Sweden's gender equality work has historically been a success in many ways, but honour-based violence and oppression is not debated or identified as a Swedish social problem. What is the effect of differentiating between different social problems that fall into the same category? The present thesis aims to deepen the understanding of how men's violence against women is understood at a time when Sweden is considered to be in the forefront of gender equality policy issues. The present thesis therefore examines how honour-based violence and oppression is defined in Sweden, and how Swedish authorities work to prevent and combat the violence. By examining the image of victims of honour-based violence, on which the definition and the work are based, power dynamics within the discourse are also made visible. By using critical discourse analysis as a method and by using theoretical concepts, two government reports on honour-based violence and oppression in Sweden, and a handbook aimed at professionals in the school system are analyzed. The present thesis shows that the Swedish authorities' definition makes a distinction between honour-based violence and oppression, and men's violence against women. It is mainly explained as a problem based on culture, unlike men's violence against women, which is described as a social problem. This is made visible by Swedish authorities through a focus on foreigners in the work of preventing and combating honour-based violence. The definition and the work analyzed in the present thesis contribute to making it more difficult for victims of honour-based violence to identify themselves as "Swedish". Throughout the texts there is a stereotypical image of both victims and perpetrators of violence as being foreigners: people with dark colored hair and dark colored eyes. It is important to analyze and problematize how Swedish authorities choose to express themselves but also how they choose not to. In this way, we can critically examine how authorities contribute to the construction of a social reality and also reproduce unequal power dynamics in society.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-475339 |
| Date | January 2022 |
| Creators | Oskarsson, Lina |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Teologiska institutionen |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
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