an essential part of creating doable problems consisted of boundary-work in relation to regulatory demands and interventions, something that did not concern the Swedish scientists to the same extent. Gene transfer, due to its controversial character, has raised public fears and concerns. Using Goffman’s concept of frames, the study also analyzes how gene transfer scientists attempt to gain public acceptance by framing gene transfer as an ordinary kind of therapy, while simultaneously heralding it as a revolutionary new technology, in order to obtain the external funding necessary for an expensive and extensive research. / Avhandlingen undersöker hur forskare inom det kontroversiella forskningsfältet genterapi gör sin forskning möjlig. Utifrån djupintervjuer med genterapiforskare samt med nyckelpersoner inom  regleringsmyndigheter och rådgivande organ i Sverige och USA visas i avhandlingen hur forskare beskriver och resonerar kring hur de hanterar olika problem som uppstår i deras arbete inom ett vetenskapligt avancerat och mycket kontroversiellt forskningsfält. Med hjälp av Clarke och Fujimura’s begrepp situatedness och doability, Latour’s begrepp enrollering och översättning, Strauss’ begrepp articulation work och alignment samt Gieryn’s begrepp gränsarbete analyserar avhandlingen forskarnas arbete med att konstruera utförbara problem inom genterapiforskning, från grundforskning till klinisk tillämpning på människor. Detta sker genom enrollering av allierade på olika nivåer, genom översättning av olika aktörers intressen samt genom att dessa enrollerade allierades verksamheter och intressen läggs i linje med forskarnas egna. Avhandlingen tar upp hur forskarna hanterar olika praktiska problem, som finansiering, forskningssamarbete och val av forskningsmaterial, samt hur de bemöter de olika etiska problem som genterapiforskningen och dess tillämpning innebär. Avhandlingen visar även på en viktig skillnad mellan de intervjuade amerikanska och svenska forskarna. I USA måste forskarna hantera en stark reglering av deras arbete, något som inte berör de svenska forskarna på samma sätt; de amerikanska forskarna måste därvid använda olika former av gränsarbete i sina relationer till reglerande myndigheter. Genterapins osäkra och kontroversiella karaktär har orsakat rädsla och oro hos allmänheten. Avhandlingen analyserar genterapiforskarnas försök att skapa samhällelig acceptans för sin forskning genom att ge den en inramning som en etablerad form av medicinsk behandling. Detta sker i viss motsättning till en parallell inramning av genterapi som en ny och revolutionerande teknologi, något som sker i syfte att erhålla den nödvändiga finansieringen för en kostnadskrävande och omfattande forskning.

Det övergripande transportpolitiska målet i Sverige har sedan 1998 varit att säkerställa en samhällsekonomiskt effektiv och långsiktigt hållbar transportförsörjning för medborgarna och näringslivet i hela landet. Under perioden fram till 2010 har samhällsekonomiska underlag fått en allt tyngre roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och den statliga styrningen av den långsiktiga planeringen som ett verktyg för att prioritera mellan investeringar i nya vägar och järnvägslänkar. I studien utforskades den samhällsekonomiska analysens roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och dess styrning av den regionala infrastrukturplaneringen. Studien utgår ifrån ett konstruktivistiskt angreppssätt och en syn på relationen mellan vetenskap/expertis och politik som samproducerad. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för analysen består av dokument och intervjutranskriptioner. De dokument som har analyserats är publikationer om den samhällsekonomiska analysmetoden, utgivna av myndigheten Statens institut för kommunikationsanalys (SIKA) och dels olika typer av transportpolitiska dokument. Intervjuerna genomfördes med tretton regionala beslutsfattare och en tjänsteman, vilka varit delaktiga i upprättandet av en regional infrastrukturplan i Västra Götaland. Studien visar att samhällsekonomisk analys är en värderingsmetod med stort inflytande i den formulerade transportpolitiken. Trots att den framställs som ett objektivt sätt att utvärdera den samhällsekonomiska effektiviteten hos väg- och järnvägsobjekt, och i förlängningen deras bidrag till det övergripande målet, utgör metodens grunder till stor del en svart låda i den transportpolitiska diskussionen. Detta gäller även hos de intervjuade beslutsfattarna, men de konstruerar den enskilde politikerns omdöme som den viktigaste grunden för beslut. / The study deals with applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the significant role this method has acquired in transport policy in Sweden since 1998. It is a study of a valuation method at the intersection between neoclassical economics, expertise, Swedish transport policy, long term planning and regional decision makers. Specifically, it focuses on the co-production of expertise and politics and how boundaries are drawn between them in relation to valuation. Departing from a constructionist approach to science and expertise, the study is concerned with how CBA and valuation is depicted in various contexts. The empirical foundation of the study concists of documents dealing with CBA, several kinds of transport policy documents and interview transcripts resulting from interviews with thirteen regional decision makers and one regional official. The analysis shows the significant influence of CBA on transport policy. While this valuation method is depicted as an objective valuation tool in planning, its conceptual foundation tends to be black-boxed outside the domain of expertise. This applies also to the interviewed regional decision makers. However, they delimit the space for CBA as a sufficient decision support. In addition, they construct judgment as the most important basis for decisions on infrastructure. Still, it is argued, the black-boxing of CBA in transport policy affect the political landscape negatively: it entails a risk that important political issues are made more inaccessible for public debate.

