Anna Lund

For Aïsha: on identity as potentiality

The focal point of this article is identity as potentiality: how a narrated form of self-understanding can be mobilised, enacted and shared with others within unequally distributed multifaceted conditions of existence, with other outcomes than surrender to disowned and self-confirming actions of reproduced exclusion, subordination and enclosure. Concretely, this distribution demonstrates how and why identity as potentiality might come into being within the play of forces in the life of a young Muslim woman trying to incorporate herself into Swedish multicultural society. In addition, the reader will meet reflections on respectability, multicultural incorporation and the possibility of a non-injurious criticism.

Socio-symbolic homologies : Exploring Paul Willis’ theory of cultural forms

Thirty years have passed since Paul Willis formulated a theory of cultural forms in the appendix to his seminal work Profane Culture. In this article we are driven by the conviction that Willis’ theory is a forgotten treasure trove that needs to be recovered, challenged and developed. The argument is guided by three aims. First, we provide a construction of the theory’s main content. Second, we search for possibilities of enlarging the content and scope of his theory. Third, we reconstruct one of the basic underlying arguments of Willis’ theory, that cultural items in themselves carry a given meaning in relation to social groups. In so doing we partly reconstruct Willis’ understanding of ‘objective’ possibilities as something essentially given in time and space. We utilize the example of the car make Cadillac to demonstrate that cultural items also attract because they are already occupied by socioculturally constructed systems of meaning.

From pregnancy out of place to pregnancy in place: Across, within and between landscapes of meaning

Through his metaphor of landscapes of meaning, Reed provides a way of looking at meaning in terms of how it explains action, with the assumption that action occurs within landscapes of meaning. However, my ethnographic evidence suggests that Reed’s metaphor needs to enlarge its scope. In doing this I use my research on immigrant girls in Sweden. The aim is to demonstrate that people can and do live across, within and between landscapes of meaning. This interstitiality can both produce extreme hardship and possibilities of freedom and agency. I share the story of one person, Nazira, who is negotiating with different social and cultural worlds. This allows her to criticize different cultural contexts and to work towards emergent cultural forms. I conclude by arguing that my ethnographical accounts could be used in support and as a critique of the theoretical understanding of landscapes of meaning within Reed’s interpretivist sociology.

Staging gender: the articulation of tacit gender dimensions in drama classes in a Swedish context

This article engages with gender, performance and embodiment in drama classes in a Swedish context. It presents a case study of how instructors at an academy of dramatic arts integrate theoretical knowledge on gender into their students’ creative and pedagogical practice, as well as an analysis of why this approach works. Visualisation of how the body is used on a concrete level offers a departure from traditional uses of theory as a way to challenge reality; instead the research describes how theory can be used in concrete didactic bodily movements, thus bringing the body, which is often overlooked in studies of pedagogy, into a discussion on knowledge acquisition.

At the threshold of retirement: From all-absorbing relations to self-actualization

ABSTRACT To investigate the complexities of the retirement process, the present article draws on a case study of Eva, a Swedish woman who “awakened” from all-absorbing relations. It considers the ways in which retirement can enable liberation from patriarchal kinship structures and embodied values of respectability. The aim is to illuminate how deep, embodied values can become conscious and explicit during precarious life situations and transitional phases. The relation between the Swedish welfare state, an I-we balance, and gender equity values are illuminated. These analytical dimensions support the analysis by providing insights into the ways in which individuals embody and use cultural and social structures when they aim to manage unpredictability and to create change toward self-actualization.