The aim of this thesis is to explore the interplay between economics, gender, and materiality in an economic sector that has received little attention from performativity scholars: agriculture. During the early 20th century, Swedish agricultural education was organized along gendered lines. I study how male and female schools differed in their economics education. In so doing I will explore the question: How were economic and non-economic agents assembled in Swedish lower agricultural education during the first half of the 20th century? To answer this the thesis follows a rural domestic school and an agricultural school, intended for female and male students respectively. The method is a qualitative text analysis of firstly archival material from the schools, secondly textbooks in agricultural economics and bookkeeping, and thirdly Swedish Government Official Reports. The main finding is that performance of economic theory creates both the economic and the non-economic. The farm as a unit of production and reproduction was split into home and business, in an act of interessement. The two forms of smallholder education were reformulated as agricultural education and domestic education, thereby placing the young men in a productive sphere and the young women in a domestic, reproductive sphere. Economic agents were assembled in the agricultural school as resources for qualculation were provided, not least through economic and agronomic quantification. In the rural domestic school, conversely, resources for qualculation were removed as women’s farm labor was framed as an expression of immeasurable maternal love. The economic actor was thus assembled in relation to his female Other. In summary, performing the economic man means performing economic and performing man.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:uu-504923 |
| Date | January 2023 |
| Creators | Holmgren, Saga |
| Publisher | Uppsala universitet, Ekonomisk-historiska 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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