This book is based on the collaborative work and experience from Swedish researchers in an new and promising field of scientific and management oriented inquiry: guided tours. The book represents a wide range of scientific perspectives such as organizational theory, human geography, architecture, ethnology and technology.

The chapters are divided into three themes: Guided tours as a phenomenon, Guided tours and guidebooks and finally Guided tours: their production, content and use. And your guides - the authors - will provide various kinds of insights. We will follow the history of guidebooks and their followers, experience the smell of sage and find out how a guided tour at a construction site can be performed. Let's take a walk...

Hur gör ett företag som gör mer än det tidigare gjort för sin personal vid en nedläggning? Varför gör det överhuvudtaget mer än det tidigare gjort, eller ens behöver? I denna bok analyseras telekomföretaget Ericssons nedläggningar i Norrköping och Linköping under åren mellan 1999 och 2002. Författaren visar hur nedläggningarna utvecklades i samspel med sociala institutioner och i interaktion med fackliga organisationer såväl som bemanningsföretag, Trygghetsrådet och kommunala och statliga myndigheter. Här förfäktas idén att företagets agerande hängde samman med att etablerade organisationer genom sin tröghet till förändring hade skapat utrymme för nya organisatoriska lösningar i samband med rationaliseringar: bemanningsföretagen kunde nu ta över personalansvaret.

Författaren gör också en genomgång av tidigare forskning om nedläggningar och personalinskränkningar, varvid modeller redovisas som förknippats med företag som ansetts ha tagit socialt ansvar när de lagt ner eller minskat på sin personal.

Embedded Intelligent Systems (EIS) is the joint research field of the four collaborating laboratories at the School of Information Science, Computer and Electrical Engineering (IDE) at Halmstad University. The research of the four labs is integrated into a strong concerted research environment within embedded systems (EIS) - with a perspective reaching from the enabling technology via new system solutions and intelligent applications to end user aspects and business models. It is an expanding research area with many applications, not least ones that exist in everyday life.EIS is an important research environment contributing to the regional Triple Helix innovation system Healthcare Technology which the region has pointed out as a prioritised development sector. With its strong connections to both established and new, expanding firms hived off from the university, the research environment is active in the Healthcare Technology Alliance, a network of around sixty companies, counties and health care providers in south-western Sweden with the aim of developing the region into a leading arena for the development of health technology products and services. Several projects together with these participants concern both research and technology transfer.An integrated gender and gender equality perspective in innovations within the health technology area is necessary in order to be able to meet the needs of an ageing population with quality innovations. The relevancy of a gender perspective is clear in relation to the fact that about 70% of all those older than 75 years are women. Older women are on average cared for in hospital twice as long as men, partly due to differing disease panoramas, but also because men are more often cared for in the home by a woman while the women who live longer more often live alone. With the expansion of home-help and home nursing new needs follow and it is likely that a gender perspective will become necessary for the development of products and services that can make daily life easier for the elderly. The gender perspective also has relevance from the point of view of care staff. New technology is developed for application within the health and care sector where the larger professional groups consist mainly of women. The technology, most often designed by men, is used by women. With this in mind it is clear that an important aspect of good innovations is that the end users are involved in the innovation process.Based on an awareness of the need for a more articulated gender perspective within the research environment, in order to meet the needs expressed above, an application for a gender inclusive R&D project was handed in to the VINNOVA programme Applied Gender Research in Strong Research and Innovation Environments. The G-EIS project (Gender Perspective on Embedded Intelligent Systems - Application in Healthcare Technology) was approved and started in 2009. The project involves researchers from the EIS research environment as well as representatives from companies and the public sector.The project participants are on the whole agreed on the need for a gender perspective in the R&I environment, but struggle with the meeting of two epistemologically opposed theories of science. The understanding within gender studies that research and production both create reality and are informed by it is not always accepted within the areas of natural science. Engineering and other technological sciences not only consider aspects of science to be separate from reality, but also seek positivistic proof in research, something not always possible in the more qualitative research of the social sciences. Researching how these two perspectives meet within this specific project is the topic of this paper.

