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Empowerment is a concept and a method in social work associated with liberation from oppression. Some paradoxes inherent in the concept and method of empowerment, however, lead to questioning the contradiction between freedom and force that is usually framed by “empowerment”. This dissertation investigates how empowerment is created in a concrete language and an integration project directed towards a group of women with refugee and immigrant background. The Project was part of the Equal Program under the European Social Fund. Departing from the paradoxes characterizing empowerment, the principal research questions of the dissertation are: How is empowerment created in the Project? What shall practices of empowerment create? The dissertation demonstrates that empowerment as the will to liberate, cannot be understood as a liberating method. Rather it has to be understood as a form of power aiming to create certain subjects corresponding to the objective of the making of empowerment. In other words, liberation cannot be derived from an essential meaning. The meaning of liberation receives a specific meaning from the institutional context within which it takes place and are being made. Based on the French philosopher Michel Foucault’s concept of power, I employ a perspective of power analysis, within which empowerment is perceived as a productive power, and the subjectivity of the individual is seen as an object of power. Empowerment becomes a way to govern to change and create subjects in accordance with its own objective. The analysis of empowerment hence turns into an investigation of empowerment as a form of productive power, and addresses the question of how empowerment is created, and what it itself creates. The Dissertation shows that the problematization of the women, which is the precondition for empowerment, is principally, based on culture. When the will to liberate is about liberation from a culture, the women are created as deviating from a Swedish norm. Empowerment frames the individual or the group in a specific way, whereby other conditions that can have importance for their situation as a marginalized group are foreclosed. The will to liberate in this way risks becoming an empowerment space that itself sustains the inequality from which it was intended to liberate.

Over the past few years a Ph.D. student has occupied the academic command centre and sketched a number of renovations in order to change the university’s ongoing work to broaden the recruitment of students from homes with no study habit. The point of departure of the renovations is to direct attention to the terms and structures that people with backgrounds different than the academic norm are supposed to become a part of. Rather than focusing on how ‘they’ adapt to ‘our’ way of doing things, these investigations tries to get a closer look at what this ‘Us’ imply and how that reproduces excluding structures. The ambition is to shift the focus from ‘the Others’ to ‘the Firsts’ – from exclusion to inclusion and this concept (firstness as opposed to otherness) is put forward as a prism to co-think key elements in critical theories of normative subjectification: the understanding of hegemony from masculinity studies, the idea of normativity from (objectless) ‘queer’ (and crip) studies and the idea of unmarkedness and invisibility which is key in critical whiteness studies.The body of research on which the renovations are based is composed of 22 interviews with senior tenured academics with family backgrounds with at least one parent holding a Ph.D and three months of fieldwork from two different university institutions with a relatively high percentage of employees reporting being brought up in academic homes. The question that is scrutinized is how a subjectification framed by academic firstness is experienced and how it is lived and demonstrated within Swedish universities. In order to investigate this, haunting, joykilling and flirtatious methodologies are brought into action creating a methodology that is ’serious about the frivolous, frivolous about the serious’ (Sontag 1964) and aims to find new ways to go about ‘academicness’. The study’s main contribution is reflections around the participant’s extensive, yet unmarked efforts to position themselves as neutral and ordinary. At the center of this positioning is a longing for scientific neutrality, demonstrated in a strong belief in the justice of the meritocratic system, that blind peer reviews protect against discrimination, and that the individual subject perceives its academic accomplishments as unaffected by external factors such as gender, age, background, ethnicity etc. These efforts are read as expressions of an ideology of blindness which is based on a logic in which only that which is within someone’s sight ‘exists’ and can be acted upon. Alternative comprehensions, views and experiences are disqualified by their invisibility to the normative position and as a consequence the idea of neutrality can be generalized which makes the academic system of neutrality auto-reproducing and self-perpetuating.

