This thesis is a monograph on The Play about the Norberg Strike 1891–92, a pioneering project and performance relating to working-class cultural expressions. The project was initiated in the summer of 1975, and the first successful performances were held in June and July 1977. The democracy of cultural life was very positively manifested in The Play and in Swedish media, it was described as the first working-class play. It served as a model for other similar productions, set in many places in Sweden. The investigation began with field studies, which facilitated the choice of a suitable theory. A starting-point was that a specific working-class culture exists, subordinated to the dominant middle class culture. Social class distinction is an underlying concept for hegemony, and also for the spanning theoretical framework used in my investigation. It comprises a public sphere theory, formulated by Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge in their book Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung (1972). Their concept counter-public sphere is applied to The Play. The main purpose was to describe the characteristic features of The Play, by delineating and analysing the production phase, particularly the aesthetically elaborated parts, i.e. the script production, the staging, the performance, and the reception, all consistent with the working-class culture and the local conditions in Norberg. A more subordinated purpose was to complete the common definition of the term working-class play. The Play about the Norberg Strike succeeded in putting the negative influences of the bourgeois public sphere aside, replacing it with positive categories. The work processes were of vital importance, as was the forming of new platforms and communication channels based on the local working-class experiences and lives. Consequently, The Play became a genuine expression and a solid breakthrough for working-class experiences.

This thesis focuses on the political dimensions of aesthetic expression during the Long Sixties. The thesis deals with amateur theatre ventures both within and linked to the social democratic labour movement. ’Spelet om Norbergsstrejken’ (The Play about the Norberg Strike) had its première in 1977 in a small industrial village in the industrial region of Bergslagen. Similar plays appeared in many regions of the country and a wave of workers’ plays emerged and made an impact on the internal investments of the educational association ABF in amateur theatre. The empiricism of the thesis concludes in 1982 when a social democratic amateur theatre association was founded and after a breakaway from the social democratic movement was establishing a residential study centre in another small village in Bergslagen. Sixties radicalisation provides the social context of the study and the perspective of sociological social movement research is used and developed. Based on the perspective of cognitive practice and the concepts of cosmology and movement ideology attention is directed towards the theatre assets of performance hosts, expectation horizons and patterns of behaviour. The thesis argues for a deeper understanding of sixties radicalisation partly meaning that the periodisation needs to be extended backwards as well as forwards in terms of time and partly that the political dimensions of aesthetic expression should be focused on. Based upon the results of the thesis the concept of culturactivism was formulated which defines the specific approach that appeared in the space between political and cultural activism. This highlights the need for a concept that covers the cognitive free space that arose between aesthetic expression and political activism and which has not previously attracted the attention of historical studies about sixties radicalisation to any great degree.

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