The aim of this text is to introduce perspectives, questions and empirical examples regarding children's identity construction in play with dolls and figures that represent women and men in both gender-typed and non gender-typed ways. Videotaped play of two 4-year old boys and three 5-year-old girls in a preschool setting is analyzed from complementary interactionistic and socio-cultural perspectives. The level of plasticity in the toyplay is interpreted. The results suggest ways in wich the gender-plastic character of toy play can be founded in children's intentions as well as in the toys' character as mediating tools. The analysis is based on whether children play with, through, in or beside their toy gestalts. These and other similar distinctions help to differentiate identity consequences in play.

Riksbankens Jubileumsfond har sedan 2009 ett pilotprogram, Flexit,  där forskare inom humaniora och samhällsvetenskap får möjlighet att arbeta som in-house forskare i den privata sektorn under tre år. Flexits syften är att:

• bygga broar mellan humanistisk och samhällsvetenskaplig forskning och näringslivet,
• underlätta kunskapsutbyte och stimulera kontakter så att fler organisationer utanför universitetsvärlden kan se och nyttja kompetensen hos disputerade humanister och samhällsvetare.
• påverka meriteringssystemet så att akademin i högre grad värderar erfarenheter från företagsvärlden, och vice versa,
•  visa alternativa karriärmöjligheter för forskare inom humaniora och samhällsvetenskap.

Två av forskarna från den första omgången, Martin Berg och Susanna Toivanen, berättar om sina erfarenheter inom programmet. Susanna Toivanen berättar hur det är att forska om framtidens kontorsarbetsplatser, och vilka möjligheter och utmaningar det innebär att bedriva forskning i samverkan med ett stort byggbolag. Susanna är verksam som samhällsvetenskaplig forskare på NCC Property Development på företagets kontor i Västra Hamnen i Malmö.

Martin Berg delar med sig av sina erfarenheter av att forska om sociala medier på en webb- och strategibyrå som har ena foten i Malmö och den andra på internet. Martin är sociolog och verksam som forskare på Good Old i Malmö.

Maria Wikse fungerar som samtalsledare.

During the last few years, numerous journal articles aiming at discerning the impact and possible meanings of social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter have been published. It is often argued that SNS significantly diverge from earlier forms of web communities since they are centred around the individual actor rather than themes of interest. An important aspect of these changes is that SNS allow for the construction of a public or semi-public profile through which it is possible to put on display a list of shared social connections which, in turn, makes it viable to browse the social connections of other users. Although being important aspects of SNS, these observations do not account for the automated data processing of harvested personal information that constitute the very motor of these sites. Drawing on an analysis of an extensive empirical material consisting of approximately 470 self-reflexive diary entries on the subject of Facebook use, authored by people between the ages of 22 and 68 together with an exploration of the ways in which Facebook gathers and processes personal and interactional data in order to provide what is assumed to be an enhanced user experience, this paper aims at establishing a sociological understanding of the interrelationship between social practices and automated social structures on Facebook. Taken as a whole, this paper contributes to an understanding of SNS by relating social practices to the automated social structures that (for commercial reasons) emerge within SNS thus rendering creative identity performances problematic. In so doing, it provides an important account of how bodies, selves and technologies intersect and relate to new forms of power in contemporary communicative capitalism. 

Taking its point of departure in a critical discussion of the imagined dividing line between physical and digital spaces, this chapter demonstrates a socio-spatial turn in Internet studies and sets out to explore the meaning of locative technologies as an illuminating example of how such spatial boundaries increasingly collapse. Being empirically grounded in an analysis of twelve qualitative interviews with users of the applications Foursquare and Gowalla, this chapter focuses on the interplay between what is termed electronic flâneurs and digital geographies and demonstrates in what ways the use of locative technologies provokes changes at two levels in the social realm; first, by adding a communicative digital layer to the spatial organisation of physical space and second, by adding a spatially bound layer to interactions in digital space.

