The purpose of this article is to explore moments of shared authority when working with archived interviews and to suggest how the use and understanding of shared authority as an analytical concept might be advanced and elaborated in conjunction with the concept of intersectionality, borrowed from another research field (in this case, gender studies). We aim to hear and acknowledge the different voices, dialogues and silences of those who documented and those who are documented. We listen to their archived voices and dialogues to find moments of shared authority and analyse how the shared authority plays out during the interviews through intersectional analyses of the archived interview narratives

This chapter was published within the report Guide on conceptual and methodological issues in social work research in the field of human mobility, coordinated by R.T. Di Rosa, M.T. Gijón Sánchez, M.T. & G. Gucciardo, describes the migration and asylum policy in Sweden. The report is part of the dissemination of results from the EU-funded, Horizon 2020, Global-ANSWER, project Global social work and human mobility: comparative studies on local government andgood social work practices in the euro-mediterranean region (2020-2025).

For the past two decades, national policy in Sweden has repeatedly argued that social services should follow the principles of evidence-based practice (EBP) and that intervention effects should be informed by research. Conversely, there is a recurring critique against the “EBP movement” concerning a too narrow view of evidence and limited applicability in social services. Despite these differences, common perceptions advocate a need for local and systematic production of knowledge about the significance of interventions for service users. Individual-based systematic follow-ups (ISF) of interventions aggregated at group level could be a relatively undisputed path towards an increased knowledge base of social services.

Therefore, the article examines and problematizes different dimensions of how ISF is practiced and how results come into use in social services. The research was conducted within social service units providing non-institutional treatment for children, young people, and families in two Swedish municipalities. Both have several years of experience using the ISF models LOKE (Local Evidence) and FIT (Feedback-Informed Treatment) respectively. The empirical material consists of 8 observations, 45 documents, and 21 interviews with family therapists, heads of units and departments, executive directors, and development officers.

The findings reveal a wide range of types of use of ISF, which both overlap and presuppose each other and where the use differs depending on the user’s organizational level and role. Although the results are rarely used for development purposes in distinct ways, it is noted that the ISF models and their results play important roles within the organizations, for example strategic, legitimacy-enhancing and conceptual perspective-giving, which also affect work within the units.

Increasing the employment rate and community establishment, as well as decreasing economic and social vulnerability, among newly-arrived migrants and foreign-born jobseekers are the objectives behind several local activation initiatives and projects around Sweden. This article is based on a study of a local activation project, primarily consisting of analyses of interviews with professional coordinators and other project actors. The aim of the article is to deepen the knowledge of the coordinated working method in local activation policy by critically analysing how different ideas about empowerment are part of the method and what significance this has in relation to newly-arrived migrants and foreign-born job seekers. The results show that the coordinating approach is based on principles that place the job-seeking individual's needs at the centre and that there is a tension in the working method between activation and labour market establishment, and social support and care. The studied activation project is based on both a liberal and radical ideology of empowerment. In practising the coordinating approach, however, a liberal ideology and understanding of empowerment dominate through its strong individual focus. The radical empowerment ideology with its structure-changing ambitions regarding the participants’ increased self-sufficiency, independence and empowerment are to a limited extent enforced within the project. The authors argue for the difficulties of using the concept of empowerment and its far-reaching liberation ambitions within the context of activation policy. Nevertheless, disciplining requirements and rules around self-sufficiency, individualised responsibility takeover and requirements for reciprocity within the activation of activities rather risk consolidating conditions of disempowerment for already vulnerable groups of job seekers.

Following the ambitions of international and national policy makers to digitalizethe cultural heritage sector, a growing research field that deals with digitalizationand cultural heritage has emerged. However, it has been argued that too muchfocus has been placed on technology and information policy issues and thatresearch on how to achieve administrative effectiveness and preservation hastaken precedence over studies of different actors’ engagement, participation andaccess to cultural heritage. Previous studies have also tended to problematizethe “hows” rather than the “whys” of processes associated with digital heritageand digitalization. In addition, research has shown that collections documentingminorities and marginalized groups have been excluded from national strategiesconcerning the digitalization of cultural heritage. Therefore, the aim of this articleis to investigate why and under what conditions digital heritage about and withmigrants has been initiated, created and curated. We study the motives and theroles of different stakeholders in the digitization and patrimonialization processesof one collection containing life stories from migrants. Furthermore, in the articlewe understand stakeholders not only as decision makers, owners or managers,but also as any person or organization that feels affected by whatever happensto the object or piece defined as heritage. Consequently, a central element in themethodology of this research was the interviews conducted with crucial actors inrelation to their engagements with the studied collection. During the interviews,we paid specific attention to the different motives of the involved stakeholders andwhy it was important to them that the collection was created and digitized.

I denna bok undersöks olika aspekter av rasism och antirasism samt dess påverkan på det sociala arbetets brukare, yrkesverksamma och frivilliga aktörer i olika välfärdssammanhang. Vår ambition med denna bok är att främja reflektion och stimulera till en debatt om rasism och antirasism i socialt arbete. De olika kapitelbidragen visar på en mångfald sätt som huvudtemat rasism och antirasism i socialt arbete kan studeras utifrån val av empiriska fall och teman, liksom avseende teoretiska och metodologiska ingångar. Bidragen befinner sig på olika nivåer och inom olika områden empiriskt och teoretiskt: socialpolitik, migrations- och integrationspolitik, offentligt socialt arbete, organisation, civilsamhälle, brukar- eller klientnära arbete med och för olika individer och grupper av människor, människors livsvillkor och erfarenheter. Rasism, antirasism och socialt arbete i spåren av migration vänder sig till studerande på socionomprogrammet och mastersprogrammet i socialt arbete, men är av intresse även för forskare och lärare inom socialt arbete och närliggande discipliner samt för yrkesverksamma socialarbetare och andra välfärdsprofessionella.