Between 1908 and 1940, 431 young girls between 16 and 21 years of age were enrolled at Vejstrup Re-education Home for Girls. Through close readings of individual case records and other archival material from Vejstrup Re-education Home, this PhD thesis explores the ways in which the so-called “particularly difficult young girls” were perceived as problematic and how they were handled from 1908 to 1940. The thesis uncovers how the problematisation and handling of the girls changed as psychiatric knowledge was integrated into the field. The thesis is informed by Michel Foucault’s perspective on power and knowledge as mutually constitutive and on power as a productive force that transforms human beings into (specific kinds of) subjects. Introducing the concept of motherly caring power, the reform practices at Vejstrup Re-Education Home are analysed as a specific type of disciplinary liberal government directed at the individual’s will and emotions. The central technique used to re-educate the young girls was the relationship between the headmistress and each individual girl. The aim of re-education was ultimately to lead the girls to regulate themselves to become ‘good girls' and ultimately to strive for becoming servants and wives.The perception of child welfare was that every child could be re-educated, however 4.2% of the children and youth released from Danish residential care between 1905-1940 and 11.4% of the young girls released from Vejstrup Re-Education Home in the same period were released because they had been deemed incorrigible. The expulsions on the grounds of incorrigibility, led to a new problematisation and category that also comprised a new subject: The Incorrigible. During the 1920s, doctors became increasingly involved in assessing the nature of the girls at Vejstrup Re-Education Home, as well as in evaluating how they should be handled. The analysis shows that diagnoses, particularly the diagnosis psychopathy, grew intertwined with the existing category of incorrigibility. The reformulation of incorrigibility to psychopathy and other diagnoses was relevant, because the diagnoses entailed new ways of handling, as well as the anticipation of additional resources. In the 1920s the headmistress attempted to gain ressources for a closed ward at the institution, but did not succeed. In 1930 the subsequent headmistress initiated lobbying for the establishment of a psychopathic institution for girls in 1930. Though she did not succeed, doctors and politicians supported the idea, and a commission was formed to prepare a proposal for the establishment of a psychopathic institution. The thesis uncovers how the problematisation of so-called incorrigible girls as psychopaths emerged at Vejstrup Re-Education Home. Thus the thesis shows how child psychiatry was shaped and practiced within child welfare before the opening of the first Danish child psychiatric clinic in 1935 and before the 1958 establishment of a pedagogic committee in child welfare, incorporating e.g. professional knowledge from psychiatry and psychology.

How can we understand the multi-ethnic workplace as a social meeting place? And what happens if we do not 'frame' in advance the social meeting in the widespread anti-racist frame of understanding? These are the questions that are central to this thesis. Starting from a phenomenological methodology, it is the ambition of the thesis to challenge our usual preconceptions and not pre-define how inter-ethnic relations are to be understood, which is why the thesis - expressed in Goffman's terms - asks: ”What is it that’s going on here?” (Goffman 1974), as a way of finding which framework of understanding should be applied. Based on the part of the lifeworld that unfolds in a multi-ethnic workplace, the thesis examines the social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships as it spontaneously arises and develops in the inter-ethnic collegial relationships in everyday working life. The thesis is based on fieldwork (consisting of participant observation and interviews) at the Food Factory ("Madfabrikken"), a multi-ethnic workplace in the hospitality sector in Denmark. With an auto-ethnographic point of departure, the researcher brings herself into play in the relationships under study, and makes herself an object of observation, reflection and study. In addition to the life at the Food Factory, the thesis is also concerned with the research process, and experiments with different methods of grasping and conveying the life lived in the Food Factory in all its complexity and ambiguity. The thesis explores empirical observations of social interactions, where humour, play and pleasure are on the line. As much as the interplay in the collegial relationships at the Food Factory can be pleasurable and fun, it does, however, bring the risk of danger. It is this duality that is illuminated in this thesis. In the first instance, the humour, play and pleasure are continually on line in the collegial interaction and this contributes to a range of humour-based and sexualized forms of social interaction, where "ethnicity" is defused and enjoyed as an aesthetic and sexualised surface. Secondly, it is true in the sense that humour, play and pleasure risk being on the line or jeopardized, if the rules for the interaction are not mastered or respected. What was previously 'framed' as being pleasurable, sexualized play and teasing at work, or what was set in a humorous frame, is suddenly in danger of being replaced or overtaken by a new 'framing' of the situation as sexual harassment or racism. The thesis does not end up with definitive answers as to how social interaction in a multi-ethnic workplace should be understood and how we can understand it as a social meeting place, but contributes with the knowledge that social interaction in inter-ethnic collegial relationships is vulnerable, ambiguous, fragile, undecidable, manipulable and redefinable. With an object-sensitive eye, the thesis contributes to other, more nuanced narratives about the social meeting of the inter-ethnic relationships - namely the narratives about the life lived and its forms.