Generations of women’s health workers, writers, activists, and academics have tended to present midwifery as the opposite of obstetrics; to summon the appealing association of midwifery by advocating ‘tradition and nature’ over ‘modernity and medicalization;’ and to invoke the melodrama of the subordination of female patients by and to male doctors. This thesis suggests that it is much more productive (and historically accurate) to think of the shifting roles and identities of childbirth practitioners and their clients in terms of “boundary work” rather than the oft-touted dichotomy of domination/resistance. The thesis navigates Enlightenment theories of body and nature and moves to explore the example of the Foucaultian “clinic” to illustrate a relatively unstable foundation on which the biomedical clinic appears not as an entity trapped in time and space, but always already subject to change and negotiation. A discussion of maternal health policy and the roles of birthing women in actively shaping the care they receive brings home the central argument that what is crucial to the ever-developing birthing models is not resisting that which appears to dominate, but affirming a practice that more adequately meets the needs of birthing women in BC today.

Det övergripande transportpolitiska målet i Sverige har sedan 1998 varit att säkerställa en samhällsekonomiskt effektiv och långsiktigt hållbar transportförsörjning för medborgarna och näringslivet i hela landet. Under perioden fram till 2010 har samhällsekonomiska underlag fått en allt tyngre roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och den statliga styrningen av den långsiktiga planeringen som ett verktyg för att prioritera mellan investeringar i nya vägar och järnvägslänkar. I studien utforskades den samhällsekonomiska analysens roll i den formulerade transportpolitiken och dess styrning av den regionala infrastrukturplaneringen. Studien utgår ifrån ett konstruktivistiskt angreppssätt och en syn på relationen mellan vetenskap/expertis och politik som samproducerad. Det empiriska material som ligger till grund för analysen består av dokument och intervjutranskriptioner. De dokument som har analyserats är publikationer om den samhällsekonomiska analysmetoden, utgivna av myndigheten Statens institut för kommunikationsanalys (SIKA) och dels olika typer av transportpolitiska dokument. Intervjuerna genomfördes med tretton regionala beslutsfattare och en tjänsteman, vilka varit delaktiga i upprättandet av en regional infrastrukturplan i Västra Götaland. Studien visar att samhällsekonomisk analys är en värderingsmetod med stort inflytande i den formulerade transportpolitiken. Trots att den framställs som ett objektivt sätt att utvärdera den samhällsekonomiska effektiviteten hos väg- och järnvägsobjekt, och i förlängningen deras bidrag till det övergripande målet, utgör metodens grunder till stor del en svart låda i den transportpolitiska diskussionen. Detta gäller även hos de intervjuade beslutsfattarna, men de konstruerar den enskilde politikerns omdöme som den viktigaste grunden för beslut. / The study deals with applied cost-benefit analysis (CBA) and the significant role this method has acquired in transport policy in Sweden since 1998. It is a study of a valuation method at the intersection between neoclassical economics, expertise, Swedish transport policy, long term planning and regional decision makers. Specifically, it focuses on the co-production of expertise and politics and how boundaries are drawn between them in relation to valuation. Departing from a constructionist approach to science and expertise, the study is concerned with how CBA and valuation is depicted in various contexts. The empirical foundation of the study concists of documents dealing with CBA, several kinds of transport policy documents and interview transcripts resulting from interviews with thirteen regional decision makers and one regional official. The analysis shows the significant influence of CBA on transport policy. While this valuation method is depicted as an objective valuation tool in planning, its conceptual foundation tends to be black-boxed outside the domain of expertise. This applies also to the interviewed regional decision makers. However, they delimit the space for CBA as a sufficient decision support. In addition, they construct judgment as the most important basis for decisions on infrastructure. Still, it is argued, the black-boxing of CBA in transport policy affect the political landscape negatively: it entails a risk that important political issues are made more inaccessible for public debate.

