Södertörns högskolas Publications
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How much knowledge of IT does an archivist need?
No full textThese days, an archivist must be well-versed in information technology. What, though, ought an archivist to know? The answer to this question is crucial for those who organize archival science courses now and will continue to be a question we must address on multiple occasions in the future. In my poster, I'll outline some potential approaches to the information technology-focused portion of an archivist's training. From a beginning computing course that might not be appropriate for a university education in other respects to an extreme notion I created dubbed "Timeless fullstack," which is difficult to teach within the confines of a university education. The poster is a part of a continuous research project, a presentation of forthcoming studies, and will present and discuss a number of concepts that could be used in defining what the student in archival science actually needs to know about IT. The poster will show and explore some notions that might be used to define what an archival science student actually needs to know about IT. It is part of an ongoing research effort and a presentation of upcoming investigations
Shaping South America : Jens Martin Bolstad’s Consular Knowledge Production, 1901–1905
No full textThis thesis examines how the Swedish-Norwegian Consul General Jens Martin Bolstad (1858–1905) produced and disseminated knowledge about South America in his official reports between 1901 and 1905. The study introduces Bolstad as a “knowledge actor” whose consular position enabled him to gather, interpret and reproduce local information to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Stockholm. It analyses Bolstad’s reporting on interstate tensions, emerging efforts at regional cooperation and the shadow cast by the “Colossus of the North” (the United States). The research relies on archival consular reports, examining how they serve as active sites of knowledge production rather than mere factual records. By contextualising Bolstad’s reports within a broader historiography on Swedish perceptions of South America, the thesis reveals both the persistence of nineteenth-century Eurocentric tropes and the emergence of more formal policy-focused narratives. The study argues that Bolstad’s portrayal of South America, caught between hegemony and unity, echoed contemporary imperial legacies while influencing Swedish-Norwegian foreign policy outlooks. These findings underscore the value of examining diplomatic documents as rich historical sources, demonstrating that consular offices played a pivotal role in shaping European understandings of distant regions at the turn of the century.Populärvetenskaplig sammanfattning Den här studien handlar om hur en svensk-norsk konsul, Jens Martin Bolstad (1858–1905), formade och spred kunskap om Sydamerika i början av 1900-talet. Genom att granska hans rapporter, skrivna mellan åren 1901 och 1905, får man en unik inblick i hur han beskrev och tolkade de politiska konflikterna, de försiktiga samarbetena och den växande närvaron av USA (“Kolossen i norr”). På så vis kan man se hur enskilda tjänstemän inte bara rapporterade fakta, utan också bidrog till att skapa en bild av en hel kontinent för beslutsfattare hemma i Sverige och Norge. Forskningen bygger på ett så kallat kunskapshistoriskt perspektiv, där man undersöker hur “kunskap” inte är något neutralt, utan formas i ett socialt och historiskt sammanhang. Bolstad var, genom sin konsulära roll, en viktig mellanhand: han hämtade intryck och information på plats i Sydamerika—från tidningsartiklar till samtal med lokalbefolkning—och förmedlade en tolkad version vidare till utrikesdepartementet i Stockholm. I rapporterna framträder Sydamerika ofta som en region präglad av spänningar mellan stater (till exempel Chile, Peru och Bolivia), samtidigt som det fanns försök att bilda allianser för att stå starkare inför yttre hot. Dessa rapporter visar också hur föreställningar om kontinenten blandades med tidsperiodens eurocentriska tänkande, där vissa länder sågs som mer “moderna” eller “stabila” än andra. Genom att studera Bolstads material får man en fördjupad förståelse för hur bilden av “det avlägsna Sydamerika” växte fram i Skandinavien. Det lyfter fram hur en enskild individs arbetsuppgifter och personliga perspektiv kunde eventuellt påverka utrikespolitik. I en tid då kommunikation över Atlanten tog flera veckor, blev konsulns ögon och öron på plats ett slags filter, som formade vilka händelser, konflikter och möjligheter som hamnade i fokus. Studien visar också hur modern historieskrivning kan dra lärdom av diplomatiska källor: administrativa rapporter och förodningar kan, när man granska dem närmare, rymma spännande berättelser om makt, identitet och hur vi “vet” något om världen.
