This study investigates the interplay between biomedical practices and sociocultural constructs of gender and masculinity in shaping healthcare professionals’ (HCPs) understandings of myocardial infarction (MI) and MI patients. Theoretically, the study departed from the ongoing reframing of healthcare in Sweden and internationally, whereby the medical gaze is transformed into biomedicalization. The findings show that the dominance of biomedical perspectives serves to create certain norms regarding how bodies and illness are to be treated, bringing a strong focus to person-centered care, and to patients’ own moral responsibility to adhere to medical advice. The expansion of individualized perspectives – the construction of “biological citizens” – however, also entails a risk of creating a false sense of universality, whereby social and cultural aspects of illness are made invisible. Even though some HCPs describe MI as a “male disease,” patients are largely constructed as gender-neutral. The dominance of biomedicalization serves to obscure opportunities to think through the connections between risk factors, gender/masculinity, and MI. Accordingly, the healthcare system and HCPs working in MI care may fail to account for how diverse gender scripts and cultural dynamics might contribute to form patients’ experiences, care seeking behavior and adherence with medical advice in rehabilitation.

This study aimed to analyse how teachers, in areas that show a historically high presence of neo-Nazi sentiments and racist opinions, understand and approach racist attitudes and practices among their students. Interviews and focus group interviews with Swedish teachers were conducted in three schools. Data were analysed using concepts such as institutionalised racism and whiteness. The findings showed that the territorial stigmatisation of the community and the schools had a significant impact on how the teachers dealt with and handled racist attitudes and practices. Although the teachers reported and filed racist incidences, they gradually became used to and contributed to a normalisation of explicit racist practices among students. The article concludes that racist practices, when constructed and dealt with as individualised behaviours, allow not only institutional racism, but also serve to re-produce whiteness as an institutional blind spot.

This study builds on interview data with 24 Swedish men who have been diagnosed with and treated for myocardial infarction (MI). The aim is to explore how masculine subjectivities are constituted and dynamically negotiated through men's meaning-making of their illness experiences, with particular attention to how notions of masculinity intersect with and are shaped by social categories such as class and age. Across the data, various configurations of masculinity were generated: from stoic endurance and bodily control to emotional reflexivity and relational responsibility. These constructs of masculinity are not equally valued, however. Certain seemingly masculine ideals, such as autonomy and productivity, tend to remain culturally dominant, whereas other modes, such as care orientation, are more conditionally addressed. Furthermore, the results show how masculinity, in intersection with age and socioeconomic position, may function as both an impediment and an opportunity for dealing with the disruption that the MI might bring in terms of changes in lifestyle, health, work and family life. By doing so, the study contributes to theorising hegemonic masculinity, showing how it is continuously reconfigured rather than fixed and how it is negotiated through classed and aged subject positions in the context of illness. 

This article conceptualises how masculinity and masculine ideals are played out in relation to prostate cancer treatment and its side-effects, offering a heuristic and theoretical perspective with which to make sense of the complex interrelationship between lived gendered bodies and social structures. With the support of three case studies of older men treated for prostate cancer, the article explores how the concept of hegemonic masculinity can be used to analyse the ill and ageing body. A phenomenologically informed approach to the body, which illustrates how masculinity is lived and experienced through certain body schemas, is used. The three case studies show variation in how masculinity is enacted and embodied, illustrating actions to (1) restore and maintain masculinity through phallic experience; (2) reconstruct masculinity by connecting bodily experience to notions of the ageing and a less potent body; and (3) to counter narrowly defined notions of masculinity by dissociating or decoupling masculinity from ideals of potency and performance. With the help of the case studies, the strategies identified, and the fluidity and dynamism of the concept of hegemonic masculinity, findings reveal how inequalities between men and women are produced and maintained, in and through bodily experience, and diverse body schemas.