The empirical focus of this thesis is the Viking age hoards of Bornholm (c. 850 -c. 1150). Special emphasis is laid on 34 excavated hoard sites, which in unprecedented scale enable us to include the archeological context in the interpretation of Viking age hoards. Three research questions are asked: 1) Do hoards reflect the persons that accumulated, handled and deposited them, and is it possible to identify accumulation strategies? 2) Is the significance of the hoards reflected in the archaeological context? 3) How did hoard act as agents in Viking age society? The basic notion applied in this thesis is that hoards are shaped by humans’ choices and actions, and that these are reflected in the composition and deposition of the hoards. Further, it is hypothesized that hoards had agency and influenced the lives of people and the society they lived in.It is theorized that hoards with different significance were deposited in different settings, and that this reflect the reason for deposition. It is stated that former research on Viking hoards often focused on one aspect of the hoards. However, the analytic entry in this thesis is that hoards fulfilled many different purposes, and that all parts of the hoard are equally important to the interpretation. P. Bourdieu’s theory on capital and field forms the theoretical frame for a multi-contextual analysis of the hoards relation to the economic, social, cultural and ritual field. All types of objects in hoards are included in the analysis where dataon production, circulation and deposition are interpreted. A biographical perspective is applied to explore the most important stages in the life of objects and hoards: production and circulation, accumulation and deposition. Movements and changes are analysedin a local and regional perspective, and the agency of hoards within power, religion, economics, trade, immigration, cultural change, as well as social network and mobility is discussed. It is concluded: 1) That by using a biographical research approach, it is possible to separate various accumulation strategies such as network, trade and raid, and deposition strategies such as savings, raw material deposits and offerings. 2) That by applying a multi-contextual method the people behind the hoards is revealed as men and women, warrior, traders, silversmiths, peasants and the elite. 3) That hoards were agents in the Viking age power structure of Bornholm, and that hoards created social mobility, were mediators between humans and gods, and were agents in establishing and maintaining local and regional economic and social networks.

This dissertation looks into everyday life at two day-care centres of community psychiatry in the municipality of Copenhagen. More specifically, it is about the patients' communication and behaviour, and about the stigmatization fromthe outer world they experience. The empirical material is based on three years of participant observation. The two daycare centres and their districts were situated in opposite ends of the socioeconomic scale within the municipality, one of them in the district of the highest socioeconomic status in the municipality, the other one in a district of very low socioeconomic status. The socioeconomic distance caused marked differences in the patients' communication and behaviour patterns, which had to do with the patients' orientation. In the day-care centre placed in the low socioeconomic status district the patients focused mainly on the patient community, whereas the patients at the day-care centre in the district of high socioeconomic status were oriented towards normality. I analyze patients’ communication and behaviourin line with the communication part of Luhmann’s systems theory approach. The patients expressed varying degrees of communication disturbances: some major, when they could not express themselves in a comprehensible way and therefore could not interact with other patients; some minor, which enabled them to interact with other patients even if they expressed for instance singular delusions. I focus on the day-care centres' double status as places of refuge and as stigmamarkers. They were places of refuge where the patients could talk freely about their symptoms and the effects of psychopharmaceuticals. However, the day-care centres were also stigma-markers because the patients were subjected to stigmatisation and moral judgment as a consequence of their mere contact with the psychiatric treatment system. The literature on stigmatisation describes how the discrimination against psychiatric patients influence their chances in more or less all life areas: Income, education, job and employment, psychological well-being, housing status, medical treatment, health and satisfactory relations. On top of the above-mentioned, psychiatric patients are at severe risk of excess mortality, as recently documented in a forensic autopsy study.

The central question of the dissertation is whether and how African Caribbeans in the Danish West Indies identified themselves with African ethnic groups. The dissertation discusses if and how such identifications played a role in the social life of African Caribbeans and influenced how new social networks developed in the colony. The dissertation is shaped as a micro study focusing on members of the Moravian congregation. It is divided in five chapters. The first chapter argues that African ethnic designations reflect African Caribbeans' own ideas of belonging to ethnically defined groups referring to Africa. At the same time, however, it is shown how the meaning of such designations were influenced and creolized by the trans-Atlantic journey and the realities of life in the slave society. The second chapter investigates the connections between the identification by African Caribbeans with African ethnic terms and cultural traits, and the formation of social networks in the Danish West Indies through a discussion of four themes: African languages, constructed kinship relations, African religious life, and the St. John slave revolt of 1733-34. The main contribution of the chapter is to suggest new interpretations of African Caribbean cultural life and the dynamics of social networking as a consequence of the conclusions of chapter one. The third chapter situates the conclusions about the importance of African ethnic identities and network relations in a wider context of group formation in the Danish West Indian society. The chapter focuses on the plantation and the Moravian congregation as important social networks. By relating these to the existence of networks based on ethnic belonging it is suggested that individuals' and groups' participation in different networks at the same time led to an interweaving of the different networks, and subsequently to their influencing each other. Thus, it is concluded that African ethnic identity formation among African Caribbeans was a fluid, inclusive process in which ethnic designation and networks were mobilized together with Creole networks and institutions. The fourth chapter focuses on how enslaved Africans in the Danish West Indies managed to sustain a spiritual and metaphysical bond to lost kin and a lost homeland. By analyzing ideas about death and spirituality and their practical use and importance in the Caribbean context it is concluded that African belief systems and practices could be used to both sustain ties backwards and also as a way to handle creolization in its early phases. The dissertation ends with a short chapter based on an analysis of the way one woman, Madlena of Popo, named herself differently in different contexts in her Danish West Indian life. Her story symbolizes the conclusion of the dissertation: that most African Caribbeans were neither African nor Creole, but somewhere in between.

