Elias Andersson

Phenotypic selection can be better than selection for breeding value

Monte Carlo computer simulations were carried out in order to compare unrestricted phenotypic and restricted combined‐index selection, applied over one generation of single‐pair mating, for a wide range of family sizes and heritabilities, and for two sizes of breeding populations. The simulations demonstrate that when restrictions are imposed to control reduction of diversity to equivalent population size (status number), there are situations where phenotypic selection will achieve greater gain than that achievable by combined‐index selection. On average, unrestricted phenotypic selection was found to be similar to or better than restricted combined‐index selection at the same status number for heritabilities higher than 0.2. For lower heritabilities, phenotypic selection was less efficient. Selection in larger families resulted in greater gain, but at the expense of genetic diversity. Unrestricted phenotypic selection often proved to be a more efficient method, preserving more genetic diversity per unit ...

Gendered Agricultural Space and Safety: Towards Embodied, Situated Knowledge

ABSTRACT The changing conditions, technologies, and labor markets have shifted the gender division of labor on the farm. Women have taken on off-farm labor, but also increased their involvement in agriculture. The work and occupational risks of women have received less attention and are to great extent invisible. The spatial division between on-farm, off-farm, and domestic work is one contributing factor to the situation. The different situations and contexts of agriculture increase the need for knowledge regarding the processes and positions of farming. Through analyzing the literature on the topic, this study examined the gendered understanding of occupational health and safety in Western agriculture and how the embodied positions on the farm can affect women’s exposure to risks and their knowledge about injury prevention. The findings are being discussed and framed in a dialogue with a gender theoretical framework, with the aim to produce a more comprehensive understanding of health and safety in agriculture through improving and refining methods. The review stresses the need of further gender research and the incorporation of qualitative methods, to increase the knowledge and understanding of the gendered relations, bodies, and situated knowledge of agricultural spaces.

Technology use in Swedish reindeer husbandry through a social lens

ABSTRACT Rationalizing production more effectively, technological developments and innovations also have effects on, for example, skills, knowledge and social relations, that connect the specific technique to large processes and rationalities. In the conflict between user rights and ownership rights in northern Sweden, the introduction of new techniques within reindeer husbandry is studied on a local and embodied level. Through observations and interviews, the tension between empowerment and control in their implementation is further explored by utilizing a labor process theoretical framework. The results illustrate a shift in the definition of skills and knowledge, in relation to the use of GPS and GIS, that reshape, reorganize, restructure and embody the labor process of reindeer husbandry and spatial, temporal and ecological relations. Through its production of subjective conditions and dependence, the disciplinary logic of these techniques contributes to shape and enact governable spaces and subjects within the context. Operating as technologies of government, the techniques emphasize the responsibilities of the reindeer herding community and shape their participation, by reinforcing the demand for certain kind of subjectivities and accountability – governmental rationales that contribute to a technologicalization and depoliticizing of policy and conflict managing.

The Discursive Resistance of Men to Gender-equality Interventions: Negotiating “Unjustness” and “Unnecessity” in Swedish Forestry

This article adds to the understanding of men’s discursive resistance in relation to gender-equality interventions at work. Using Swedish men forestry professionals as the empirical base, the result shows how discursive resistance were performative acts, part of the construction of the same gender-equality interventions and organizational contexts that they were perceived to describe. In this case, direct opposition to gender equality provided a limited discursive position and sets of logics available in practice. Instead, the possibilities to renegotiate gender-equality interventions as unjust and unnecessary required, we conclude that the industry’s ambition to hire and promote more women was perceived to have led to the use of affirmative action and the disruption of meritocratic principles and that the problems of gender equality were placed in the traditional forestry and among “prejudiced old men,” as oppose to the more “modern” and “women friendly” forestry of today.

Gendered time in Swedish family farming

Purpose The agricultural sector has undergone extensive changes in the 20-30 years since the peak academic debate on family farming. Still today, the understanding and concept of family farming has political implications in the processes of rural and agricultural policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the development of agrarian structure by analysing the gendered and family relations of family farming. Design/methodology/approach This paper examines the concept of the family farm and its utilisation and diversity in the current Swedish agricultural sector from a gender perspective, using empirical data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network. The paper operationalises a situated agrarian typology and examines the gendered position and temporalities of family farms in Sweden, based on patterns of labour use. Findings A workable, fruitful typology of the agrarian structure suitable for future comparative studies is revealed. It also demonstrates the gendered time in the farm labour process, the different temporalities involved and their interconnection between gender, family and various spheres. The spatial and geographical implications, as well as the increased dependence on family and hired labour in different farm types, are emphasised. Originality/value The focus of this study contributes to the understanding of spatial-temporal relations of family farm business and organisation in general and in Sweden particularly. It also provides empirical basis for developing and gender mainstreaming rural and agricultural policies.

In the eye of the storm: adaptation logics of forest owners in management and planning in Swedish areas

ABSTRACT With a changing climate, storm and wind throw is becoming an increasing risk to forest. However, Swedish forest management practices have so far involved relatively little consideration of adaptation to climate change. This study examined resistance and alternatives to “business as usual” forest management, drawing upon material obtained in interviews with individual forest owners who spontaneously identified and discussed storm and wind throw as a risk to their forest. They thereby expressed a logic differing from that of the forest industry in Sweden, which has largely normalised storm risk rather than considering it in climate change adaptation work. The present analysis illustrates the broad and largely concerned position of individual forest owners, in contrast with a more established industry position on storm as an accepted and existing risk. Overall, the study highlights the diversity, agency and power relations within Swedish forestry and the forested landscape – aspects that are vital to better understanding processes relevant to forest and climate change adaptation.

#Metoo in the Swedish forest sector: testimonies from harassed women on sexualised forms of male control

ABSTRACT This study adds to the literature on the gendered culture of the forest sector by examining testimonies of sexual harassment in relation to the gendering of forestry-related competence and organisations and the consequences that the sexualisation of social relations in organisations has, mainly for women. The empirical base of the study comprised testimonies within the campaign #slutavverkat published on Instagram to highlight experiences of sexual harassment of women in the Swedish forest sector. Qualitative content analysis of the testimonies suggested that the situations described in the testimonies in #slutavverkat comprise controlling actions that diminish women’s power in the forest sector. Sexualised forms of male control and harassment thus work to remind women that they are first and foremost a representation of women, rather than of forestry professions and knowledge. In that sense, sexualised forms of male control and harassment are part of, rather than deviating from, the overall gendering of forestry as a men-dominated sphere. The study adds to organisational understandings and policy developments on discrimination and harassment and suggests that researchers and policy-makers interested in reducing inequality in forestry need to pay more attention to issues of harassment and sexualisation of social relations.