This essay is a small-scale interview study which explores Swedish female beer brewers’ experiences as a minority in a male-dominated workplace. It focuses on the lived experiences of the brewers. A feminist phenomenology as well as organizational theories, the idea of homosociality and the notion of cultural dominance provide the theoretical framework which is used for the analysis of the brewers’ experiences of their profession. In my analysis, I conclude that there is certain gender problematic in their workplace and that gender is marked and matters in certain ways in the brewing business. I have shown how they reflect upon themselves as women in a gender-segregated workplace and how bodily substantiality and phenomenological orientations manifest themselves in a beer brewing context. My interviewees showed different strategies to succeed as women in this business and signs of resistance to a negative image of female brewers.

This thesis explores how jazz musicians in Sweden experience jazz culture in terms of hierarchies and structures of power through a feminist phenomenological perspective. Through qualitative interviews with four jazz musicians with experience of attending different music colleges in Sweden, I explore their experiences of jazz culture in general, as well as specific contexts which are common within the culture. Using my theoretical approach, mainly consosting of the theories of Sara Ahmed and Iris Young, I review my informants´ possibilities to orientate themselves toward and within Swedish jazz culture. The informants all have different views of who holds the authority within the jazz culture. The study shows that male representation, masculine patterns of movement and structures of class differences has an impact on the informants possibilities to orientate themselves within the culture.

The welfare state is ideally about guaranteeing citizens welfare and social security. This thesis describes how the embodied experience of austerity politics and reforms of national health insurance in Sweden is lived along the links of what I call “the chain of precarity”. In 2008 the duration of the entitlement to sickness benefit was limited to 2.5 years. The majority of people on sick leave and passing the benefit limit were women. Using qualitative in-depth interviews and drawing on feminist phenomenology, theories of recognition and crip perspectives, the analysis shows that the chain of precarity orients women with long-term illness towards increased vulnerability and risk. This (dis)orientation is the result of a lack of recognition and respect within the fields of social insurance, health care, work life, discourse and politics as well as close relations.

This thesis aims to explore how identity takes shape within mixed race persons whom have Latin American background, in today’s Sweden, based on four individual in-depth interviews. The central characters in this paper were found through a convenience sample within my circle of acquaintances, due to the limited framework of this thesis. Six themes were found through coding and thematising: questioning Swedishness, invisible camouflage, it is positive to be mixed, internalized racism, to (en)counter racism and nothing to 100 %.  By means of a feminist phenomenological approach, this thesis has shown that being mixed race creates an ethnic insecurity and a contingency in one’s own identity formation, since the experience of being Swedish constantly is questioned based on physical appearance and/or name. However, all of the informants also experienced joy in having several backgrounds; it was seen as empowering, a possibility and a contribution to the generally white Swedishness. In that way the informants’ refusal to conform to the limiting norms of Swedishness, can be seen as a transcendency of the Swedish hegemony and an expansion of what it means to be Swedish. / Esta tesis trata de explorar como la identidad se crea dentro de personas de raza mixta, quienes tienen origen de América Latina, en Suecia hoy, basado en cuatro entrevistas profundas. Las personas centrales en este ensayo los encontré usando una muestra de conveniencia, ya que el esbozo era restringido. Yo conozco a lxs informantes. Seis temas se cristalizaron a través de codificar y tematizar: Suequidad que es dudoso, camuflaje invisible, ser mixto es positivo, racismo internalizado, enfrentar racismo y nada hasta 100 %. Por lo medio de un enfoque fenomenológico feminista, esta tesis ha encontrado que ser raza mixta crea una inseguridad étnica y contingencia en la formación de identidad en ellas, ya que la experiencia de ser suecx constantemente es dudosa basado en apariencia física y/o nombre. Sin embargo, todas lxs informantes también sintieron alegría en tener varios orígenes; era visto como un poder, una posibilidad y una contribución a la suequidad, que en general es blanca. De esa manera el rechazo de adaptarse a las normas de suequidad limitativas de lxs informantes, puede ser visto como una trascendencia de la hegemonía sueca y una expansión de lo que significa ser suecx.

