This thesis investigates the narrated experiences of a number of individuals that migrated to Argentina from Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. The over-arching aim of this thesis is to study the ways in which these migrants navigated the social reality in Argentina, with regards to available physical, material, and socioeconomic positions as well as with regards to their narrated self-understandings and identifications. The empirical data consists of ethnographic in-depth interviews and participatory observation from Buenos Aires between the years 2011 and 2014. Through the theoretical frameworks of political discourse theory, critical race studies, auto-ethnography, and theories on coloniality, the author examines questions of migration, mobility, race, class, and gender in the processes of re-establishing a life in a new context. The interviewees were not only directly affected by the collapse of the USSR in the sense that it drastically changed their terrain of possible futures as well as retroactive understandings of their pasts, but they also began their lives in Argentina during the turmoil of the economic crisis that culminated in 2001. Central to this thesis is how these dislocatory events impacted the interviewees’ possibilities and limitations for living the life they had expected, and thus how discursive structures affect subject positions and identifications, and thereby create specific conditions for different relocatory trajectories. By focusing on how these individuals narrate their reasons for migration and their integration into Argentine labor and housing markets, the author demonstrates the role Argentine and East European history, as well as the neoliberal restructuring of the postsocialist region and Argentina in the 1990’s, had for self-understandings, subject positions, identities, and mobility. Various intersections of power, and particularly the making of race and whiteness, are important for the way that the interviewees negotiated subject positions and identifications. The author addresses how affect and hope played a part in these processes and how downward mobility was articulated and made meaningful. She also examines how participants’ ideas about a “good life” were related to understandings of the past, questions of race, social inequality, and a logic of coloniality.

In this text we introduce this special issue of Kulturella perspektiv that addresses the relationship between ethnography and fiction. Could ethnographic fiction serve as an alternative way to communicate research results? Can it help us to reach other audiences outside of academia? How can fantasy and fiction help us in the quest for new knowledge? These are the main questions posed and answered in this introductory article where we highlight some important contributions to this field in ethnology and anthropology. Revisiting concepts such as Clifford Geertz 'thick descriptions' and 'faction' the article suggests that ethnographic fiction is part of a tradition in ethnographic work that problematize the division between fact and fiction, reason and affect, as well as objectivity and subjectivity. Scholars that work in the ethnographic tradition has long since acknowledged researchers' interpretations and subjectivity as a part of our knowledge production. Qualitative research in general, and ethnographic research in particular, would be impossible without an active research subject that thinks, feels and engages in the field of research. The article discusses examples of ethnographic research that engages with alternative ways of writing up the results and communicating the findings. We suggest that a creative approach to writing might reach a new and larger audience and help establish the importance of ethnographic work

In this article, we analyse how the relationship between humans and other species is portrayed in contemporary films and series that have the rise and fall of civilization as their theme: Into the Wild (2007), The Revenant (2015), Into the Forest (2015) and The Walking Dead (2010-). The purpose is to understand how relationships between humans, animals and non-humans are portrayed. The films/series have been chosen on the basis of their portrayal of social downfall or social dissatisfaction and on the grounds that they are also widely recognised and popular portrayals. The analysis focuses on two male characters (The Revenant, Into the Wild) and two female characters (Into the Forest and The Walking Dead) to investigate relationships between humans and other species (animals and zombies) when it comes to survival, and how these relationships are possibly conditioned by gender. Methodologically, we approach these popular cultural depictions as ethnographers, with human meaning-making as the primary point of departure. Theoretically, we use concepts developed in the field of human-animal studies.   The analysis shows that there are differences between the representations of different species and that these representations are also conditioned by gender in the human characters. Where men are alone in their struggle against nature, women are part of social relationships where they, together with others (human and non-human), struggle to survive. The analysis further shows how animals and other species constantly condition and enable human existence. However, lacking human language, the animals – who are absolutely vital for the actions and survival of the human characters – are rendered unimportant.

The medical technology (medtech) industry in Sweden is situated within a complex innovation ecosystem, in which various stakeholders from the public, private and academic sectors need to collaborate to meet demands on effective and efficient healthcare. Demographics are changing and those in need of healthcare are not only larger in numbers than ever but they are also more knowledgeable and demanding. Increasing innovative performance is crucial in both the private and public healthcare sectors, but bold steps forward need to be taken in light of stricter rules and regulations for how healthcare stakeholders should manage both their internal processes and the ways in which they interact with other stakeholders in the larger innovation system. The traditional way in which medtech companies gain access to user needs, primarily working through a sales-purchasing relationship with the public healthcare sector, is outdated and needs to be replaced with an increasingly collaborative and cocreative model of healthcare innovation. This chapter describes experiences and lessons learned from InnoPlant, a 3-year (2008-2011) action learning project involving three companies from the Swedish medtech industry, two county/regional councils responsible for public healthcare, and four academic institutions-carried out within the framework of the Swedish Product Innovation Engineering program (PIEp). The purpose of the project was to advance the capability of stakeholders from the public, private, and academic sectors to collaborate in the cocreation of healthcare innovations. 

I den här boken medverkar lärare och forskare som på olika sätt adresserar något eller flera av orden frihet, politik och systerskap. En rad vetenskapliga essäer ger bland annat läsaren inblick i alpackors skapande av systerlig gemenskap tillsammans med människor, systerskap som politiskt begrepp, frågor om forskares ansvar, akademiskt systerskap, skrivande som feministisk gemenskap, post-migranters erfarenheter och identitetsskapande samt mycket annat. Detta är en vänbok till Beatriz Lindqvist, professor i etnologi, och texterna har därför funnit inspiration i hennes person och forskargärning.

Beatriz Lindqvist har varit en drivande person i uppbyggnaden av etnologiämnet på Södertörns högskola. Hon har även haft ett stort engagemang i lärarutbildningen, såväl genom deltagande i råd och undervisning som genom hennes förskoleinriktade forskning.

In this report, we investigate local mobilisation in small rural communities during the large and numerous wildfires in the Swedish forests in 2018. The aim is to investigate how the crisis caused by the forest fires activated rural networks and resource mobilisation in local communities affected by the forest fires. The main contribution is to provide empirical evidence on the importance of timing, local networks and skills in disaster response in a rural context, while also questioning whether this should be necessary in a welfare state. The study shows strong evidence of social cohesion, which is closely linked to place, but also important areas of conflict. A key factor in the success of the firefighting effort was the lack of prestige and close cooperation between the official emergency services and people with local knowledge and networks. Emergent and autonomous groups, as well as local emergency services based on local networks and agricultural and forestry enterprises, were particularly important, as they proved to be central from a local perspective. However, they are not always recognised as a resource in evaluations and reports of forest fires. Finally, we discuss whether the lack of national preparedness for the fires can be seen as a consequence of an urban norm and the withdrawal of the welfare state from rural Sweden in general, and how this affects the sense of trust, democracy and justice among the inhabitants.