The last few years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of services and applications that facilitate online social interaction of various kinds. Contemporary accounts of the social web most often take their point of departure in an analysis of Social Network Sites (SNS) such as Twitter and Facebook. In contrast to such an endeavour, this paper shifts focus from the social realm of SNS to social interactions that occur through and around amateur sex-cam services such as cam4.com, which is a service claiming to be ”the largest worldwide webcam community”. Cam4.com allows the users to broadcast themselves while having sex, masturbating or simply engaging in exhibitionist practices of different sorts. Every broadcast is accompanied by a public chat which provides a possibility to communicate with the viewers as well as a ”tip box” through which viewers can make economic transactions to the broadcasting user. These transactions are often closely related to the bodily sexual practices of the users and it is frequently said that a certain amount of tips is required for making an orgasm (or similar activity) taking place. This paper takes its point of departure in an analysis of various forms of social interaction on cam4.com in order to establish an understanding of the relationship between bodily practices and communicative acts in light of the electronically mediated setting by which their performance is facilitated and interconnected. This analysis, in turn, is related to a broader theoretical framework that builds upon a critical assessment of the works of George H. Mead (1934), Judith Butler (1990) and Anthony Giddens (1992) together with a reconfiguration of Jodi Dean’s (2005, 2010a, 2010b) notion of ”communicative capitalism” which designates a very specific form of late capitalism which is materialised in the bits and bytes of the network society. Taken as a whole, this paper provides a deeper understanding of the processes involved in contemporary online (bodily) communication while at the same time positioning these microsociological matters in a broader macroscopical theoretical framework.

During the last few years, numerous journal articles aiming at discerning the impact and possible meanings of social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter have been published. It is often argued that SNS significantly diverge from earlier forms of web communities since they are centred around the individual actor rather than themes of interest. An important aspect of these changes is that SNS allow for the construction of a public or semi-public profile through which it is possible to put on display a list of shared social connections which, in turn, makes it viable to browse the social connections of other users. Although being important aspects of SNS, these observations do not account for the automated data processing of harvested personal information that constitute the very motor of these sites. Drawing on an analysis of an extensive empirical material consisting of approximately 470 self-reflexive diary entries authored by people between the ages of 22 and 68 together with an exploration of the ways in which Facebook gathers and processes personal and interactional data in order to provide what is assumed to be an enhanced user experience, this paper aims at establishing a sociological understanding of the interrelationship between social practices and automated social structures on Facebook. This paper provides an important contribution to contemporary sociological studies of new media by relating social practices to the automated social structures that (for commercial reasons) emerge within social network sites thus rendering creative identity performances problematic.

During the last few years, a steady stream of journal articles and conference papers with the aim of discerning the impact and possible meanings of social network sites (SNS) have been published. It is often argued that SNS diverge significantly from earlier forms of web communities since they are centred around the individual actor rather than themes of interest. Although providing a solid understanding of the social dynamics surrounding identity performance and self-presentation, most researchers have not sufficiently assessed the interrelationship between the conditions of social interaction on SNS and subjectivity. Being of crucial importance for any understanding of the relationship between participatory action and identity performance, an analysis of the conditions of subjectivity illuminates fundamental social processes of importance to the general understanding of the implications of SNS. Drawing on an analysis of an extensive empirical material consisting of approximately 470 self-reflexive diary entries authored by people between the ages of 22 and 68, the purpose of this paper is to explore the changed conditions of subjectivity on SNS by addressing two interrelated themes. First, this paper aims at understanding the possible implications of the fact that social and symbolic content increasingly becomes delivered to the individual through personalised feeds, thus invigorating a state of interpassivity through which the social network acts on its own behalf. Secondly, this paper strives at understanding what it means that other individuals occupy a salient role in the individual self-presentation. In what ways does this state of affairs affect the processes through which individual subjectivity is continuously enabled and negotiated? This paper explores crucial aspects of the social and interactional terrain of SNS thus attempting to provide a theoretical and conceptual apparatus, mainly by the concepts interpassivity and social network subjectivity, that can further strengthen research on SNS.

The last few years have witnessed an increased development of applications and services aimed at organisational communication and interaction. Instant messaging, enterprise social networks and web-based systems for time tracking are often assumed to facilitate organisational communicative practices. While providing a vast array of possibilities, applications and services of this kind also provoke changes at the level of social interaction and communication in the physical workplace environment. Taking its point of departure in an auto-ethnographic account of processes involved in the author’s becoming part of a digital workplace environment, this paper critically considers core characteristics of organisational communicative technologies as well as their social and material implications. In overall terms, this paper suggests that technologies of this kind allows for a layering of the workplace environment that facilitates the establishment of serendipitous relationships and interactions as well as providing a blurring of the boundaries of corporate positions and hierarchies while simultaneously giving rise to a complex set of surveillance techniques and power relations.

