Nordic countries: Denmark, Norway and Sweden

The aims of the workpackage: The objective of WP3 is to provide an overview of policy formation and deliberation across a number of regions and across a relatively broad timeframe (late 1980s to the present). As a mapping exercise it is intended to provide an initial comparative framework for further elaboration in more detailed country and regional case studies. WP3 offers a ‗helicopter view‘ of global xenotransplantation (XTP) regulation and landmark policy events. It provides a history of the development and timeline of policy-making combined with an initial scoping of the place and purpose of consultative and deliberative processes. In so doing, the WP provides a means of initial orientation for future comparative work and more in depth case studies. The WP is in no sense intended to be comprehensive but instead provides an initial means of developing a more focussed comparative method and body of questions to be taken up in the project‘s future workpackages

Biopop. Biovetenskapens popularisering i medierna.

Hur biomedicinsk forskning populariseras för att anpassa till en bredare allmänhet. Det handlar om att skapa en positiv upplevelse och få allmänhetens gillande för en kontroversiell medicinsk teknik

I ett andetag : En kulturanalys av astma som begränsning och möjlighet

Though asthma is a commonly occurring disorder today, the development and introduction of anti-inflammatory drugs in treating it has changed the possibilities of living with it. At the same time, the Swedish guidelines for asthma care have changed: the patient is to take responsibility for her or his chronic illness to attain full quality of life. The study aims to make a cultural analytical investigation of what possibilities exist for young people to take responsibility for their chronic illness and what limitations present themselves. Its approach, proceeding from Simone de Beauvoir's concept of situation, problematises the view of the human being as an independent subject; rather, the human being finds herself in relation to other people and things. It does not appear from the empiric that the young people automatically internalise the diagnosis and the treatment that comes with it; instead, they act in relation to diagnosis as well as treatment. As a result, the treatment is not always being allowed to stand in the centre of conduct; the young people may be prepared to expose themselves to risks of breathing difficulties for the purpose of creating themselves as subject. The young people allso often act in relation to the attention that the drug and the sequence of events with medication generate in social contexts. This may become a situation in which the individuals do not want to show their medicinal object, or keep quiet about not feeling well due to the asthma. Beauvoir points out in her philosophy that we have a responsibility to create possibilities for the person who is limited in her or his daily life, and this can be discussed proceeding from the possibilities and limitations that are created in a situation. The ethical subject becomes central: through making visible the situation in which the person with a chronic illness finds her- or himself, the individual encountering that person can act in such a way that she or he gives the other person possibilities

Kroppen och den motsägelsefulla staden: Kulturanalytiska perspektiv på funktionshinder och urbana rum

The Body and the Divergent CityCulture analytic perspectives on disability and urban spaces Kristofer Hansson The city is constrained by a variety of strategies and in this article, two such strategies are highlighted: economic strategies and accessibility strategies. These strategies may function in the same urban space, but this article highlights those places where there is a potential conflict between these two. This is done mainly through ethnographic observations following people with disabilities, and focuses on what is hidden or trivialized in practices in the city. It is argued, that already in the spatiality there is often an inherent conflict between, on the one hand, a desire to create an accessible city, and on the other hand, to create a city with a strong focus on market-oriented economic growth. These two strategies create friction, which essentially becomes visible when individuals with a disability must exhibit a certain creativity to deal with obstacles or constraints that arise.What this creativity can thus make visible are the solutions that individuals use to progress and be present in the city. At the same time, it also says something about the limitations and obstacles that exist in the city. Thus, the divergent city does not become an urban space where a multitude of bodies can be on equal terms, but instead a place where cultural and material boundaries arise that control the room by opening and closing in a constantly ongoing process. Through the two strategies the article presents an analysis of practices that can problematize The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities which states the need “to ensure to persons with disabilities access, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment” (Article 9 – Accessibility)