Living Matter : Nature Philological Perspectives on Hylozoic and Pantheistic Aesthetics
No full textI den klassiska västerländska estetiska traditionen, från Aristoteles och framåt, begreppsliggörs ”natur” och ”konst” i relation till varandra, men uppfattas ytterst sett som separata. Medan naturen skapar immanent, inifrån sig själv, karakteriseras konsten av att människan bearbetar en visavi henne själv extern materia. De ”hylozoiska” (från grekiskans hyle, ”materia”, och zoe, ”liv”) och ”panteistiska” författarskap som står i fokus för denna avhandling har en annan ingång till denna fråga. Avhandlingen undersöker mer precist möjligheten och konsekvenserna av en estetik i vilken natur och konst förstås som en och samma storhet. Detta sker med utgångspunkt i den italienske renässansfilosofen Giordano Brunos metafysik som teoretisk matris, då det i hans tänkande inte föreligger någon väsentlig skillnad mellan det som frambringas av naturen och av människan. Metodologiskt gör undersökningen bruk av ”naturfilologi”, en inom tidigare litteratur endast vid ett fåtal tillfällen förekommande term som i avhandlingen betecknar både en metod och ett perspektiv och som tjänar som ett begreppsligt korrelat till det metafysiska naturbegrepp som finns hos Bruno. Exempel på naturfilologiska förfaranden är ”analogi” och ”morfologi”, vilka gör det möjligt att studera den hylozoiska och panteistiska estetiken utifrån dess egna premisser. Avhandlingen består av två separata men tematiskt förbundna undersökningar: dels av Brunos hylozoiska estetik, det vill säga en estetik som utgår från idén om all materia såsom levande, dels av den hylozoiska estetikens efterliv, främst från och med den tyska idealismen och framåt, med fokus på Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Jakob Johann von Uexküll och Adolf Portmann. Därpå följer ett kapitel som relaterar resultaten till de för avhandlingen mest relevanta samtida teoribildningarna med naturen i fokus, med särskilt fokus på antropologi, naturfilosofisk morfologi och evolutionär estetik. Med avstamp i dessa undersökningar argumenterar avhandlingen för att den hylozoiska estetiken har potential att erbjuda en uppluckring av de traditionella gränserna mellan natur och konst. In the classical Western aesthetic tradition, from Aristotle onwards, ’nature’ and ’art’ are conceptualised in relation to each other, but are ultimately perceived as separate. While nature creates immanently, from within itself, art is characterised by man forming matter external to himself. The ’hylozoic’ (from the Greek hyle, ’matter’, and zoe, ’life’) and ’pantheistic’ texts studied in this thesis have a different approach to this binary opposition. More precisely, the thesis examines the possibility and consequences of an aesthetics in which nature and art are conceived of as one and the same. It makes use of the metaphysics of Italian Renaissance philosopher Giordano Bruno as a theoretical matrix, given that there is no essential difference between what is produced by nature and by man in his thinking. In order to find a methodological correlate to Bruno’s metaphysical concept of nature, the thesis brings forth and elaborates on the notion of “philology of nature”, a concept that has only a few occurrences in previous literature. In the thesis, philology of nature designates both a method and a perspective, and examples of nature philological procedures are ’analogy’ and ’morphology’. These procedures make it possible to study the hylozoic and pantheistic aesthetics on its own premises. The thesis consists of two separate but thematically connected investigations. First, of Bruno’s hylozoic aesthetics, that is, an aesthetics that is based on the idea of all matter as living, and second, of the afterlife of hylozoic aesthetics, primarily from German idealism onwards, with a focus on Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling, Gustav Theodor Fechner, Jakob Johann von Uexküll and Adolf Portmann. This is followed by a chapter that relates the results of these investigations to the most relevant contemporary theories focusing on nature: anthropology, morphological philosophies of nature and evolutionary aesthetics. Finally, the thesis argues that the excavation of a hylozoic aesthetic vein operative within the Western aesthetic tradition, has the potential to challenge and undo the traditional boundaries between nature and art
The Odyssey of Human Spirit : Historiography of Philosophy in the Post-Kantian Age