During the last few years, a steady stream of journal articles and conference papers with the aim of discerning the impact and possible meanings of social network sites (SNS) have been published. It is often argued that SNS significantly diverge from earlier forms of web communities since they are centred around the individual actor rather than themes of interest. According to boyd and Ellison (2007), an important aspect of these changes is that SNS allow for the construction of a public or semi-public profile through which it is possible to put on display a list of shared social connections which, in turn, makes it viable to browse the social connections of other users. By demonstrating the social connections to others, an establishment of latent social ties is facilitated and thus, as Haythorntwaite (2005) has demonstrated in depth, a form of connectivity emerges that makes otherwise unconnected others connect. Following these lines of thoughts, this paper aims at establishing an understanding of SNS which takes into account two interrelated yet hitherto undertheorised themes. First, SNS such as Facebook and Twitter, have largely come to function as mediators of social and symbolic content which in turn provide the basis for social interaction. Following the arguments of Knorr-Cetina (1997), among others, this paper explores the fact that communication on SNS occurs through a shared social object which is not only mediated but also structured thus allowing for a certain kind of object-centred sociability. Secondly, taking into account the emergence of such a sociability, this paper suggests that SNS are not so much mechanisms for self-presentation and social interaction as they can be regarded as social intermediaries which subject social and symbolic content to the specific structure of the digital interface. Taken as a whole, this paper provides an exploratory understanding of emerging social structures in digital culture thus illuminating important facets of social interaction and communication in contemporary society. 

boyd, d. m., & Ellison, N. B. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, 13(1), 210-230. 

Cetina, K. K. (1997). Sociality with Objects: Social Relations in Postsocial Knowledge Societies. Theory, Culture & Society, 14(1), 1-30. 

Haythornthwaite, C. (2005). Social networks and Internet connectivity effects. Information, Communication & Society, 8(2), 125-148. 

Over recent years significant changes in the nature of online communication have taken place, not the least because of the emergence of Web 2.0 and the subsequent proliferation of Social Network Sites (SNS). These changes illuminate the need for having a precise conceptual apparatus that can grasp the complexity of contemporary online phenomena and their social dynamics. Exploring various accounts of SNS as part of the wider Web 2.0 realm, this paper approaches the widespread assumption that SNS bring forth a number of changes in the social as well as institutional arrangements surrounding their being used. Distinguishing between an instrumental and an institutional approach towards SNS, this paper suggests that contemporary research on SNS is roughly divided into two broad streams, one that focuses on how SNS are brought into service by users, and the other on how SNS bring users into service. The difference between these approaches is framed by suggesting a conceptual separation between individual-oriented and system-oriented agency. In order to overcome the difficulties attached to understanding the social dynamics of SNS as a distinct application within the Web 2.0 realm, it is argued that the term ‘social intermediaries’ offers a way to conceptualise SNS with respect to their functional position in the social realm, thus providing an important alternative to contemporary instrumental and institutional accounts. © 2012 Copyright Academy of Social Sciences.

Over recent years significant changes in the nature of online communication have taken place, not the least because of the emergence of Web 2.0 and the subsequent proliferation of Social Network Sites (SNS). These changes have provided researchers, scholars and critics with a multi-levelled field of investigation while at the same time illuminating the need for having a precise conceptual apparatus which bears a possibility to account for the social dynamics of contemporary online phenomena. This paper explores the possibility to understand the various appearances of Web 2.0 and SNS as bringing forth a number of changes in the social as well as institutional arrangements surrounding their being used. In overall terms, these phenomena are conceptualised from a perspective that either focuses on individual instrumentality or institutional exploitation. Whereas the instrumental view primarily locates agency at the level of individual users and the personal benefits associated with the performance of various technologically mediated actions, the institutional view ascribes agency to the Web 2.0 applications which are assumed to commercially deploy their users as objects of inquiry and sources of information. In this paper, these ideas are further elaborated by suggesting a conceptual separation between individual- oriented and system-oriented agency that lays the foundation for developing a conceptual apparatus that accounts for the social dynamics of Web 2.0 and SNS. Taking the different ways of locating agency as a point of departure, it is furthermore suggested that the term ‘social intermediaries’ provides a possibility to conceptualise Web 2.0 and SNS from the perspective of their functional position in the social realm, thus providing an important alternative to contemporary instrumental and institutional accounts. Drawing on Georg Simmel’s understanding of sociality, the notion of social intermediaries is conceptualised as a ‘third Other’ that is assumed to intervene in the social realm and the processes as well as practices of of which it consists. 

