Just recently Amazon announced that it will no longer use ‘no-checkout’ payment – a system where AI would supposedly monitor and tally up whatever you were removing from the shelves – because it wasn’t working as planned. What had been billed as a technological AI-fuelled revolution in retail was, supposedly, dependent on cheap human labour based in India watching security camera footage.[1] Such stories are increasingly common, functioning as urban myths that remind us of an alternate reality behind the utopian allure of techno-hype. But going beyond the question of whether AI is driven by micro-processors or underpaid agency workers, how much of what our politicians and business leaders call ‘AI’ is really AI?

This comparative case study of the Freedom Movement in Sweden and the Freedom Convoy in Canada provides insights into the processes of transnationalization involved in the (re)production of far-right narratives around the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on the online media of these protest movements we explore the extent to which the political and cultural context shaped far-right meta narratives and more universal concerns around the pandemic. The study finds significant similarities in how protest narratives in the two countries were constructed and appropriated to intersect with far-right extremism and anti-establishment ideas but also that these narratives were repurposed to make sense in two national contexts characterized by stark differences in the level of restrictions imposed and curtailment of civic rights. Unpacking the local/global intricacies of these narratives helps us understand the ubiquity of contemporary anti-government and anti-establishment discourse propelled by the far-right but also its malleability and flexibility in terms of how it is made to fit different political contexts and scenarios across liberal democracies. 

The purpose of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of existing knowledge on contemporary extremist narratives circulating online in three countries across Europe; Austria, Bulgaria and Sweden. To achieve this, the report draws on a review of an extensive body of previous research and secondary data sources, pursuing two primary objectives: firstly, it maps what kind of extremist narratives are on offer across Europe today, and second, it identifies where across the digital mainstream, these are currently in circulation.

Upon reviewing the available evidence, two key topics emerge as central to the proliferation of extremist narratives in Europe. First, extremist narratives continue to predominantly emerge around anti-migration ideas and sentiments. Contemporary anti-immigration narratives echo familiar themes and long-standing ideas that European societies are collapsing under the weight of enforced multiculturalism and/or that European/white populations are being replaced by immigrant communities and in particular Muslim “invaders”.  Such anti-immigration narratives, which continue to take on new forms and tap into shifting conspiratorial beliefs and falsehoods, circulate openly today and in mainstream media.

Second, the Covid19 pandemic gave rise to a host of anti-establishment narratives some of which veered towards illiberal and anti-democratic ideas and behaviours. These narratives peddled widely circulated conspiracy theories suggesting that a malevolent global elite exploited or orchestrated the pandemic to dismantle European societies, infringe upon civil liberties and harm populations through the vaccination programs.  Anti-establishment narratives sparked during the pandemic continue to circulate and take on new forms in online spaces today.

Beyond the key topics outlined by OppAttune - vaccination, migration, silent narratives and protectionism - this report provides evidence that climate change and gender are emerging as key topics around which new extremist narratives and conspiracy theories tend to gravitate in Europe today.

In its efforts to identify the key online spaces in which extremist narratives occur, the report finds that these move across a wide range of online spaces ranging from well-known global social media platforms to more fringe and country-specific sites operating at the margins of the digital mainstream. These range from alternative news sites, websites and blogs to fringe video sharing platforms such as Rumble, BitChute, Odysee; the online messaging services Telegram, Discord and Viber; discussion forums like Reddit and mainstream social media platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram. Some of the online platforms identified are specific to the national contexts. In the Swedish landscape of online media discussion forums Flashback Forum and Familjeliv along with SwebbTube emerge as prominent conduits for extremist narratives and divisive discourse. Specific to the context of Bulgaria are Spodeli, Kaldata, Dir and BG-Mamma, all of which are online forums affording anonymous and relatively unmoderated discussions.

In addition, focusing on the transnational and multi-language forum Reddit, the report provides preliminary analytical insights into the dynamics of online discussions on migration among ordinary citizens in the three countries. These empirical insights suggest that extremist narratives proliferate across the three subreddits and provide ample evidence of the increasing penetration of exclusionary and stigmatising discourse into the digital mainstream. 

The term ‘artificial intelligence’ has arguably come to function in political discourse as, what Laclau called, an ‘empty signifier’. This article traces the shifting political discourse on AI within three key institutions of global governance–OHCHR, WHO, and UNESCO–and, in so doing, highlights the role of ‘crisis’ moments in justifying a series of pivotal re-articulations. Most important has been the attachment of AI to the narrative around digital automation in human healthcare. Greatly enabled by the societal context of the pandemic, all three institutions have moved from being critical of the unequal power relations in the economy of AI to, today, reframing themselves primarily as facilitators tasked with helping to ensure the application of AI technologies. The analysis identifies a shift in which human health and healthcare is framed as in a ‘crisis’ to which AI technology is presented as the remedy. The article argues the need to trace these discursive shifts as a means by which to understand, monitor, and where necessary also hold to account these changes in the governance of AI in society.

The authors take on a problem that many departments in Sweden, not least in the humanities, are dealing with right now: language. They show how social status in academia is decoupled from linguistic integration, at least if we understand status in terms of academic titles. Feelings of insufficiency and incompleteness are, however, prevalent, even among those whose Swedish proficiency is objectively very high. The authors underline the value of language, how competence in English, Swedish, and other languages is crucial for academics’ possibilities to work and build careers.

