Recently, we have seen a very disconcerting development in the world regarding how information of different kinds is valued and used. As “truth” is being increasingly questioned, one possible remedy is the right of access to official documents. This is the subject studied in this article. Such access constitutes an important element in our democratic society by providing citizens and the media the means to control their government. In Sweden, this right of access might also bring about detrimental effects for privacy, or personal integrity, however, due to the stipulations of the constitutional law, the Freedom of the Press Act.

As will be outlined in this study, the meanings attributed to various expressions related to the right of access are unclear, so too are the boundaries that regulate the creation of official documents that may be requested as per the Freedom of the Press Act. This uncertainty could carry implications for personal integrity. The meanings and creation of official documents are thus at the heart of this investigation.

The purpose of the study is to enhance our knowledge of enablers of, and obstacles to, individuals’ awareness of how information about them in Swedish public authorities was handled and might be accessed by others. The concept self-information awareness developed for the study was therefore at the core of the linguistic–historical analysis that was carried out on twelve Swedish Government Official Reports on large public registers and personal integrity published 1987–2017.

The main conclusion from the investigation is that the possibility of individuals being aware of how information about them was handled by the Swedish authorities and might be accessed by others seemed very limited. The linguistic analysis carried out in the study therefore needs to be supplemented by research into the material legal possibilities for individuals to gain such awareness.

This publication gathers presentations from an international and trans-disciplinary workshop held at Södertörn University in December 2016.

The workshop entitled The Right of Access to Information and the Right to Privacy: A Democratic Balancing Act was one of the many events which celebrated the 250th anniversary of the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act, the first legal instrument in the world laying down the right of access to official documents. A starting point for the workshop was the assumption that the right of access to information and the right to privacy are both necessary pre-conditions for a democratic society. Researchers from a broad range of fields were invited to discuss how these assumptions should be examined, and how the balance between the two interests should be assessed when conflicting with each other. The objective of the workshop was to broaden our understanding of various national and disciplinary approaches to the democratic balance between the right of access and the right to privacy.

Among the conclusions we may draw from the workshop, and the articles emanating from it, is the confirmation of the need to strike the balance between the right of access and the right to privacy. This is certainly difficult, but since the two interests are both of such importance for democracy, we constantly need to make the effort. The articles in this volume contain information on some of the areas that need our further attention.

This study investigates how the balance was drawn between openness/the principle of public access to official documents, and privacy/perso­nal integrity. The empirical material consists of legal texts on Swedish national archival regulation 1987–2004, and a “linguistic-historical analysis” was applied to answer re­search questions re­lated to the scope of documents to archive, and to bene­fits and drawbacks of open­ness and privacy respectively.

The Archival Law of 1990 is aligned with the Swedish Freedom of the Press Act – celebrating 250 years in 2016 – through the term “official docu­ments”. Such documents, whether containing personal data or not, are accessible to every­one unless protected by secrecy regulation. The Archival Law and the Free­dom of the Press Act thus have potentially far-reaching effects on privacy, although this aspect has received considerably less attention than the impact on openness. Exploring the development of the Swedish archival regulation is there­fore of great interest.

The study shows that the scope of documents to archive was made grad­ually larger during the period. This happened through the transfer from “archival material” to “official document”, and through the increas­ing­ly empha­­sised pre­sumption for preservation of documents. As a result of this develop­ment, the principle of pub­lic access and, more specifically, the archives, were described as invaluable to demo­cratic government. The lin­guis­tic analysis shows that the meaning of “the principle of public access to official documents” (offentlighets­principen) changed over time, implicating that the meaning must not be taken for granted.

Benefits and drawbacks related to openness and privacy were identified in Swedish and international archival science research and compared to those in the empirical material. Arguments in the material were mainly oriented to­wards positive aspects of openness. Benefits of privacy as being vital for demo­cracy were entirely absent. With one exception, in-depth discussions on draw­backs of openness and privacy were also absent.

The short answer to the issue of balance between openness and privacy in Swedish archival regulation 1987–2004 is that very few attempts were made to strike such a balance. Theories proposed by various researchers – the century-long tradition of openness in Sweden, the difficulty to introduce privacy legis­lation “in a country where publicity has reigned supreme”, and a view of demo­cracy as based on the community rather than on the individual – may help explain this situation.

Vad är åldrande? När började man över huvud taget tala om "åldrande"? När fick ordet "pensionär" den betydelse vi är vana vid idag?

