Staffan Löfving | Karlstad University

Research

I am currently interested in the tropes of diversity and multiculturalism in contemporary society, from fields such as education and urban planning to the management of social and political conflict, but my long-term research engagement could perhaps best be summarized in terms of these three partly overlapping themes:

<ol>
<li>Time and visual anthropology In this area, my work deals with photography as a visual technology of social and political memory, the capacity of the photograph to authenticate (or falsify) past experiences, and the ways in which discourses and practices of a visual heritage tap into processes of social formation and identitarian politics of different kinds.</li>
<li>The theorization of displacement and emplacement. I have engaged critically with the conceptual and bureaucratized boundaries between labour mobility and politically motivated forced migration. Colombia and Guatemala have been the countries of my ethnographic work on this theme and I am presently involved in various research ventures in the two interconnected European contexts of Sweden and Bosnia & Hercegovina.</li>
<li>Economic anthropology and labour. In an ongoing exploration of the social dynamic of economic and political crises and in a series of publications I try to develop plausible contributions to an anthropological understanding of precarious labour and the capitalism of affect and communication. </li>
</ol>

Collaboration

Since January 2023, I am Visiting Associate Professor with the <a href="https://www.southafricanartandvisualculture.com/">SARChI Chair in South African Art & Visual Culture</a>, University of Johannesburg.

Selected publications

2017. The Gift of Labor: The Town, the Union and the Corporate State in the Demise of the Swedish Car Industry. In E. Paul Durrenberger (ed.), <a href="https://upcolorado.com/university-press-of-colorado/item/3180-uncertain… Times: The Anthropology of Labor in a Neoliberal World.</a> Pp. 61-86. Boulder: University Press of Colorado.

2009. The Paramilitary Function of Transparency in Latin America and Beyond. In Bruce Kapferer and Bjørn Enge Bertelsen (eds.), <a href="http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KapfererCrisis">Crisis of the State: War and Social Upheaval.</a> Pp. 187-209. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.

2008. <a href="http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/JansenStruggles">Struggles for Home: Violence, Hope and the Movement of People</a> (editor with Stef Jansen) Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books.

2007. Liberal Emplacement: Violence, Home, and the Transforming Space of Popular Protest in Central America. Focaal: European Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 49, No. 1.:45-61.

2007. Movement, Violence, and the Making of Home. (Journal theme section, co-edited with Stef Jansen) <a href="https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/focaal/2007/49/focaal490… European Journal of Anthropology, Vol. 49, No. 1.:1-61</a>

2006. The Guerrilla Army of the Poor. In Thomas Leonard (ed.), Encyclopedia of the Developing World. Pp. 726-728. London and New York: Routledge

2006. <a href="https://books.google.se/books?id=kbYVamkNGkAC&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&am… Economies: Conversations with Stephen Gudeman. </a>Uppsala and Stockholm: Uppsala University and Almqvist & Wiksell International.

2006. War as Field and Site: Anthropologists, Archaeologists, and the Violence of Maya Cultural Continuities. In Ton Otto, Henrik Thrane and Helle Vandkilde (eds.), <a href="https://en.unipress.dk/udgivelser/w/warfare-and-society/">Warfare and Society: Archaeological and Social Anthropological Perspectives.</a> Pp. 469-479. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press

2005. Silence & the Politics of Representing Rebellion: On the Emergence of the Neutral Maya in Guatemala. In Paul Richards (ed.), <a href="https://www.ohioswallow.com/book/0821415751">No Peace No War: An Anthropology of Contemporary Armed Conflicts.</a> Pp. 77-97. Oxford and Athens, Ohio: James Currey and Ohio University Press.

2004. Paramilitaries of the Empire: Guatemala, Colombia and Israel. Social Analysis, Vol. 48, Issue 1, Spring 2004. pp. 156-160 [also published in Bruce Kapferer (ed.), <a href="http://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/KapfererState">State, Sovereignty, War: Civil Violence in Emerging Social Realities. </a>Pp. 159-166. Oxford and New York: Berghahn Books]

2004. Om krigets konturer. In Ulf Hannerz (ed.), Antropologi/Journalistik: Om sätt att beskriva världen. Sid. 115-141. Lund: Studentlitteratur [Swedish]

2004. Ungdom, marginalitet og statsborgeskab: Et perspektiv fra det sydlige Afrika og Centralamerika. (Co-authored with Michael Barrett) In Simon Turner (ed.), Vrede unge mænd? Globalisering, marginalisering og mobilisering. Den Ny Verden, årg. 37, nr. 3.:39-48. [Danish]

2002. An Unpredictable Past: Guerrillas, Mayas, and the Location of Oblivion in War-Torn Guatemala. Dissertation. Uppsala: Uppsala University.

Evaluations

2010. Fortalecimiento de la sociedad civil para la construcción de la paz en Colombia. Evaluación del apoyo de Asdi a la Consejería de Proyectos (PCS), Enero 2006 –Noviembre 2009. Versión final 6 de abril de 2010 [Sida evaluation, Spanish, co-authored with Adriana Gutierrez and Jocke Nyberg]

2008. Swedish Democracy Promotion through NGOs in Bolivia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Peru: Outcome Oriented Evaluation of Diakonia’s Latin America Programme. <a href="https://www.oecd.org/countries/bolivia/41290948.pdf">Sida Evaluations 2008:02.</a> Stockholm: Sida [co-authored with Roddy Brett, Miguel González, Victor Caballeros, Cecilia Salazar, Fernanda Soto and Charlotta Widmark]

Publications

The Gift of Labor - The Town, the Union, and the Corporate State in the Demise of the Swedish Car Industry
Staffan Löfving, 2017