This thesis explores the body as an agent of political change as well as embodied aspects of political resistance. It analyses the experience of activists of the extraparliamentary left through the lens of feminist theories on resistance and embodiment. The empirical material draws upon ethnographic field work carried out through a combination of five in-depth interviews and two focus group interviews. The material is analyzed through Barbara Sutton’s conceptualization of embodied resistance and Sara Ahmed’s queer phenomenology. This perspective is advanced by the collective dimension of resistance offered by Judith Butler’s performative theory of assembly and Mona Lilja’s combination this theory and Sara Ahmed’s affective economy. Except from developing phenomenology of resistance, the thesis offers a reading of extraparliamentary action as “queer politics” or an embodied way of questioning “politics as usual”. The motivation behind the respondents’ activism is construed in terms of longing for another potential future than the one offered by parliamentary politics. The study shows that the practice of showing up and appearing in the wrong place can be a powerful form of resistance. The experience of appearing together and of dealing with repression is reported to be a cohesive force uniting individual activists into a social movement or a “body of bodies”. This collective body needs continuous care in order to be resilient and in order to be able to embody the kind equality the activists wish to see in the future. / Den olydiga kroppens politik är en uppsats som bygger på en intervjustudie med tretton aktivister som är eller har varit engagerade i någon form av utomparlamentarisk vänsterrörelse. Studien bygger på en kombination av individuella intervjuer och gruppintervjuer där aktivisterna har fått möjlighet att berätta om sina erfarenheter av att göra politiskt motstånd med kroppen som redskap. Aktivisterna berättar om sina erfarenheter av att delta i demonstrationer, manifestationer och aktioner och om varför de tycker att det är viktigt att dyka upp på platser där det inte är meningen att de ska vara – till exempel på platser där djur slaktas, människor hålls inlåsta eller vapen tillverkas. De berättar också om hur de blir bemötta av polis när de dyker upp och flera av aktivisterna berättar att de blivit utsatta för polisvåld. Aktivisternas engagemang innebär stora fysiska, psykiska och emotionella uppoffringar men de berättar också om tacksamheten över att få arbeta för en mer jämlik och rättvis värld samt glädjen över att få vara en del av en rörelse tillsammans med andra aktivister. Aktivisternas berättelser analyseras i uppsatsen med hjälp av feministiska teorier om motstånd, kroppslighet och känslor samt i relation till tidigare forskning om sociala rörelser i allmänhet, feministiska rörelser i synnerhet samt om den feminism som praktiseras inom den utomparlamentariska vänstern. Denna analys visar att det ligger en stor motståndspotential i att ”dyka upp”, i synnerhet när många människor dyker upp tillsammans och återkommande. Det polisvåld som aktivisterna utsätts för när de dyker upp kan förstås som ett tecken på att det aktivisterna gör uppfattas som ett hot mot den rådande ordningen och därmed också som ett tecken på förändringspotentialen i detta motstånd. Att aktivisterna agerar och upplever svåra saker tillsammans skapar känslomässiga band mellan dem, vilka knyter dem samman till en motståndskraftig rörelse. Denna rörelse förstås i uppsatsen som en kollektiv kropp uppbyggd av enskilda kroppar och deras inbördes relationer. För att denna kropp ska må bra behöver dessa inbördes relationer tas omhand, och därför lyfts omsorg fram som en praktik som möjliggör rörelsens fortlevnad. Aktivisternas berättelser tyder på att det råder en arbetsdelning i många rörelser, och att denna arbetsdelning innebär att omsorgsarbete inte anses viktigt och inte praktiseras av alla aktivister. Uppsatsen avslutas därför med en påminnelse om att det krävs ett pågående arbete med att realisera de jämlikhetsideal som aktivisterna strävar efter på lång sikt även inom den egna gemenskapen.