White Ethnography: (Un)comfortable Conveniences and Shared Privileges in Field-Work with Swedish Migrant Women

This article discusses methodological dilemmas in ethnographic research with first-generation Swedish migrant women living in the United States. From a (white) Swedish researcher perspective, it seeks to disentangle aspects of shared privileges between researcher and participants and constructions of white spaces in a non-Swedish context. What does it mean to pass as a white, middle-class Swede in research, and how are white privileges being upheld in such acting? How are class differences equalized when ethnography is conducted outside the national class system where internal hierarchies may be renegotiated? The article argues that the use of “methodological capital” (Gallagher 2000), such as embodied capital and passing strategies that might be necessary to reach specific groups of examination, may also reproduce structural privileges by not intervening into normative assumptions of race, class, gender, and sexuality. In these circumstances, the article inquires into what can be learned from studying privileged groups and, thereby, what may we fail to see.     

Heterogeneous images of (mobile) technologies and services: a feminist contribution

Over the course of the life of the policy of apartheid, the South African State undertook an exercise of classifying the population into different racial categories. These racial classifications were accepted by most but also disputed by many individuals who appealed to be reclassified into other categories or were forcefully reclassified. Interwoven with the processes of racial classification and objections against classification were the laws against inter-racial coupling. The police arrested and the courts prosecuted thousands of individuals for unlawful sex with persons regarded as of other races. This article employs four illustrative cases to show how a certain idea of whiteness was constituted, elaborated, and rooted. The analysis undertaken in this article is grounded on the reports carried in the annual Survey of Race Relations in South Africa about the population of South Africa in the 1960s, a period that has been referred to as the hey-day of apartheid. The article underlines the role of sexuality in the making of whiteness, linking the intention of the immorality laws with the creation of whiteness generally and dominant white masculinity specifically. The State is shown to have been a principal actor in the rendition of sexuality as constitutive of whiteness. The article concludes that over the years the idea of sexuality and sexual immorality as conveyed by the apartheid legal Acts ended up distending the conception of being white, reshaping the development of personal and social relations of whites to each other and to members of groupings.     

Sleep Disturbance and Depressive Symptoms in Adolescence: The Role of Catastrophic Worry

Depression is a common and debilitating disorder in adolescence. Sleep disturbances and depression often co-occur with sleep disturbances frequently preceding depression. The current study investigated whether catastrophic worry, a potential cognitive vulnerability, mediates the relationship between adolescent sleep disturbances and depressive symptoms, as well as whether there are gender differences in this relationship. High school students, ages 16–18, n = 1,760, 49 % girls, completed annual health surveys including reports of sleep disturbance, catastrophic worry, and depressive symptoms. Sleep disturbances predicted depressive symptoms 1-year later. Catastrophic worry partially mediated the relationship. Girls reported more sleep disturbances, depressive symptoms, and catastrophic worry relative to boys. The results, however, were similar regardless of gender. Sleep disturbances and catastrophic worry may provide school nurses, psychologists, teachers, and parents with non-gender specific early indicators of risk for depression. Several potentially important practical implications, including suggestions for intervention and prevention programs, are highlighted.     

Courting the Voters? Policy Implications of Party Competition for the Reform Output of the Second Merkel Government

Understanding party competition as a ‘political market’, we explore its characteristics during the second Merkel government, 2009–13. On the demand side, analysing opinion polls and the Länder election results, we find that the outcome of the next Bundestag election was uncertain. Thus, electoral competition was likely to be intense. On the supply side, opposition parties presented credible alternatives to government policies with regard to social as well as environmental policy. Regarding the Euro crisis, however, a consensus across the established parties existed. Studying three of the most salient policy issues, we identify party competition as a crucial determinant of decision-making. While the debate on minimum wages was substantially shaped by party competition, resulting in ‘anticipatory obedience’, nuclear energy only became affected by electoral considerations after the ‘Fukushima shock’ which resulted in a major policy shift. Regarding the response to the Euro crisis, however, party competition was essentially suspended.     

What Makes Them Successful? Influential Interest Groups in Hungary (1990–2014)

Although many scholars of Central and Eastern Europe politics write about the relative weaknesses of civil societies, some studies delivered evidence of cases where interest groups were able to influence particular decisions and policies. Therefore, we aimed at identifying and examining the most influential national interest groups of eight different policy areas in post-communist Hungary hoping to explore the reasons for their success. Older generations of organisations benefit from political embeddedness, while newer advocacy groups rely more on legal instruments and public mobilisation. The operation of successful groups has not been affected by the strong political polarisation of the Hungarian party system.     

Encounters With Irregular Migrants in Social Work—“Collateral Damage” and Reframing of Recognizability in Swedish Public Social Services

The aim is to explore experiences and considerations of social workers regarding irregular migrants, understood as being prone to be “collateral damage.” It is revealed that some social workers approve assistance exceeding that which can find support in the national legislation. They are hereby addressing the normative conditions for recognition and installing new frames for apprehending irregular migrants. This process is referred to as a reframing of recognizability. By exceeding the limits of “belonging,” social workers question their profession's national link as well as the inability of a nationally anchored understanding of social work to deal with irregular migrants.     

The political economy of ‘flex trees’: a preliminary analysis

With the rise of ‘bioeconomy’, trees are receiving increasing attention. This contribution conducts a preliminary analysis of the trajectories and the main drivers of change in the rise of new, flexible and multiple uses of trees. It assesses the political dimensions involved in this transformation, which is simultaneously ongoing, anticipated and imagined. Notes are offered on the issues to be considered when the flex-crop framework is operationalized to include the study of trees, and additional conceptualizations that help in analyzing the political economy of tree uses are provided. Areas needing further empirical study are identified and a preliminary research agenda is suggested. The flexible and multiple use of trees and tree-derived commodities is having a large impact on power relations in the global political economy of forestry and the forest industry, the asymmetry of which is based on who is best able to flex or de-multiply, thereby controlling commodity webs and processing technology. It is argued that while flexing seems to increase diversity, in practice it typically increases this only for the processing industry; the converse occurs in terms of the unification of the productive base into monocultures. However, these two processes go hand in hand, and illustrate how flexing is a deeply capitalist process.