Suchergebnisse

There is a strong narrative on how the humanities were marginalized in postwar Sweden: in the land of engineers, technocrats and social scientists, there was no room for erudition, philosophy and history. This book challenges such a notion and shows how clearly the humanities were present in the public sphere of the time. By applying perspectives from the history of knowledge, the authors illustrate how humanists were key figures in the welfare society's culture and politics, media and book market, education and intellectual debate.
At the heart of the book is the public sphere of the 1960s and 1970s. In a first part, the authors highlight how humanists played a decisive role in the young television's educational program as well as in the popular science paperback publishing of the time and on the essay pages in the newspapers. In a second part, attention is drawn to the humanities' place in the Christian cultural sphere, the labour movement's education work and the New Left's book cafés. We meet people like Per I. Gedin, Gunnel Vallquist and Jan-Öjvind Swahn, but also TV producers, study circle organizers, translators of radical non-fiction and many others. They all helped to set humanistic knowledge in motion during the postwar decades.
Against an international background, the image of a humanistic knowledge system with deep roots and wide connections in Swedish society emerges. It is about these actors and arenas of knowledge that this book is about.

The thesis concentrates on Hofors and a local trade union environment between 1917 and 1946, where important parts of the trade union's power were held by parties to the left of the social democrats. The overall aim is to problemize and discuss the issue of what characterised and made possible this deviation from the usual picture of a trade union movement dominated by social democracy. What characterised the conditions in such a local trade union environment and to what extent can local norms and political culture be linked to the conditions and the development in the trade union movement in Hofors? The factors behind the radicalism in Hofors can be found in the local union and political context. The investigation points out the following main reasons: the left-wing local council of the Social Democratic Party and its successors' organisational lead, the local labour council's working method being close to what has been considered "social democratic", their representatives being highly trusted in the local community, and the growth of a local radical tradition. The political culture and the norms that gradually developed were based on a left-wing social democratic tradition. The local council of the Social Democratic Party that left the party in 1917 to join the left-wing social democratic faction was the same local council, despite their names and change of parties in the 1920s and 1930s. It became the local labour movement's bearer of traditions and represented the continuity in the local trade union environment, which contributed to the leftwing socialist project being long-lived in Hofors. The central aspects were the trade union work and the practical-concrete tradition that developed. Primarily through successful trade union work, the local labour council and its trade union representatives gained strong and long-term support from a large proportion of the local trade union movement's members and the population of Hofors. Against this background it may be stated that, even though it was often impossible for the parties to the left of social democracy to maintain a local trade union and political power position that was stronger than that of the social democrats for a lengthy period of time, it was not entirely impossible. It may also be stated that for the trade union member as such, a communist or socialist party affiliation was not a real obstacle in the election of shop stewards. Their focus was primarily put on the would-be representatives' personal qualities and ability to live up to the demands and expectations placed on them by the members, and not so much on their ideological persuasion.

[Twilight of Swedish social democracy]For fear of a supposedly worse result, the Swedish Social Democratic Party (SAP) greeted the outcome in the Swedish parliamentary election in 2018 as a half victory. SAP's poor support among voters, the lowest since an almost general male suffrage was introduced in 1911, underlines the malaise afflicting social democracy's global flagship. In his article, written before the result of the long government-forming process, Göran Therborn charts the background to the election results by examining the SAP-led neoliberalization of Swedish politics since the early 1980s, and the rise of the far-right party Sverigedemokraterna (the Sweden Democrats) as a political force in the wake of recession and refugee arrivals. To this Swedish translation, Therborn has added a short postscript on the latest development after the January agreement in 2019 that led to the formation of a SAP-led minority government.Publication history: A translation of a, by the author, slightly revised and enlarged version of "Twilight of Swedish Social Democracy" in New Left Review, issue 113 2018 (https://newleftreview.org).(Published 15 April 2019)Citation: Therborn, Göran (2019) "Solen går ner över svensk socialdemokrati", in Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, issue 10, pp. 7–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.10.1 ; Av rädsla inför ett förmodat än sämre resultat hälsade Socialdemokraterna resultatet i det svenska riksdagsvalet 2018 som en halv seger. SAP:s usla stöd bland väljarna, det lägsta sedan en nästan allmän manlig rösträtt infördes 1911, understryker det missnöje som drabbat socialdemokratins globala flaggskepp. I sin artikel, som skrevs före det att regeringsbildningen blev klar, kartlägger Göran Therborn bakgrunden till valresultatet genom att granska den av SAP ledda nyliberala omsvängningen av svensk politik sedan början av 1980-talet, och uppgången för Sverigedemokraterna som politisk kraft i spåren av lågkonjunktur och flyktinginvandring. Till denna svenska översättning har Therborn fogat en kort efterskrift om den senaste utvecklingen efter januariavtalet 2019.Publiceringshistorik: Översättning av en, av författaren, något reviderad och utvidgad version av artikeln "Twilight of Swedish Social Democracy" i New Left Review, nr 113 2018 (https://newleftreview.org).(Publicerad 15 april 2019)Förslag på källangivelse: Therborn, Göran (2019) "Solen går ner över svensk socialdemokrati", i Arkiv. Tidskrift för samhällsanalys, nr 10, s. 7–32. DOI: https://doi.org/10.13068/2000-6217.10.1

Emergent farmers have rapidly increased in numbers on the sub-Saharan African continent during the last couple of decades. The main interest in this study lies in how emergent farmers have materialised as a class in a political economic context and historical process and what societal impact they have had. Emergent farmers as a class are understood as capable of reproducing their means of subsistence and creating surplus value without having to own their means of production. Mkanda Extension Planning Area (EPA) in Malawi has served as the empirical area for this matter. During the fieldwork, 31 persons were interviewed. The interviews gave insights into farmers' living conditions. An explorative survey was also conducted with 31 informants, of which 13 persons also participated in the interviews. The explorative survey provided an overview of farm characteristics in the area. In addition, two focus group discussions were held to gain perspective on shared experiences among farmer groups regarding the positioning of emergent farmers, how they and other types of farmers can be classified and how the relationship between farmers appear. The field work was combined with a desk study to investigate political, socioeconomic and environmental conditions through which emergent farmers have materialised. Emergent farmers in Mkanda EPA have materialised through inheritance and acquisition of property such as land; other natural resources; material assets and technology. They have grown through extension service and credit regimes; sales of cash crops and livestock; agribusinesses; incomes from employment and off-farm activities. They have advanced through family and class support; labour power control; strategic utilisation of volatile agricultural markets and income diversification. They have progressed through agricultural institutions, political favouritism and resource exchange with state representatives; traditional authorities; traders; investors; large-scale buyers and other farmer groups. Emergent farmers have contributed to and been shaped by the development of the capitalist mode of production during Malawi's postcolonial history. The farmer class has enabled increased capital investments and accumulation and contributed to new businesses; production methods; market directions and means of livelihood in rural areas. They have provided links between local production conditions; extraction of raw material; capital exchange; means of profit and growth opportunities. At the same time, emergent farmers have constituted a minority that has served certain class interests. While emergent farmers have influenced the socioeconomic and ecological dynamics in rural places such as Mkanda EPA, the class has maintained structures that have reproduced inequality among the population.