No full textIn the 1790s, many post-Kantian German philosophers attempted to lay a new foundation for the historiography of philosophy. Earlier works on the topic, they argued, made out mere aggregates of disconnected sources and allowed for no understanding of the overarching, rule-bound nature of reason’s historical development. This error was to be amended by applying the insights of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, which the post-Kantians believed to offer a universally valid and unbiased method for approaching the philosophical thought of the past. I argue that this historiographic strain in post-Kantian thought is often misunderstood. It is frequently described from a presentist viewpoint that makes it appear as merely a tendentious apology for critical philosophy. In this dissertation, I approach post-Kantian historiography of philosophy in a different way, namely, by situating it in the historically specific situation in which it arose. First, I attempt to make sense of post-Kantian theories and practices of the history of philosophy by relating them to earlier traditions. Second, I trace the development of post-Kantian historiography during its most vigorous period until the time it started tobe challenged by other, new historical methods and ideals around the middle of the 19th century. A main result of my study is that the post-Kantians posited reason as such as the subject of the history of philosophy. This subject transcended both particular individual philosophers and particular schools of thought. To achieve this narrative of reason’s historical development, the post-Kantians established what I refer to as a “depth model”. The task of the historian was, in their view, to reach from the outer expression of historical philosophies to their rational essence, from their letter to their spirit. This ambition led to a number of new historiographical challenges. It forced the post-Kantians to reconsider the role of biographies in the history of philosophy, the geographical scope of this history, and the relation between history’s temporality and reason’s eternity. Throughout my examination, I account for all of these issues and how the post-Kantians attempted to resolve them. I claim that their approach in general can be described in terms of performative concept work, i.e., a use of concepts that was made possible by certain already-given frameworks of understanding, but that simultaneously transformed these frameworks and gave them a set of new meanings. Ultimately, I argue, the period led to a wholly new concept of “the history of philosophy” as such.Under 1790-talet efterfrågade många postkantianska tyska filosofer en ny grund för filosofihistorieskrivningen. Tidigare verk på ämnet utgjorde enligt deras uppfattning aggregat av osammanhängande källor som inte möjliggjorde någon förståelse för den övergripande regelbundenheten i förnuftets historiska utveckling. Denna brist kunde, ansåg de, rättas till med utgångspunkt i Kants Kritik av det rena förnuftet, som enligt postkantianerna erbjöd en universellt giltig och opartisk metod för att närma sig det filosofiska tänkandets förflutna. Jag hävdar att denna historiografiska tendens i det postkantianska tänkandet ofta misstolkats. Den beskrivs i regel ur ett presentistiskt perspektiv varigenom den framstår som en tendentiös apologi för den kritiska filosofin. I denna avhandling närmar jag mig den postkantianska filosofihistoriografin på ett annat sätt, nämligen genom att placera den i den historiskt specifika situation den uppstod. För det första eftersträvar jag att förstå postkantianernas filosofihistoriska teorier och praktiker genom att relatera dem till tidigare traditioner. För det andra spårar jag den postkantianska filosofihistoriografins utveckling genom dess mest intensiva period fram tills den började utmanas av andra, nya historiska metoder och ideal runt 1800-talets mitt. Ett centralt resultat är att postkantianerna uppställde förnuftet självt som filosofihistoriens subjekt, och detta subjekt överskred såväl individuella filosofer som enskilda skolor. Med ambitionen att teckna denna förnuftets historiska utveckling etablerade postkantianerna vad jag kallar en djupmodell. Historikerns uppgift var enligt deras uppfattning att nå från de historiska filosofiernas yttre uttryck till deras förnuftiga väsen, från deras bokstav till deras ande. Denna ambition ledde till en rad nya historiografiska utmaningar. Den tvingade postkantianerna att ompröva biografiernas roll i filosofihistorien, filosofihistoriens geografiska omfång och relationen mellan förnuftets evighet och historiens tidsbundenhet. I min undersökning redogör jag för alla dessa frågor och hur postkantianerna sökte lösa dem. Jag hävdar att deras tillvägagångssätt i allmänhet kan beskrivas i termer av ett performativt begreppsarbete, det vill säga en användning av begrepp som möjliggjordes av vissa redan givna meningssammanhang, men som samtidigt omvandlade dessa sammanhang. Ytterst hävdar jag att perioden gav upphov till ett helt nytt begrepp om filosofihistorien som sådan
Sumak Kawsay/Buen Vivir, a Flying River : A Decolonial Approach to Tinkuy and Social Justice
