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.     

The bodies of others in Swedish feminism

Abstract

The body – or, more specifically, women’s bodies – has long been one of feminism’s central topics. This discussion has ranged from explorations of the cultural meaning of biology to the challenging of classification systems regulating bodies not only culturally coded as female or male but also understood through race regimes. This article seeks to explore the location of bodies within Swedish feminism, examining how women’s bodies are understood, designated and acted upon in feminist agendas. Our focus is on the location that bodies take in political conflicts among and between feminists. In particular, we explore the impact of the presence of black bodies within the field of Swedish feminism. On a theoretical level, this article bridges decolonial feminist contributions of Black, Chicano and Latin American feminist thought on the body. The research methodology combined autoethnography with feminist ethnography, including an analysis of 25 narratives of young feminist activists engaged in public resistance against, and confrontation with, the growing presence of right-wing xenophobic social movements and political parties in the public sphere.     

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.     

John Maynard Keynes and The Royal Swedish Academy

This paper examines John M. Keynes’s relationship with Gustav Cassel and Eli Hecksher and puts together the events related to his being awarded the 1939 Söderström Gold Medal by The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The correspondence between these economists during the interwar years is detailed, with emphasis on their personal approaches to economic theory and history. Cassel’s and Heckscher’s critical reviews of Keynes’s General Theory are outlined as well. Lastly, an account is provided of the grounds for conferring the award on Keynes while also drawing attention to the conflict-laden proceedings within the Academy when the issue was under consideration by the institution. The final remarks ponder why Keynes received the prize despite the controversy among Swedish economists over the General Theory at the time.