During the last few years, numerous journal articles aiming at discerning the impact and possible meanings of social network sites (SNS) such as Facebook and Twitter have been published. It is often argued that SNS significantly diverge from earlier forms of web communities since they are centred around the individual actor rather than themes of interest. According to boyd and Ellison (2007), an important aspect of these changes is that SNS allow for the construction of a public or semi-public profile through which it is possible to put on display a list of shared social connections which, in turn, makes it viable to browse the social connections of other users. Although being important aspects of SNS, these observations do not account for the automated data processing of harvested personal information that constitute the very motor of these sites. Exploring the ways in which Facebook gathers and processes personal and interactional data in order to provide what is assumed to be an enhanced user experience, this paper aims at establishing a (micro-)sociological understanding of the interrelationship between social interaction and archival practices as well as processes on Facebook. Drawing on the theories of Mark Poster (1995/2006) and Michel Foucault (1990/1979) among others, this paper provides an important contribution to contemporary archive studies as well as a critical account of the increasingly automatised understanding of personal life history.

Drawing on my experience of “field work” within the web community qruiser.com, this presentation raises a number of questions related to the tension between sociological and queer modes of inquiry. Frequently, as Seidman suggests out, queer analyses consist of a “rendering of literary analysis into social analysis” (1995: 125). The social realm, however, is “often narrowed into categories of knowledge and culture while the latter is itself often reduced to linguistic, discursive binary figures” (ibid: 139). What are the possibilities of a queer sociological method and in what ways is it possible to overcome the problems that Seidman points out? It is my intention to further investigate these issues by turning to what Wakeford (2002) has named “cyberqueer research”. Is it a viable thought that web communities, as O’Brien proposes, make up “a site for studying the viability and implications of constructionist theories that emphasize ’doing gender’ as a social accomplishment” (2001: 79)? Following this line of thought, could a “cyberqueer research” help to overcome the inherent differences between sociological and queer modes of inquiry?

O’Brien, Jodi. (2001), “Writing in the body: gender (re)production in online interaction”, in Marc A. Smith and Peter Kollock (eds.), Communities in Cyberspace. London & New York Routledge, 76-104.

Seidman, Steven (1995), “Deconstructing Queer Theory or the Under-Theorization of the Social and the Ethical”, in Linda Nicholson and Steven Seidman (eds.), Social Postmodernism: Beyond Identity Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 116-41.

Wakeford, Nina (2002), “New Technologies and ’Cyber-queer’ Research”, in Diane Richardson and Steven Seidman (eds.), Handbook of Lesbian & Gay Studies. London: Sage, 115-44.

Although the history of the internet, and the social web in particular, is comparatively short, numerous publications have strived at establishing an understanding of what it means to undertake qualitative research on the internet. Early accounts of virtual ethnography or "netnography" focused mainly on the possibility to make use of web communities for researching identity performances and consumption patterns among other themes. During the last few years, the emergence of social network sites (SNS) has heavily redefined the social landscape of the internet since it involves a shift from thematically orientated communities to networks that are centred around the activity of the individual actor. Increasingly, these networks form the basis for a new way of interaction by means of user-generated content since people engage in social activities such as sharing, reviewing and commenting upon the information that each and other user generate. Taking these fundamental changes into account, Beer och Burrows (2007) point at the importance of adjusting research strategies to the conditions of the social web while at the same suggesting that users of SNS are to some extent already involved in a sort of vernacular sociology as part of their social practices. Taking these thoughts further, this paper sets forth to understand in what ways recent developments of SNS have provided a shift in the ways in which the social actor can possibly be delineated. Since SNS allow for a self-presentation and social interaction that largely depend upon the social connection to others, the conditions for communication and social interaction have been fundamentally altered and this state of affairs challenges the assumptions that underlie qualitative research in general and ethnograpy in particular. Theoretically elaborating on these thoughts, the overall objective with this paper is to explore the tensions between ethnographic practies on the internet and the fact that users of SNS are not only preoccupied with a vernacular sociology but are also, and more importantly, to a large extent delineated by their interpersonal actions and social connections. 