I Åldrandet och språket studeras ord och uttryck för att ringa in vad man har menat med hög ålder och åldrande i Sverige under hundraårsperioden mellan 1875 och 1975. Frågor kring hög ålder och åldrande har stor aktualitet idag. I Sverige och Europa talar politiker om ökade kostnader för äldrevården och om behovet av att höja pensionsåldern i takt med att medellivslängden ökar. I avhandlingen ges en historisk bakgrund till dessa frågor – en diskussion om höjd pensionsålder fördes till exempel för mer än femtio år sedan.

I de tre källmaterialen – födelsedagsnotiser, ansökningshandlingar till privata ålderdomshem samt statliga förslag och utredningar – har åldrandet inte haft någon distinkt och oföränderlig kärna. Medicinska perspektiv som vanligen förknippas med åldrande hade länge en undanskymd plats. I stället har idéer och händelser i det omgivande samhället påverkat hur åldrandet manifesterades i en pendelrörelse mellan kropp och kronologi. Avhandlingen visar hur förståelsen av åldrandet sett olika ut beroende på tidpunkt, person och situation.

Anna Rosengren är ekonom och historiker verksam vid Södertörns högskola samt knuten till Forskarskolan i historia med Lunds universitet som värdhögskola. Åldrandet och språket är hennes doktorsavhandling.

The purpose of the paper is to gain new knowledge about Saami women in the 17^{th century using court protocols in the Luleå and Torneå Lappmarks, supplemented by secondary sources.}

Saami women did not write their own history, nor did Saami men. Information available about Saami is written by male representatives of the Swedish crown and church. The scholarly challenge therefore lies in reconstructing history about a group of people from meagre sources written by an altogether different group. To this end, the postcolonial research field was chosen as a theoretical framework as it provides us with important issues suitable for this paper. Among these issues we find the view that history of colonised people written by the coloniser is biased and incomplete, that we should be prepared to discover not one but several different histories as well as signs of resistance. As for research on women, I use the concept of dynamic hierarchies by which should be understood that the combination of variables such as age, sex, socio-economic standing and cultural background determine the degree of influence that a person will have.

Together with the theoretical framework, the substantial empirical material and methodological considerations are of great importance for this paper. Close to 300 court cases from the Lappmarks have been analysed. In addition, a quantitative and qualitative study was made including a comparison with two regions in Sweden in order to tell whether the activity of Saami women in court differed from that of other women.

The results are of three kinds. First, it identifies and explains differences in the situation of Saami and Swedish women. Second, it indicates that Saami history of the 17th century is less homogeneous than has hitherto been assumed and furthermore contained several elements of resistance. As a third feature, it suggests that today’s knowledge of Saami in the 17th century is based on parts of Saami society, rather than the society as a whole, due to methodological deficiencies in the historical material.

Among differences between Saami and Swedish women, we find the tremendous importance of personal property in the Lappmarks, as opposed to ownership of land in Sweden. Also, the stigma that often followed on premarital sexual intercourse for women in Sweden did not necessarily occur to Saami women. This difference has previously been identified by other scholars, and the hypothesis brought forward here is a strategy to avoid inbreeding in combination with considerably stronger Saami dynasties. Somewhat surprisingly, the yearly number of sexual crime per capita was not necessarily higher in the Lappmarks than in the Swedish investigations, indicating that the repression of Saami was not more severe than in Sweden. I furthermore find evidence of a strong socio-economic stratification among the Saami, supporting the view of dynamic hierarchies.

The situation and development in the two Lappmarks were not homogeneous. In Luleå Lappmark, the level of social crime, noticeably sexual crime, was considerably higher and the level of economic transactions considerably lower, than in Torneå Lappmark. On an overall level, the general trend towards higher levels of economic transactions took place on only a very modest scale in the Lappmarks compared to Sweden and Europe at large during the 17th century. As for resistance, we find evidence of what I call a "walk-the-walk strategy", i.e. Saami using to their advantage regulations imposed on them by Swedes, along with other kinds of strategies.

Lastly, I show that the methodology used by 17th century source writers is often flawed because Swedish informants and encounters with wealthy reindeer breeding Saami men have to a large extent provided the information for the texts, rather than representatives from the whole Saami population. This is something that to date has been overlooked by many scholars. A challenge for future research is therefore to reconstruct the history of other, less visible, Saami groups as well.