Research
In my ongoing project "Rest as politics and practice", I investigate the practices, conditions, and meanings of rest, on material, discursive, embodied, and affective levels. Several sets of fieldwork are part of the project, and rest is analysed in relation to productivity, wellness culture, and temporalities. The project contributes with new perspectives on feminist utopias, justice, and time.
Within the project High stakes. Men, masculinities and gambling as cultural phenomena (Forte 2019-00102), I investigated gambling as a cultural phenomenon in a contemporary Swedish context, focusing on men, masculinities and emotions. I used ethnographic methods as well as cultural representations of gambling. In Gendering the problem gambler, I discuss the gendering of problem gambling and of the problem gambler. In “Be Soft”: Irony, Postfeminism, and Masculine Positions in Swedish Sport Betting Commercials I discuss negotiations around masculine positions in Swedish sports betting advertising. In Feel the suspense! masculine positions and emotional interpellations in swedish sports betting commercials I discuss emotionality and rationality in interpellations made in Swedish sports betting advertising. In The gendering of gambling in Sweden I and Jessika Spångberg discuss gender in Swedish gambling and gambling research. In License to gamble. Discursive perspectives on the 2019 reregulation of the Swedish gambling market, me, Jessika Spångberg and Johan Svensson scrutinise the deregulation of the Swedish gambling market from a discursive perspective.
My previous projects have been about friendships between men in different contexts. In Men’s Friendships as Feminist Politics? Power, Intimacy, and Change, I discuss men's friendships as possible feminist politics, using queer, intersectional and poststructuralist perspectives and demonstrate that men's friendships are connected to ideas about Swedish gender equality, masculine positions, queer temporalities and to neoliberal and therapeutic views. The book challenges the gender conservatism within much friendship research by studying friendships from feminist perspectives. Making Friends: Constructions of Change, Masculine Positions, and Friendships Among Former Drug Users is about friendship among former drug users. I have also studied cultural representations of men's friendships in Swedish television: Walk the talk. Men’s Friendships, Progressiveness and Postfeminism in Swedish Television and Feeling rules and sexualities: Postfeminist men in Swedish television. In this work, I show that a postfeminism using Swedish ideologies of gender equality, with a Swedish twist, is relevant to understanding the portrayals of men and their friendships. I have also written about representations of fatherhood, gender equality and Swedishness in the marketing of Sweden as a nation: Selling Swedish Fathers: On Fatherhood, Gender Equality and Swedishness in Strategic Communication by the Swedish Institute, 1968-2015 (with Roger Klinth).
In the spring of 2018, I defended my thesis, Other Guys Don't Hang Out Like This. Gendered Friendship Politics among Swedish, Middle-class Men. Based on interviews, it constitutes an investigation of friendships between men in contemporary Sweden. I focused on meaning makings around friendships between men, ideas about intimacy used to give meaning to the friendships, but also how power, privilege, vulnerability, homoeroticism and homophobia were handled. I show that friendship was intimately connected to gender politics, and was seen as a central aspect of being a gender-equal, modern man. Materials and analyses from the thesis are available in Riktiga vänner och andra män. Äkthet, känslor och beröring i mäns vänskapsrelationer and With a Little Help From My Friends. Gender and Intimacy in Two Friendship Research Projects (with Linn Alenius Wallin).
Teaching
I teach courses in gender studies and about men and masculinities. I have experience of teaching and supervision within a number of gender studies subfields, such as gender, embodiment, sexuality, postcolonialism, identity, intersectionality, culture studies, phenomenology, and different feminist methodologies.