Beer, D., & Burrows, R. (2007). Sociology And, of and in Web 2.0: Some Initial Considerations. Sociological Research Online, 12(5).

Tillsammans med Katarina Graffman, doktor i antropologi och VD för InCulture, samt Thomas Johansson, professor i pedagogik vid Göteborgs universitet, höll jag ett kortare föredrag med påföljande diskussion på The Conference. Rubriken var satt till “What you need to know about the youth to become successful in the future” och redan dessa ord tyder på att det var fråga om en grannlaga uppgift. Hur skulle det vara möjligt för tre talare att under 45 minuter komma fram till något vettigt, säga det på ett begripligt sätt och dessutom vara någorlunda överens i det vi kom fram till? Det är stora frågor vi har att göra med då utveckling och design omtalas eftersom det inte på något vis är fråga om att bara skapa en cool eller praktisk grej, tjänst eller applikation på eget bevåg eller för kunds räkning. Snarare handlar det om att skapa produkter som på ett eller annat sätt får en plats i människors vardagsliv och som därifrån får betydande konsekvenser för hur vi lever våra liv. Kanske låter det överdrivet stort men det går inte längre att se nätet och dess olika applikationer som ett festligt eller praktiskt inslag i människors vardagsliv. Med tanke på den vikt som människor (och inte minst ungdomar) lägger vid nya medier av olika slag blir design- och utvecklingsprocesser snarare en fråga om att skapa och förändra de strukturer varvid vardagslivets olika skeenden häftas fast. För att lyckas med en sådan uppgift krävs det att långsiktiga relationer med användarna byggs upp och det är något som kräver en fördjupad förståelse av såväl det sociala sammanhang som användarna (som ju trots allt är människor) befinner sig i som deras komplexa relation till teknologi. Om detta talar jag, Katarina Graffman och Thomas Johansson.

Queerteorin har fått ett stort genomslag inom forskning och debatter om kön, genus och sexualitet. I den här boken presenteras "klassisk" amerikansk queerteori och utvecklingen av queerforskningen fram till våra dagar. Den diskuterar de spänningar som uppstår i en sociologisk tillämpning och erbjuder en analys av den lokala utformningen av perspektivet i Sverige och Norden.

Kapitlets syfte är att beskriva och analysera aktuella politiska tendenser och ideologiska strömningar, vilka på ett eller annat sätt förespråkar ett "återupprättande" av traditionella förhållanden mellan kategorierna "barn" och "vuxna", men också att lyfta fram några av de motsägelser och paradoxer som ryms inom och mellan dessa diskurser.

Texten innehåller några reflektioner på Säkerhets- och sårbarhetskonferensen vid Högskolan i Halmstad den 17 april 2008. Syftet är att lyfta fram och diskutera en aspekt av problematiken i forsknings- och utvecklingsarbetet kring krisberedskap och krishantering; nämligen de diffusa och komplexa gränserna mellan å ena sidan en moralisk och å andra sidan en konstruktiv form av kritik.

Rapporten redovisar resultatet från en utvärdering av projektet "Regional samverkan för distansstudier i Entreprenörsregionen" som, med stöd av Nationellt Centrum för Flexibelt Lärande (CFL), pågick mellan våren 2003 och våren 2005. Utvärderingen genomfördes inom ramen för ämnet Statsvetenskap vid Sektionen för Hälsa och Samhälle på Högskolan i Halmstad, på uppdrag av projektets ledare vid Entreprenörsregionen.

Syftet med detta paper är att diskutera Dorothy Smiths kunskapsteoretiska ställningstagande och dess relation till Emilé Durkheims klassiska tes om sociala fakta. Vid en första betraktelse kan det förefalla som om Smiths uppfattning innebär ett definitivt avståndstagande från den samhällsvetenskapliga syn som Durkheim på sin tid stod för. Vi menar dock att kunskapssyn som Dorothy Smith företräder mycket väl går att förena med Durkheims "sociala fakta".