Lucien Basch: Ancient wrecks and the archaeology of ships A comment

The material we have today indicates that shell building was known and practised in the Mediterranean in classical antiquity. Comparative material shows that the‘intermediate stages’between shell and skeleton shipbuilding are in most, or all, cases shell building with some skeleton influence. The date when‘the skeleton idea’first struck a boatbuilder is not established. There are indications that this happened in the Mediterranean. No definite proof of skeleton work is found in the Mediterranean earlier than the Yassi Ada wreck, where a bottom shell may have been equipped with a skeleton on which topsides were built. The shell-skeleton division is a working tool for research on shipbuilding history, and should be used critically. The wrecks from Blackfriars I and New Guy's House indicate a kind of skeleton approach to shipbuilding in northern Europe (Marsden, 1967). If the 'skeleton idea’existed in the Mediterranean in classical antiquity, especially in warships, proof will turn up sooner or later. In the meantime, publishers of shipwrecks should take into consideration that we know very little, and that all details count. Field work on the existing tradition in the Mediterranean should be pursued. The lesson learned in Scandinavia is that the archaeologist may theorize as much as he wants, but the boat-builders will be able to give definite answers, if he takes the trouble to ask them, and watch them at work.     

Preservation,storage and display of waterlogged wood and wrecks in an aquarium: “Project Aquarius”

A test aquarium containing water and waterlogged historical wooden material was observed during a three-year period at Vänernmuseum, Sweden, to test the feasibility of preserving and exhibiting archaeological wood or shipwrecks in a way accessible to the public. Experiments were also set up in a laboratory environment, to provide information on single factors that could influence the long-term preservation state of wood, and other processes that may occur in the water.     

Conceptualising Gender in a Swedish Context

This article tries to illuminate the political conceptualisation of gender in twentieth-century Sweden. It is argued that the notion of gender is partly shaped through a conceptual similarity between an older societal structure with patriarchal principles, marked by a strong gender division of labour, called brukssamhällen (rural industrial communities) and the Swedish welfare state. The local ‘spirit of compromise’ of rural industrial community life survived the industrialisation as an idea, especially the ideas of inclusiveness and the importance of welfare for social cohesion, based on gainful employment. These ideas have also affected the conceptualisation of gender during the twentieth century. This development is brought to light in analyses made by feminist historians, specifically concerning the development of gender relations within the labour movement as well in the general debate.     

Career paths and mobility in the Swedish hospitality sector

ABSTRACT

How career paths are interpreted and conceptualised by hospitality workers and industry representatives remains underexplored in current literature. In this paper, we highlight and discuss sector-specific and contextual factors that influence the possibility of establishing a career within the Swedish hospitality sector. The paper uses interviews with hotel managers, who describe and discuss motivations and choices made throughout their own careers and interviews with young (former) seasonal hospitality workers who describe and reflect on their future plans and work-life experience. Additional data are derived through observations at national seminars and meetings for representatives from the Swedish tourism and hospitality industry, where issues of competence and careers were discussed. The findings indicate that the shaping of career paths within the hospitality sector is influenced by two normative and discursively produced ‘truths’ about career paths in the hospitality sector: the importance of internal knowledge transfer and the importance of high mobility. These narratives impose expectations on individuals to be mobile, to change jobs frequently and to work their way from the bottom-up within the industry, and are based on a presumption of a diversified and dense local hospitality labour market. However, since the conditions are different due to contextual, geographical features of labour market size and structure, attractiveness of places, etc., these expectations are difficult to fulfil in places other than in larger urban areas. These normative assumptions of what a successful hospitality career is also have consequences for the development of the hospitality sector as external influences of competence from other sectors and higher education are not seen as valuable, which makes the sector self-contained and not open to external, potentially innovative knowledge.     

The spatial diffusion of party entrepreneurs in Swedish local politics

Theoretical expectations predict instances of party formation to be unusual. It is therefore puzzling that new ‘non-national’ parties became increasingly common in Swedish local councils between 1973 and 2002. This article sets out to answer why party formation became an increasingly popular strategy throughout these years. I show that previous research has not provided satisfactory answers, and argue that existing theories are of limited use explaining this development. It is suggested that a diffusion mechanism may explain why new parties became increasingly common in Swedish local councils. Theoretically, it is argued that an entrepreneur who creates a new party inspires potential entrepreneurs in neighboring municipalities to repeat this at later points in time. A geographical clustering of municipalities where these parties exist is therefore expected. Support is found for this assertion. The result is important since it outperforms the alternative ‘local contextual’, socioeconomic hypotheses previously tested in this empirical setting.     

Self-rated Health of older persons in Indonesia

This study contributes to expanding the knowledge of the health of older persons living in Indonesia, a country with limited welfare benefits. The research employs a variable, ‘self-rated health’ (SRH), to investigate socio-cultural factors linked to the health of older Indonesians. The data presented in this study are based on fieldwork collected using a mixed-method approach. Sex-difference in SRH in older age is shown to be predominantly a result of enduring inequalities across the life course, manifested in cultural practices, education, employment and programs for health. An older person's status within the family is a significant determinant of SRH, but the direction of the relationship depends on the sex and ethnicity of the person. Other variables related to SRH are age, lifestyle, education, residential area and intergenerational transfers.     

试论我国政治合法性的系统建构

政治合法性作为一个系统,其建设只有遵从一定的运行规则和运行规律,从系统论的角度进行统筹规划、合理安排,才能使系统有效运行并达到功能最大化。本文就如何在系统指导下建构我国的政治合法体系从六个方面进行了论述。