When Colour Matters: Policing and Hate Crime

Contrary to the image of Sweden as a tolerant, colour-blind and non-racial country, which is based on the narrative of a country for instance associated with solidarity with the so-called Third World; in this article we argue that racial attributes, e.g. visible differences, account for people’s different life possibilities and circumstances in Swedish society. This article explores and discusses whether, and if so why, people who belong to the group that is categorised as “non-white”, with an emphasis on Afroswedes, and depicted as racially different, experience being targets of diverse variations of bias-based policing, harassment and hate crime. Theories relating to colonial stereotypes, racism, doing difference, the geography of hate, race/ethnicity profiling and intersectionality are used to analyse our material. Based on individual and focus group interviews with “non-whites”, this article discusses how visible differences are highlighted in different kinds of social contexts. The interview results show that people with dark skin are often targets of different kinds of private and public policing based on race- and ethnicity profiling that often occurs on or near borders/boundaries. When those who are targets of racial harassment and exclusion resist such treatment, e.g. by crossing borders/boundaries, they are at risk of becoming victims of hate crime

Ungdom i nya kläder: Dansbanefröjder och längtan efter det moderna i 1940-talets Sverige

There has been a lack of more profound studies and information on the growth of modern youth culture in Sweden. It has often been alleged that this culture was developed in the 1950s by the more conspicuos youth groupings. I question this statement, and so I have chosen to investigate the 1940s, a much too neglected period. A central thought is that the youth cultures of the 1930s and 1940s were a kind of predecessors of the present ones. This was a formative period, with media and popular culture gaining ground. The absence of grown-ups, caused by the mens military service and the women's having to do men's job, slackened the reins on the young. My primary aim is to study various aspects of what young people from the working class did in their spare time in the 1940s in order to illuminate a phase in the change of youth culture. To what extent can it be said that the 1930's and 1940's were a kind of transitional period for modern youth culture? How is the beginning of modern development mirrored in the activities of the young? How did young people use dancing, music, films and fashion in building a culture of their own and as a way of asserting themselves? Did this period offer more possibilities for crossing class lines? In which ways did boys and girls meet modernity differently? Young people from the working class connected with Uppsala in Central Sweden are brought into focus, but other parts of the country as well as other social strata are also surveyed. This study indicates that those who seem to be the first to recognise the new youth culture are young people from the urban working class. In many respects, they have acted as a sort of avant-garde

Sport, kropp, rörelse och demokrati

Diskussion af sammenhænge mellem sport, krop, bevægelse og demokrati med referencer til et interview med og en bogudgivelse af Henning Eichberg.

Analysis of the relationship between the signaling obtained from CAN-BUS and comfort assessment variables based on artificial intelligence