No full textThis chapter explores the Indigenous moral-philosophical conceptualization of Buen Vivir (Vivir Bien/ Sumak Kawsay/Suma Qamaña) as a decolonial framework for social justice and ecological harmony, rooted in Indigenous epistemologies from the Andes and Amazon. It emphasizes the term Tinkuy, representing encounters and confrontations among diverse knowledge systems, which underscores Indigenous resistance against colonial legacies. The authors analyze the constitutional recognition of Indigenous rights in Ecuador and Bolivia, positioning Buen Vivir as a response to capitalist development models. The chapter argues for a multidimensional understanding of Buen Vivir, integrating class/justice, culture/ethnicity/ontology/epistemology, and ecologism to address the complexities of Indigenous struggles. Through comparative analysis of Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives, the authors highlight the importance of ethnographic research in capturing diverse voices. The political implications of Buen Vivir are examined, revealing tensions between Indigenous movements and state policies, particularly regarding extractivism. The authors advocate for recognizing the duality of particularistic and universalistic goals within Indigenous movements, framing Buen Vivir as a floating and plural conceptualization, a "flying river" that adapts to local contexts while promoting social justice. Ultimately, the chapter calls for a holistic understanding of Buen Vivir that encompasses both cultural preservation and broader socio-economic justice, underscoring its relevance in contemporary struggles for ecological sustainability and equity
The king’s speeches : Decisions during the 1772 revolution in Sweden
No full textThis article investigates the mood and the atmospheres of the so-called Swedish Revolution in 1772, when King Gustav III carried through acoup d’état. Martin Heidegger’s elaborations of boredom in lectures held 1929-30 – a mood that to acertain extent is a parallel to the hesitation of both the Swedish king and the country during the crises which led to the revolution – and Tonino Griffero’s studies on atmosphere enable an affective elucidation of historical documents and eyewitness testimonies. The political decision taken in 1772 emerged from the mood of hesitation
The Debate Regarding the Swedish Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities : Politics, Postmodernism and the Purpose of a Museum
No full textIn September 2016, the journalist Ola Wong wrote an op-ed in the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, “The Government Is Turning the Museums into Propaganda Centers.” Wong claimed to have seen the change at the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities in Stockholm, arguing that it had shifted from intellectual position to “sensitiveness to shallow opinions in the media and politics.” The text started the debate that would continue for several years. The purpose of the article is to deconstruct the debate regarding the Swedish museums over the last eight years, paying a special attention to the debate between Wong and various representatives from Swedish museums. The analysis focuses on claims regarding the purpose of a museum made in the debate, using previous theoretical discussions on the topic. The study showed that the participants in the discussion were unable to agree on the nature of issue. This reminds of what Frida Beckman and Nora Hämäläinen call kultursidesmissförstånd, or a “feuilletonistic misunderstanding,” where the participants never agree on common ground, misinterpret and misunderstand each other. Moreover, they disagree on situation in question and hold incompatible views.
Gröna rutter i en grå stad : Hållbarhet i Stockholms sightseeing
No full textThis study explores how sightseeing companies in Stockholm approach sustainability, with a particular focus on environmental practices. While sustainability is becoming an increasingly important issue in tourism, little research has examined how small and medium-sized urban operators apply sustainability principles in practice. Through a qualitative multi-case study, the thesis investigates four sightseeing companies using semi-structured interviews, document analysis and 23 short field interviews with tourists. The analysis is guided by three theoretical frameworks: the Triple Bottom Line (TBL), stakeholder theory, and legitimacy theory. Findings show that companies differ significantly in their environmental strategies and how they communicate their sustainability efforts. Some, like Sightseeing Ride, use sustainability as a core part of their brand, while others, such as Red Sightseeing and Ocean Bus, show limited external communication despite taking some internal actions. Strömma, the most established operator, presents a structured and transparent approach. The study also reveals that public actors and tourists play a key role in shaping companies’ priorities, although expectations from these stakeholders are not always aligned. Furthermore, tourists’ awareness and perception of sustainability messaging vary widely. The results highlight a gap between companies’ internal actions and their external communication, and suggest that clearer, more integrated sustainability narratives may strengthen both credibility and competitiveness in a rapidly evolving urban tourism landscape.