From a social constructivist point of view this thesis investigates how e-commerce of grocery develops in the period 1998-2003. The empirical research is done in Sweden. Most Swedish grocery concerns that have had e-commerce and have been forced to shut down as a result of lack of demand. The starting point for this thesis is that technological development is an ongoing process where different actors participate. Likewise, technological invention cannot be considered finished before it is in use. Therefore in this thesis consumer - as well as supplier perspectives are investigated. The analysis focuses on understanding how different knowledge and practices in these two contexts affect the development of e-commerce of groceries. Empirical data from the supplier side shows that technical solutions for online grocery shopping arose from certain perceptions in the grocery business and IT sector. In the late 90's there was a strong faith in ICT (information- and communication technology) which affected how venture interests invested in new IT-applications. Empirical data show that among suppliers there is a rather narrow perception of consumers? use of e-commerce in grocery shopping. This perception of consumer needs is contradicted by the analysis of consumer behavior which shows how Internet use is embedded in contexts of everyday life and how consumer skills are used in shopping. It is particularly households with several family members that use the Internet for grocery shopping and it is especially women who are purchasing groceries on the Internet. The empirical data shows how consumers form strategies for buying groceries on the Internet. Typically consumers prefer to purchase certain kinds of products in the store and other kinds on the Internet. This stems from the fact that consumers feel it is important to have physical contact with especially fresh products. This can be interpreted to mean that the shopping is a way of expressing affection for family members. Another finding is that dilemmas arose in the work of shopping. There is a need for being effective in shopping but also a need for precise investigation of products and accuracy in selecting. E-commerce cannot fully satisfy shopping needs, and it is only seen as a complement among families using it. Thus, e-commerce is used in correspondence with consumer skills in the household. The thesis shows the gendered aspects of shopping and the importance of understanding consumer culture where technology is introduced. På Internet initieras en mängd tjänster på många områden. Det är tjänster som på flera sätt ingår i vardagslivet. I avhandlingen undersöks en av dessa tjänster och sätthur den används. Avhandlingen är en studie av e-handel av livsmedel i Sverige i perioden 1998-2003. Det är en period då e-handel bedrivs av de flesta stora aktörer på den svenska livsmedelsmarknaden men även en period då de flesta aktörerna har dragit tillbaka e-handelstjänsten. En utgångspunkt i avhandlingen är att teknologisk utveckling är en pågående process som involverar flera aktörer. Teknik utvecklas i sociotekniska relationer och en teknisk anordning som utvecklats är inte klar förrän den används. Avhandlingen är uppbyggd kring en förståelse av användar - och producentkontexten och en utveckling av dessa två empiriska kontexter. Dessa jämförs avslutningsvis i en del som diskuterar möjligheter och hinder för att en tjänst som e-handeln avseende livsmedel kan få ett brett genomslag. De empiriska data som avhandlingen bygger på från producentsidan är facktidskriften Supermarket, observationer från en konferens med e-handelns aktörer på livsmedelsmarknaden och intervjuer med personer som har varit med om att utveckla e-handeln i företag inom livsmedelsbranschen. Empirin från producentsidan visar att uppfattningen av tekniken skapas i en avgränsad miljö där producenternas sätt att tänka genomsyrar föreställningarna om den nyttofunktion som tekniken kan ha för konsumenterna, liksom att satsningarna är starkt påverkade av generella föreställningar om IT:s stora utbredning. I avhandlingens andra del undersöks hur e-handeln ingår i de undersökta familjernas inköpssystem. Den empiriska delen bygger på individuella intervjuer, fokusgruppintervjuer och en enkät till konsumenterna. Av detta framgår att användargruppen har särskilda egenskaper jämfört med den genomsnittliga befolkningen. Det är fram för allt större hushåll som använder tjänsten och det är framför allt hushåll med