Building on an ethnographic approach, this article aims to explore how the social dimensions of hope shape and relate to the migration trajectories of people seeking asylum in Sweden. Departing from the concept of asylum hope, a fragile form of hope that persists under conditions of oppression and uncertainty, the study examines how everyday interactions shape and transform it. Using Randall Collins’ theory of interaction rituals, the analysis shows how emotional energy generated in encounters influences hope. Based on interviews and observations with 43 participants, the study further demonstrates that hope is not an individual psychological state of mind but a socially negotiated and embodied process formed in relation to migration authorities, bureaucratic routines, and informal networks. Asylum hope emerges as fluid and dynamic, influencing the trajectory of migration journeys while being continuously reshaped by administrative and emotional experiences. The article also highlights how administrative violence is enacted through mundane practices that intertwine bureaucratic power with everyday social life. These encounters reveal that migration governance is socially embedded, operating through rituals that can suppress or enable agency, recognition, and solidarity. By foregrounding the emotional and relational dimensions of bureaucratic processes, the study challenges the idea that state power functions solely through law and policy. Understanding asylum hope as socially and emotionally situated allows for a deeper grasp of how migrants navigate precarious futures within the entangled structures of governance, affect, and everyday life.

This article builds on interview data with 24 Swedish men who had experienced myocardial infarction. The aim of the study was to explore how their illness prompted existential reflection and how such reflections intersect with constructions of masculinity and social positions, such as age and class. The findings show that while existential anxiety is frequently acknowledged, it is also managed through practices such as humour, biomedical reasoning, and emotional restraint. These responses reflect forms of emotional stoicism, often expressed in relation to ideals of responsibility, control, and care for others. At the same time, such orientations also vary in relation to social position, demonstrating that emotional stoicism is not a singular or uniform response, but is shaped through intersecting configurations of class and age. The article challenges universalist assumptions about men’s health behaviours and contributes to a nuanced understanding of how masculinity is lived in the context of chronic illness. © 2026 SAGE Publications. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

This book investigates how schools deal with racism and extremism, focusing on everyday life, students, and the surrounding community and geographical area.

There is a lack of clarity on how racism and extremism should be managed in schools. Through extensive ethnographical data, interviews, and focus group interviews with students and school staff in mill towns and racist strongholds in Sweden, this book focuses on how racism and right-wing extremism are enacted, played out, and dealt with. It draws on theories of everyday and institutional racism as well as institutional ethnography. Formal and informal school strategies and pedagogical interventions intended to manage recurring problems in schools are discussed. The text offers a deeper insight into how racism and right-wing/neo-Nazism extremism are enacted and confronted in a rural Swedish school context and beyond.

This book will be of interest to students of Terrorism Studies, Sociology, Cultural Studies, and Security Studies.

This book applies perspectives of hope to understand the precariousness, suffering, and agency of people seeking asylum. With attention to the restrictions and austerity politics that have characterised public policy following the significant rise in asylum applications in 2015, it draws on longitudinal ethnographic fieldwork in the Swedish asylum context, together with data collected in other European countries, to explore how the circumstances of those navigating asylum processes evolve and connect to their notions of hope and the future. Departing from the ambiguities and fragility surrounding hope in the asylum context, Hope and Asylum analyses people’s lived experiences and their navigation of uncertainty and precariousness during the migration process. While hope can provide individuals with support and empowerment, it can also cause pain and be exploited by authorities to control and disempower. The book argues that critically scrutinising current asylum regimes and exposing the enduring emotional and embodied scars they inflict through the bureaucratic violence of welfare states is essential for mobilising efforts toward social justice and human rights. Demonstrating the importance of hope and related concepts to our understanding of daily life experiences, social interaction, and precariousness within the asylum context, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in migration and diaspora, immigration policy, refugee studies, and asylum regimes.

Förlagets beskrivning: Vad innebär ett vetenskapligt förhållningssätt? I den här boken får du en inblick i vad som menas med vetenskapligt tänkande och hur det vetenskapliga hantverket kan utföras. På ett översiktligt och lättillgängligt sätt beskrivs hur datamaterial kan samlas in, bearbetas och analyseras med olika kvantitativa, kvalitativa och internetbaserade metoder. Med hjälp av konkreta exempel redogör författarna för de styrkor och begränsningar som utmärker olika vetenskapliga metoder.

Men detta är inte enbart en metodbok, utan också en bok som tar ett vidare grepp om det vetenskapliga arbetet och dess grunder - med diskussioner om vilka kvalitetskrav som ställs på vetenskapliga studier, forskningsetik och vad det egentligen innebär att ha ett kritiskt tänkande.

Det vetenskapliga arbetets grunder är avsedd för grundläggande högskole- och universitetsutbildning inom humanistiska och samhällsvetenskapliga ämnen, samt för lärarutbildningen.