Public deliberation as separate or embedded: deweyan democracy and its relation to political liberalism

This paper explores two different strategies that may be useful to give substance to Deweyan democracy’s claim that in order for democratic associations to develop into communities, citizens need to learn how to conduct inquiry in a social setting. The two strategies reflect a principal division among views of public deliberation. The first strategy, the separation strategy, closely resembles Rawls’ political liberalism by advocating the development of a separate sphere of public deliberation, guided by factual and normative assumptions that we need not accept anywhere outside that sphere. Comprehensive doctrines are to be held outside of public deliberation, a move which makes possible a rather straightforward application of Dewey’s theory of inquiry. The second strategy, the embeddedness strategy, stresses the fact that public deliberation is inevitably embedded in broader spheres of social life, and that the development towards community must be piecemeal, and go hand in hand with developments in social life as a whole. I argue that there are weighty reasons for doubting the feasibility of the separation strategy, and I also argue that these reasons are relevant for our evaluation of all versions of the separation strategy, including political liberalism. I conclude that one of Deweyan democracy’s most important assets, which deserves further examination, is its insight that reflection on public deliberation needs to take its embedded character into account

Att leva upp til för­väntningarna - ålderns signifikans för politiskt engagerade unga

Young people are constantly confronted with pictures and ideas of what it means to be young. Some of these ideas concern political interest and involvement. The prevailing view, which is evident in research and media, is that young people in general are not interested in politics. But those who are politically engaged are portrayed as radical in their views, and as more prone to using radical methods than grown-ups. This view is connected to the negative picture of the âyoung activistâ, which is related to the historically based idea of young people as a potential threat to the established society. Furthermore, there exists an image that young people are only interested in politics when it is considered trendy. In this article, the author addresses how some of the young people in Attac and the Social Forum movement have experienced the expectations such ideas give rise to, and how their political engagement is formed in interaction with such ideals

Som en blixt från klar himmel

Every day a number of dramatic events take place in the world. Some of them make a bigger impression than others, because of their size, exceptionality or closeness to us. In this article I look at three such extraordinary events; when the Titanic sank in 1912, when the ferry Estonia went under in 1994 and the Tsunami in South-East Asia in 2004. All of these disasters had special significance for people in the Scandinavian countries, since they affected a number of Scandinavian citizens, even though they took place outside of the national borders. They were also enormous media events, and in this article I particularly look at how the emotions connected with the disasters were portrayed in the newspaper coverage, with examples from the evening press in Sweden and Norway. Central issues include: What are the differences between 1912 and 2004 when it comes to how emotions are displayed in the news media? How are the survivors and the relatives of the victims treated in the press? I discuss this in relation to the concept of emotional norms

What's wrong with the adequacy-argument? A pragmatic diagnosis

Published version of an article in the journal: Sophia, 50(1), 11-23. Also available from the publisher at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11841-009-0153-0When confronted with the question of which philosophical conception of religion to consider most adequate, many philosophers appeal to what I call the adequacy-argument: that we should prefer the one that looks most adequate from the perspective of religious believers. In this paper, I provide a critique of the adequacy-argument based on a pragmatic analysis of adequacy-judgments according to which reflective adequacy-judgments are forward-looking, and hence include considerations of the consequences of adopting different judgments as guides for conduct. It is this forward-looking character that is virtually absent within the current adequacy-debate. The major advantage of a pragmatic analysis of adequacy is itself forward-looking: it would enable philosophers of religion to play a more critical and constructive role vis-A -vis religious practices than presently

Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology : a sociomaterial study of computer game development

Digital technology, with its distinctive characteristics that result from the fundamental process of digitalization that underpins it, is seen as fundamentally altering processes of creativity. However, we currently have limited understanding of creativity in relation to the development of digital technology. Computer game development, with its combination of esthetic, affective and cultural use features and highly sophisticated digital technologies, is a valuable setting for investigating these issues. In this paper, we explore how computer games are shaped through the interplay between the creative intentions of developers and the digital technologies involved in their production and playing. Drawing on in-depth studies conducted at three leading computer game development studios and a leading producer of the software system used in game development, this paper shows how the game developers' creative ideas for imagined novel game-playing experiences relate to a) the development of relevant digital technologies, and b) the emergence of new game development practices. The article goes on to propose a view of creativity as an on-going flow that, following an initial ‘creative impulse’, ripples through the sociomaterial entanglements of a particular setting, reconfiguring them in the process and spreading out in time and space in often unexpected ways