[EN] Automated driving has augmented the interest in evaluating the comfort experienced by passengers in vehicles. In this work, machine learning techniques are used to study the existing relationship between the comfort felt by the vehicle passengers and the signaling obtained from CAN-BUS with the intent of extracting the characteristic driver behaviors originating the discomfort. Data from the Uyanik database is analysed making use of the acceleration threshold theory to assess the comfort. First, the data is preprocessed through a chain of cleaning, normalizing, categorising and oversampling, to be suitable for the algorithms. Then, the implemented machine learning techniques, the Radial Basis Function and the Self Organized Map, are trained utilizing the vehicle data. The Radial Basis Function exhibits poor prediction and indicates an improper comfort categorisation. The Self Organized Map recognizes five different discomforting driving patterns. Each one is analysed, the association between the driving actions the discomfort level are observed and driving recommendations are formed in the nature of gas, break and steering wheel operations. Finally, making use of these analyses, a driver study is conducted allows comparing the maneuvering of the vehicle and the discomfort produced respectively by each driver. Overall, distinct conditions and specific vehicle maneuvering are responsible for producing discomfort and drivers are generally comforting. As future work, Decision Trees or Feature Selection - Extraction algorithms will be implemented, and better data categorisation will be made.[ES] La conducción automatizada ha aumentado el interés por evaluar el confort que experimentan los pasajeros en los vehículos. En este trabajo, se utilizan técnicas de aprendizaje automático para estudiar la relación existente entre el confort sentido por los pasajeros del vehículo y la señalización obtenida de CAN-BUS con la intención de extraer los comportamientos característicos del conductor que originan el malestar. Los datos de la base de datos de Uyanik se analizan haciendo uso de la teoría del umbral de aceleración para evaluar el confort. Primero, los datos se procesan previamente a través de una cadena de limpieza, normalización, categorización y sobremuestreo, para que sean adecuados para los algoritmos. Luego, las técnicas de aprendizaje automático implementadas, la Función de Base Radial y el Mapa Autoorganizado, se entrenan utilizando los datos del vehículo. La Función de Base Radial exhibe una predicción deficiente e indica una incorrecta categorización de la comodidad. El Mapa Autoorganizado reconoce cinco patrones incómodos diferentes de conducción. Cada uno es analizado, la asociación entre las acciones de conducción el nivel de incomodidad es observado y se forman recomendaciones de conducción en forma operaciones de gas, freno y volante. Finalmente, haciendo uso de estos análisis, se realiza un estudio del conductor que permite comparar la maniobrabilidad de los vehículos y la incomodidad producida respectivamente por cada conductor. En general, distintas condiciones y maniobras específicas del vehículo son responsables de producir incomodidad, y los conductores son generalmente reconfortantes. Como trabajo futuro, Árboles de Decisión o Algoritmos de Selección - Extracción serán implementados y se realizará una mejor categorización de los datos.[EU] Gidatze automatikoak ibilgailuetan bidaiariek bizi duten erosotasuna ebaluatzeko interesa areagotu du. Lan honetan, ikaskuntza automatikoko teknikak erabiltzen dira ibilgailuko bidaiariek sentitzen duten erosotasunaren eta CAN-BUSetik lortutako seinaleztapenaren arteko erlazioa aztertzeko, ondoeza eragiten duten gidariaren jokabide ezaugarriak ateratzeko asmoz. Uyanik datu-baseko datuak analizatzen dira, azelerazio-atalasearen teoria erabiliz erosotasuna ebaluatzeko. Lehenik eta behin, datuak aldez aurretik garbitu, normalizatu, kategorizatu eta gainlagindu egiten dira, algoritmoetarako egokia izan daitezen. Ondoren, inplementatutako ikaskuntza automatikoko teknikak, Oinarri Erradialaren Funtzioa eta Auto-Antolatutako Mapa, ibilgailuaren datuak erabiliz entrenatzen dira. Oinarri Erradialaren Funtzioak iragarpen txarra erakusten du eta erosotasunaren kategorizazioa oker bat adierazten du. Auto-Antolatzen Mapak bost gidatzeko eredu deseroso ezberdin ezberdintzen ditu. Bakoitza aztertzen da, ibilgailua gidatzeko ekintzen artean ondoeza maila nabaritzen da eta gidatze-gomendioak eratzen dira gas pedal, balazta eta bolante ekintzetan. Azkenik, analisi horietaz baliatuz, gidariaren azterketa bat burutu da, eta gidarien maniobragarritasuna alderatzen du, ibilgailua eta gidari bakoitzak sortutako ondoeza, hurrenez hurren. Oro har, hainbat baldintza eta ibilgailuen maniobra zehatzak ondoeza sortzeaz arduratzen dira, eta gidariak, oro har, erosoak dira. Etorkizuneko lan gisa, Erabaki Zuhaitzak edo Hautaketa - Erauzketa Algoritmoak erabiliko dira eta datuen kategorizazio hobea egingo da

Migrant Agricultural Workers and Their Socio-­‐economic, Occupational and Health Conditions– A Literature Review

