Climate Testimonies and Climate-crisis Narratives. Inuit Delegated to Speak on Behalf of the Climate

Abstract

The empirical data analysed in this essay will focus on several Greenlanders who were invited to the COP15 parallel event Klimaforum09, held in Copenhagen in December 2009, as well as their experiences with the venue and the dilemmas they confronted as both local and global witnesses. This essay challenges the use of climate testimonies in the international climate-change debate. Specifically, what is drawn upon in these personal experiences with the environment, and how is it useful in a public, political, or scientific context? In the conclusion of this article, it is argued that dominant climate-crisis narratives have framed “the Greenlandic case” in a certain way, which consequently freezes arguments and possible agency. However, at the same time as there is a global framing of climate change and a specific position in this narrative for “local witnesses”, there is also room for an alternative empowerment and ways of engaging in and talking about global and local natures.     

Anthropology and 1968: Openings and closures

It is now 50 years since 1968 and in this article we look back at the 1960s and the way that anthropology was shaped in those years. We find a period of rupture, generational upheaval, youthful exploration against authority and spiritual breaks with rationality and causality thinking, but also violent counter‐insurgency and inventions of new authoritarian state forms. Our purpose is to look back at that period and reframe how those years were formative for anthropology and neighbouring disciplines. We believe that anthropology experienced a liminal period, with Carlos Castaneda and Victor Turner as leading figures, and that the closures and denials of that sense of anti‐structure have marked the discipline after 1968. We draw on Deleuze and Guattari and their account of May 1968 as an event of ‘suffocation’ and a ‘return to the intolerable’.     

A distinguished scientific field? Pursuing resources and building institutions for engineering research in Sweden, 1890–1945

The perennial issue of the relations between science and technology and society is a backdrop to this study of material, symbolic and economic foundations of engineering science in Sweden. It analyzes three cases of institutional reform from the first half of the twentieth century that were essential to the formation of engineering research as a distinct and respected scientific field. Taking the intersection of institutional and linguistic analysis as a starting point, two intertwined processes are followed: the drawing of boundaries by different actors that delineated the new kind of research, and the struggle over resources for the institutions that could enable this research. The institutional reforms are placed in context, relating arguments by the proponents of engineering research to the politicians and university academics who were in control of various resources. It is suggested that an institutionalist perspective enunciated in terms of form and content is a productive interpretive possibility.     

Standing in Line When Queues Are on the Decline: Services Satisfaction Following the Swedish Health Care Waiting Time Guarantee

Understanding mass public support for health systems and welfare polices is required in order to safeguard the legitimacy of democratic governance of the welfare state. If policies to meet dissatisfaction go unnoticed, the whole idea of responsive democracy is in vain. This paper focuses on the 2005 Swedish health care waiting-time guarantee, which resulted in drastically lower hospital waiting times in Västra Götaland County. Exploring questions of significant theoretical relevance in the literature about policy feedback effects, the paper investigates if the decrease in waiting times affected hospital service satisfaction and if this effect was moderated by policy proximity and visibility. Data from the West Sweden SOM survey are utilized, measuring hospital service satisfaction from 2004 to 2009. To disentangle the role of policy proximity, two indicators are used—user status and subjective health status. Furthermore, policy visibility is measured by an individual’s level of political interest. The results show that the decrease in waiting times resulted in a substantial increase in hospital service satisfaction. However, the increase was not more pronounced among groups with higher proximity and visibility. On the contrary, results indicate that the increase in hospital service satisfaction was stronger among those already in good health.     

Thailand’s Traditional Trinity and the Rule of Law: Can They Coexist?

Abstract

Thailand has seen considerable progress in the rule of law since the seminal 1997 constitution. Yet persistent political instability suggests that as yet the country does not think of the rule of law as binding. What is likely to happen in Thailand with the rule of law, and with governance generally? The argument advanced here is that rule of law principles must contend with the realisation that the traditional Thai trinity – nation, religion and king – has become an inviolable state ideology. Political actors, often aligned with the monarchy, have been using each element of the trinity to undermine both rule of law principles and democratic institutions. Now that long-serving monarch King Bhumibol (Rama IX) has been succeeded by his son King Varijalongkorn, it seems an appropriate time to examine current battles about the meaning of the rule of law and broader struggles for control between elites and popular groups based on competing visions for the state – a problem not only in Thailand but in the region as a whole.     

The Right to a Nice Home: housing inspection in 1930s Stockholm

This article deals with how the authorities taught the Swedes to live and how Swedish citizens came to accept such an intimate encroachment in their private lives. Why did people accept these social experts of everyday life? The answer tells us something about modern society and modernity itself.

Around the turn of the 20th century, Stockholm had one of Europe's worst housing conditions, according to Swedish experts of the time. One-room apartments were the norm, even for large families. Not all buildings had running water and often several families shared one outhouse. At the same time, the idea that the home was the place in which the conscientious citizens of the future would be raised was introduced – in Sweden as elsewhere. Dwellings became part of the social question. Many people believed that a well-functioning home would improve other aspects of life as well: men would stay at home in the evening instead of going to pubs; women would do a better job of raising the children; and public health would improve. A neglected home was seen as a sign of the exact opposite; the right to a nice home turned into a duty to live well. As an extension of this idea, housing inspections became important processes in the effort to improve the lives of citizens. The inspections were carried out by municipal employees, who were expected to monitor people's everyday lives. They functioned as housing experts, but what did these social engineers actually do? How did they become housing experts? And was their encroachment into people's daily lives accepted by ordinary citizens?     

The anatomy of a millennarian movement

Sammendrag

Artikkelen tar for seg utbredelsen og rekrutteringen til den samiske oppstanden i Guovdageaidnu i 1852. Det er i de organisatoriske forutsetninger som reindriftssamfunnet bygger på, at vi finner forklaringen på hvem som deltok i oppstanden. Siida‐samfunnets bilaterale rekrutteringspraksis muliggjorde en rask og geografisk omfattende oppslutning rundt en visjon om å fjerne de lokale norske myndigheter til fordel for et samisk religiøst lederskap. Kildene viser at alle de halvt hundre deltagerne var i slekt med hverandre gjennom inngifte og søskenrelasjoner.