Nurse’s involvement in the organ donations process

Bakgrund: Det finns bara en död och denna regleras av vår lagstiftning. Indirekta kriterier innebär att läkaren konstaterar dödsfallet genom observation. Direkta kriterier styrs av föreskrifter om hur total hjärninfarkt fastställs och patientens andning och cirkulation upprätthålls på konstgjord väg. En donator ger enligt eget önskemål sitt organ till en mottagande patient. Donationsprocessen innehåller fyra olika faser. Fas ett startar med det medicinska omhändertagandet på intensivvården och total hjärninfarkt fastställs. Fas två är när omhändertagandet av en donator startar och optimering av andning och cirkulation optimeras. MOD (Multiorgandonation) är fas tre och organuttaget sker på en operationsavdelning. Fas fyra startar när den avlidne är tillbaka på avdelningen och de anhöriga tar farväl. Katie Erikssons omvårdnadsteori har använts som omvårdnadsteoretisk anknytning. Syfte: Att belysa sjuksköterskans upplevelse av organdonation. Metod: Litteraturstudien bygger på 14 vetenskapliga artiklar, sökta via databaserna Cinahl och PubMed samt genom manuell sökning. Val av artiklar gjordes efter genomläsning av abstrakt. Resultat: Sjuksköterskans attityd och inställning till donation påverkades av faktorer såsom kunskap och yrkeserfarenhet. Att ha kunskap om och förståelse för donationsprocessen leder till en bättre vård av en donator. Att vårda en donator innebar emotionella konflikter och stressreaktioner hos inblandad personal. Sjuksköterskans egen inställning till donation påverkades av hur denne uppfattade donation som behandlingsmetod. Sjuksköterskans upplevelse av den kirurgiska delen av donationsprocessen berodde på hur värdigt organuttaget utfördes på operationsavdelningen. Sjukvårdspersonal upplevde stress i samband med MOD och det var viktigt med ett värdigt omhändertagande efter det att respiratorn stängdes av. Konklusion: God kunskap om donationsprocessen innebar positiv inställning till donation. Key words: nursing, organ donation, dignit

Public awareness of aphasia – a Swedish sample

Syftet med föreliggande studie var att undersöka kunskapsnivån om afasi i ett svenskt stickprov samt att ta reda på om det fanns en relation mellan kännedom om afasi och kön, utbildningsnivå samt ålder. Även kartläggning av källor till kännedom om afasi genomfördes. Genom intervjuer på allmänna platser insamlades data från 153 personer i åldrarna 18-90 år. Deltagarnas svar kategoriserades i tre kunskapsnivåer; kännedom, kunskap respektive inte kännedom om afasi. Resultatet visade att 45,8% hade kännedom, 9,8% hade kunskap samt att 44,4% saknade kännedom om afasi. Signifikant fler män saknade kännedom om afasi. Det fanns ingen signifikant relation mellan utbildningsnivå och kännedom om afasi. Medelåldern för gruppen utan kännedom om afasi var signifikant lägre än övriga grupper. De vanligaste källorna till kännedom om afasi var TV/radio, tidningar samt arbetsplatsen. Resultaten indikerar vilka grupper informationskampanjer bör riktas mot samt vilka plattformar som bäst når ut till allmänheten.The aims were to investigate the public awareness of aphasia in a Swedish sample and examine if knowledge of aphasia relates to gender, education or age. Participant’s sources of knowledge of aphasia were examined. A total of 153 individuals, aged 18-90, were surveyed. Participants were categorized into three groups; heard of, knowledge of and not heard of aphasia. Results showed that 45,8% had heard of, 9,8% had knowledge of and 44,4% had not heard of aphasia. The distribution of men was significant higher for the group that had not heard of aphasia. There was no significant relation between education and hearing of aphasia. The mean age of the group not heard of aphasia was significantly lower. The most common sources of information were TV/radio, newspapers/magazines and workplace. The findings indicate to whom advocacy campaigns should be directed and which platforms are most effective for spreading information amongst the public

’I feel really good now!’ : Emotions and independence in undergraduate supervision

Within Swedish higher education, there is an explicit focus on the importance of independence, not least in relation to degree projects, which makes it a significant issue within supervision. What student independence comprises and how it may be achieved, however, is rarely discussed, even though the expectations of independence may be a stressful aspect of degree projects for students. This article examines the role emotions may play in undergraduate supervision in relation to student independence, through analysing recorded supervision meetings and focus group interviews with supervisors. Based in a theoretical framework centred on the concepts affective practices, anticipated emotions and anticipatory emotions, it discusses how supervisors handled students’ expressions of fear and anxiety, joy and relief, and how anticipated emotions could be used as a didactic tool