This thesis aims to show how gender is done in the Swedish Armed Forces, against the backdrop of its transition into an international defence organization and the international resolutions that call for gender mainstreaming in peacekeeping operations. In the so-called “New Armed Forces”, traditional demarcations that have separated civilian employees from members of the military officer profession are no longer self-evident. At the same time, what it means to be men and women in the military is changing. Three empirical studies form the basis of the thesis. The first consists of qualitative interviews with women pioneers in the military officer profession, and discusses how gender relations in the Swedish military have changed since the inclusion of women. The second addresses the intersecting relations of gender and occupation and is based on interviews with strategic and executive actors in the Armed Forces Headquarters. The third, ethnographic, study follows a military unit preparing for a peacekeeping mission. It focuses on gender relations in everyday work and shows how the ongoing transformation changes what it means to be military men and women. The thesis is informed by feminist studies of organization, critical studies of men and masculinities, research on professions and occupations, and military studies. A “doing gender” approach and a relational view of both gender and occupations guide the analysis. The analysis shows how established ways of doing gender are changed and reproduced in military practices, how the emphasis on peacekeeping reshapes gender relations in military work, and how organizational boundaries are maintained and deconstructed in organizational practices. Theoretically, the thesis contributes by developing tools for analysing the practising of gender in organizations. The concept of boundary work is elaborated into a tool for analysing how demarcations of gender and occupation are accomplished in work practices. The concept Repair work is employed to capture the complexities of doing masculinities in organizations, by looking closely at situations where the everyday practising of gender is disturbed. / Denna avhandling syftar till att visa hur genus görs i den svenska Försvarsmakten, mot bakgrund av organisationens förändring från invasionsförsvar till insatsförsvar. Denna process kopplas till kraven på jämställdhetsintegrering inom fredsbevarande arbete. I den så kallade ”nya Försvarsmakten” är de gränser som tidigare skilt civilanställda från yrkesofficerare inte längre självklara. Samtidigt förändras de innebörder som kön ges i organisationen. Avhandlingen bygger på tre empiriska studier. Den första består av kvalitativa intervjuer med några av de första kvinnliga yrkesofficerarna i Sverige och diskuterar hur genusrelationerna har förändras sedan kvinnor gavs tillträde till officersyrket. Den andra, som inriktar sig på hur genus- och yrkesrelationer samverkar, bygger på intervjuer med aktörer på ledande och strategiska positioner i Försvarsmaktens högkvarter. Den tredje studien är etnografisk och följer ett internationellt insatsförband under förberedelserna för en fredsbevarande insats. Den undersöker hur genusrelationer skapas i det dagliga arbetet och visar hur den pågående förändringen omformar de betydelser som kvinnor och män tillskrivs i militären. Den tidigare forskning som avhandlingen knyter an till är genus- och organisationsforskning, kritiska studier av män och maskulinitet, forskning om yrken och professioner samt samhällsvetenskapliga militärstudier. Genomgående används ett ”doing gender”-perspektiv samt ett relationellt förhållningsätt till genus såväl som yrke. Analysen visar hur etablerade sätt att göra kön förändras och reproduceras i militära praktiker, hur betoningen på fredsbevarande arbete omformar genusrelationer samt hur gränser upprätthålls och dekonstrueras i organisatoriska praktiker. Avhandlingen bidrar med nya teoretiska verktyg för att förstå genuspraktiker i organisationer. Begreppet gränsarbete vidareutvecklas till ett begrepp som visar hur genus- och yrkesgränser görs i det dagliga arbetet. Begreppet reparationsarbete tydliggör de komplexa praktiker genom vilka maskulinitet görs då det vardagliga genusskapandet sätts ur spel.