Objective This study provides the summary of current knowledge about migrant work in agriculture available from journal articles, books, reports and other relevant academic publications, focusing on political, economic, legal, social and medical aspects of migrant work in agriculture. Methods A systematic search was carried out on the LibHub and Google Scholar databases in order to compile the existing peer-reviewed publications, research reports, and policy papers concerning migrant work in agriculture. The literatures was selected through the following process: (1) reading the title and abstract in English for the period 1960 – 2011; (2) reading the entire text of selected articles; (3) making a manual search of the relevant quotations in the selected articles; (4) eliminating articles without a focus on migrant populations and the themes of central interest, and then reading and analyzing the definitive set of articles. Results In spite of their varying geographical focus, scope, unit of analysis and settings, most of the studies reviewed highlighted that migrant farmworkers work under very poor working conditions and face numerous health and safety hazards, including occupational chemical and ergonomic exposures, various injuries and illnesses and even death, discrimination and social exclusion, poor pay and long working hours, and language and cultural barriers. Many studies also reported poor enforcement of labour regulations and a lack of health and safety training on the farms, difficulty accessing medical care and compensation when injured or ill. Conclusions The studies have also pointed out the lack of research in relation to labour, health, psychosocial, and wage conditions of migrant farmworkers. The accumulated results of the study indicate that the issues and problems migrant farmworkers face are multidimensional, and there is a need for both policy development and further research in order to address migrant workers’ problems

Ensuring the right to education for Roma children : an Anglo-Swedish perspective

Access to public education systems has tended to be below normative levels where Roma children are concerned. Various long-standing social, cultural, and institutional factors lie behind the lower levels of engagement and achievement of Roma children in education, relative to many others, which is reflective of the general lack of integration of their families in mainstream society. The risks to Roma children’s educational interests are well recognized internationally, particularly at the European level. They have prompted a range of policy initiatives and legal instruments to protect rights and promote equality and inclusion, on top of the framework of international human rights and minority protections. Nevertheless, states’ autonomy in tailoring educational arrangements to their budgets and national policy agendas has contributed to considerable international variation in specific provision for Roma children. As this article discusses, even between two socially liberal countries, the UK and Sweden, with their well-advanced welfare states and public systems of social support, there is a divergence in protection, one which underlines the need for a more consistent and positive approach to upholding the education rights and interests of children in this most marginalized and often discriminated against minority group

A EUROPEAN (NO) COAL AND (GREEN) STEEL COMMUNITY? - A Technological Innovation System case approach in the fossil-free steel sector

The EU has committed to reaching carbon neutrality by 2050 and thereby heavily reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases. Policymakers and scholars have pointed out the development of fossil-free technological energy innovations as crucial in reaching these objectives. In line with this, hydrogen as a fossil-free source of energy is being increasingly explored and invested in, corresponding to a crucial part of achieving emission reductions and are depicted to have substantial potential. However, the developments of hydrogen-technology projects are in its infancy and are conveniently operationalized as early innovation processes in transition. In line with this, a few actors in the European steel industry, that are responsible for a substantial part of the carbon-emissions, have committed to utilizing hydrogen to produce fossil-free ‘green’ steel. A particular project that has been portrayed as a potential European frontrunner in green steel production using hydrogen is the company Hybrit, initiated in Northern Sweden by a consortium involving three companies. This interdisciplinary case study has applied the theoretical framework of Technological Innovation System to Hybrit to examine the overarching aim of studying potential bottlenecks and possibilities for fossil-free hydrogen in the steel sector. More specifically, the structural elements and the system functions were elaborated on Hybrit to analyze the matureness of the system by conducting a combined methodological study of semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Moreover, Swedish and European policy instruments related to hydrogen in the steel industry were additionally analyzed. The outcome of this study demonstrates that Hybrit is in regard to the theoretical framework fairly mature, with a few but critical hurdles. Findings from the study further revealed that the Swedish and European policy instruments are fostering hydrogen developments but have opposing tendencies in terms of coherence

Media Images and Experiences of being a Jew in the Swedish City of Malmö

A series of high-profile incidents in and after 2008 placed Malmö in southern Sweden on the national and international map as a place that was unsafe for people identified as Jews. The primary aim of this article is to explore and exemplify what it is like to live with Jewish identity in Malmö within a framework of how the media reports anti-Semitism and how this group copes with being the potential target of anti-Semitic harassment and hate crime. Based on interviews with people with Jewish identity in Malmö, we analyze and discuss their experiences using different themes, such as violent and everyday anti-Semitism, the local impact of the Israel–Palestine conflict, how media images affect their lives, and how exposure and vulnerability are dealt with. The findings are important in terms of both possible long-term measures against anti-Semitism and as immediate support for those targeted