barn. Kvinnorna utgör den största gruppen av användare. Det syns även att de använder e-handeln på ett särskilt sätt gentemot männen som ingår i studien. Männen betonar i större utsträckning än kvinnorna möjligheterna till effektivitet vid e-handeln. Kvinnorna beskriver både fördelar och nackdelar vid e-handeln och relaterar den i högre utsträckning än männen till det arbete som det är att förse familjen med mat. Här finns det många hänsyn att ta, och kvinnorna betonar vikten av att inköpet blir rätt. Det finns en rad komplikationer som kan uppstå vid Internetinköp. Den indirekta kontakten med varorna kan försvåra valet av varor på flera sätt. Det kan vara svårt att få en uppfattning av kvalitén. Det kan vara svårt att minnas vad varan heter, som man brukar köpa. Det kan vara svårt utifrån mängdangivelser föreställa sig varans storlek. Och, inte minst, det är svårt att bli inspirerad. Av konsumenternas beskrivning av det nya sättet att handla framgår betydelsen av precision i inköpsarbete. I inköpet finns konsumentfärdigheter som ryms i hushållens sociala organisation. Dessa konsumentfärdigheter, som fram för allt kvinnorna uttrycker, upprätthåller en matordning i familjen som är betydelsefull för identifikationen i familjen. Avhandlingen visar att konsumenterna uppfattar vissa livsmedelsprodukter som mer lämpade för e-handel än andra. Det uppfattas som svårare att handla färska varor jämfört med förpackade varor. Kontrollen över färska varor genom direkt kontakt till dessa relateras i avhandlingen till den kulturella innebörd som inköp har som omsorgsyttring riktad mot familjmedlemmarna som det handlas till. Användandet av e-handel är ofta förenat med stor ambivalens, fram för allt hos de kvinnliga konsumenterna. De kräver effektivitet i inköpen men vill också ofta ha direktkontakt med livsmedlen och kontroll över exakt vilka produkter som hamnar på matbordet. Detta kan ses som ett uttryck för brist på tid i en situation där kvinnan ofta jobbar jämsides med mannen utanför hemmet men även har det största ansvaret för arbetet med maten. Hon bär vidare den kulturella föreställningen att arbetet med maten är förknippat med kärlek till de närstående. De empiriska resultaten visar hur användningen av e-handeln anpassas till behov i hushållen ? till en existerande matkultur i det specifika hushållet, och hur färdigheter i inköpsarbetet för vidare en viss konsumentkultur kring maten. Avhandlingen framhäver således även konsumenternas roll i utvecklingen av en tekniktjänst och betonar vardagslivets betydelse för hur teknik- och tekniktjänster utvecklar sig. Konsumtionens sociala och kulturella kontext är avgörande för om inköp kan överföras till Internet eller inte, och även för hur det görs.

The Gothic Maze. The Middle Ages and the Churches of Denmark: The Gothic Maze focuses on the vigorous building activity among the 2,692 parish churches in medieval Denmark in the time up to the Reformation: Was this an expression of economic prosperity, increased piety, or a church in crises? Can the development be described as a transition from Romanesque to Gothic? How did the churches change? What was the economic background? Who were the benefactors? What were their motives? And what can the changes teach us about the Middle Ages as an epoch? The Gothic Maze studies the concepts of church architecture, its explanations, sources, and contexts. The dissertation emphasizes that concepts as "the Middle Ages", "Romanesque", and "Gothic" are nothing but metaphors created in modern times. The traditional explanations, which refer to currents of fashion and changes in the economic cycle, are insufficient for an understanding of the culmination of building activity in the fifteenth and the sixteenth centuries. Church construction and its context are studied in two of the juridical districts known as "härader" (hundres) in Scania. Experience from this area is used to assist in the interpretation of church-building throughout medieval Denmark. In addition, the building activity is examined in relation to economic data and details of the benefactors in selected areas where the sources permit closer study. The intensive period of building shortly before the Reformation is not interpreted as a direct reflection of increased prosperity or piety, but as the use of material symbols in a time of social stress. The church was threatened by a steadily growing opposition between religious ideals and the new economic realities. Gothicization is a sign of crisis.