Generations of women’s health workers, writers, activists, and academics have tended to present midwifery as the opposite of obstetrics; to summon the appealing association of midwifery by advocating ‘tradition and nature’ over ‘modernity and medicalization;’ and to invoke the melodrama of the subordination of female patients by and to male doctors. This thesis suggests that it is much more productive (and historically accurate) to think of the shifting roles and identities of childbirth practitioners and their clients in terms of “boundary work” rather than the oft-touted dichotomy of domination/resistance. The thesis navigates Enlightenment theories of body and nature and moves to explore the example of the Foucaultian “clinic” to illustrate a relatively unstable foundation on which the biomedical clinic appears not as an entity trapped in time and space, but always already subject to change and negotiation. A discussion of maternal health policy and the roles of birthing women in actively shaping the care they receive brings home the central argument that what is crucial to the ever-developing birthing models is not resisting that which appears to dominate, but affirming a practice that more adequately meets the needs of birthing women in BC today.

No description available.

This study examines how social cohesion is built through exchange of urban art. Graffiti and street art are treated like dirt and washed away. Unsanctioned art is often perceived as alien to museums and private homes. Despite this, many graffiti and street artists produce art in studios that are sold in galleries as urban art. Through ethnographic tools and site visits to homes of collectors in the United States and Sweden this study explores what it means to exchange and own urban art. Guided by Émile Durkheim’s theories on social cohesion and Georg Simmel’s writings on social boundaries, sociological implications of material things are investigated. The analysis shows that exchange of urban art produces and affirms social bonds and passionate feelings about belonging to a specific art world. Artworks in private homes symbolically represent unsanctioned art; which makes collectors feel joy, purpose, and confidence. Urban art collectors dodge discursive definitions of art in favor of nondiscursive and pragmatic boundary work. In contrast to a Bourdieusian perspective this study found that art is not as much about reproduction of social hierarchies as about making social life meaningful and connected. The results suggest further research on materiality in times of digital media.

The essay To negotiate truth is a cultural analytical study of the boundary work that takes place in the comment sections, more specifically in relations to the climate change debate and Greta Thunberg’s climate activism. This paper deals with empirical material in the form of comments obtained from the Swedish newspapers Aftonbladet’s and Expressen’s comment field on Facebook. The data-gathering method used for this paper is digital ethnography. This study aims to create an understanding of how argumentation is presented in open social arenas such as Expressen and Aftonbladet's comments field. The purpose of the study has been to show how the contested claims and facts are legitimized and negotiated in the comment fields. The theoretical framework has consisted of discourse theory and Boundary objects theory. The questions to be answered in the study is: In what way is truth constructed in the debate? How are the various claims of truth legitimized? In what way are facts and science used in the legitimization of the different claims of truths? The analysis shows that truth is constructed in many different ways, partly through what i choose to call denial and distrust discourse. The analysis also showed how climate research and the climate can be seen as a boundary object and be used to stabilize the denial discourse further. The result also showed that scientific evidence can be used in a variety of ways in the legitimization of the different claims of truth. On the one hand, there is a demand for more nuanced research to be presented in the media, this creates an image that there are two sides of climate science that are of equal importance. The analysis also showed how mistrust and doubt against established media, political processes and science in general can be used in the legitimization of various statements of truth. I also claim that Greta can be seen as a boundary object in the ongoing negotiation. The use of religious metaphors also proves to be of great importance in trying to undermine the climate issue and climate research in general.

This study treats the topic of smallpox prevention in Sweden during the nascent phase of vaccination between 1798–1805. The aim is to examine how Swedish physicians sought to establish trustworthiness for a new medical treatment as well as to analyse the relation between professional physicians and the unlicensed actors involved in the practice, i.e. the clergy and their assistants. The source material consists of pamphlets, articles in daily papers and annual reports written by Swedish physicians. By drawing upon theories on boundary-work and epistemic authority, this study has found that several boundaries were drawn within the medical space by the physicians who strived to retain the elements of the practice that were considered the most crucial, while delegating others. More importantly, the study has found that the physicians attempted to engage the clergy in the dissemination of knowledge due to their influence over the public. According to the physicians, the clergy were able to establish a credibility for the vaccine which could induce the population to undergo the treatment without coercion or laws made by the government.