On his fourteenth journey to South Africa, Oscar Hemer repeatedly comes across the casual expression “going to the dogs” and starts reflecting on dogs and other companion species with regards to his ongoing exploration of “speculative anthropology”. When does something go to the dogs? Is there a correlation between contaminated diversity and decline? Even though contamination may appear to be a hopeless motto for political mobilisation at present, he arrives at the conclusion that it is the only option for a country—and a planet—increasingly pressured by essentialisms of multiple varieties that all counteract the fine balance of everyday conviviality.

The chronological travel account from March 2022 is juxtaposed with a parallel text, written before and after (October in Berlin), which from a slightly altered perspective reflects on the process and the form of the “Conviviality and Contamination” project.

This special issue of PARSE Journal is the result of a collaborative project, with “conviviality” and “contamination” as inspirational but not delimiting concepts. It has been carried out by an international group of twelve artists and academics, writers and researchers, who came together in the autumn of 2022 to generate the body of work presented in the volume.

The project began with transversal forms of writing as its main focus, with the original cohort of contributors all active at the interface of literary and academic writing. However, as the process developed and more participants were drawn into the project, sound emerged as a secondary focus and an alternative angle from which to approach the themes of conviviality and contamination. Overall, the contributions perhaps represent the contributors' own “hot compost pile” of voices, art forms and perspectives.

More than a quarter of a century since Nelson Mandela became the country’s first democratically elected president, the racial categories of apartheid live on in South Africa. The proud vision of the “Rainbow Nation” is now being challenged by various forms of populism, with racial thinking as the common denominator. How can one advocate for non-racism and cosmopolitanism—in South Africa and the world—without being perceived as a defender of the privileges of the white minority? Oscar Hemer, Professor of the Arts at Malmö University, considers these questions in discussion with South African author colleagues Masande Ntshanga, Ivan Vladislavić and Bronwyn Law-Viljoen.

Extended abstract

This paper explores the influencer practices of an online network of individuals, extra-parliamentary groups, and alternative media on the far-right, promoting content ranging from mainstream conservatism and ethnopluralism all the way to overtly white supremacist ideas. These actors vary in their beliefs and values on the far-right spectrum, but unite in their opposition to feminism, social justice, left-wing politics and mainstream media creating a collaborative ecosystem around these issues that Lewis (2020) dubs the “alternative influence network.” This study identifies central nodes in and maps the composition of the alternative influence network (AIN) on YouTube distinct to the context of Sweden. We ask: How are YouTube channels networked to form an AIN connecting the extra-parliamentarian far-right in Sweden? To what extent does the extra-parliamentarian far-right in Sweden connect across individual influencers, groups/organisations and alternative far-right news media?  How do actors in the network engage in influencers practices combining commercial (self-)branding strategies, marketing and monetization schemes with political propaganda techniques?   

The network analysis is based on a sample of YouTube channels which includes a combination of far-right groups (9), individual far-right influencers (32), and hyper-partisan/far-right alternative news media (11). In a first analytical step, drawing on the results of a network analysis of videos (n=8531), we show how these actors are connected by an interlocking series of connective practices including guest appearances on each other’s YouTube channels as well as a variety of referencing- and hyperlinking practices. We then take a qualitative case study approach to examine the influencer practices of central nodes in the network to provide an in-depth examination of the various ways political influencers on the far-right intersperse business strategies with political propagation techniques.  

The analysis demonstrates how, much like online influencers in any other field, these actors conform to the market logics of attentional economy of the platform society (Van Djick Poell and de Waahl 2018). We may understand these “Political influencers” as content creators repurposing influencer marketing techniques to impart ideological ideas to their audiences (Lewis 2018). Similar to other creators aiming to reach influencer status in the digital sphere, they attempt to self-brand as micro celebrities and build an online following, encouraging listeners to subscribe to their channels, like their content, and engage with it and the creators via the comment field. Creating deeply intimate connections with their followers enables AIN actors to promote far right ideas and conspiracy theories, in ways very similar to how a fashion influencer will promote their clothing style or brand. To boost engagement, AIN actors address timely and controversial events from a unique angle – in their case, often with a shocking/conspiratorial element and strategic use of controversy. This distinctiveness in approach is arguably what attracts their increasingly large follower base, in addition to strategically mixing in misinformation and disinformation which are found to engage with their novelty element, and hence possess a larger spreadability potential than factual information (Vosoughi et al. 2018). However, due to the added challenge of being forced to “dance around” YouTube policies and carefully toe the lines of legality and the platform’s Community Guidelines, AIN creators are required to be creative in their linking and reference practices if they want to stay on the platform.

A variety of different marketing and promotion techniques are at work just as the network of channels provide a window onto the broader commercial market of far-right merchandise in Sweden today. Although mostly unaffiliated with formal groups, actors in the so called “Swedish YouTube family” often stream wearing different forms of merchandise such as caps with AfS’ logo, t-shirts from Medborgerlig Samling or DFS and other attires produced and sold by actors on the extra parliamentarian far-right in Sweden today. Some channel hosts offer others in the network the opportunity to promote their products, events or news (e.g., on upcoming protests) in return for a fee. Others again use their channels as a platform for advertising specific products - anything from self-defense courses and pepper spray to protein powder and fruit juice – and promote brands or companies that either sponsor the channel or that the actors themselves are directly involved in.   

Strax före jul får syskonen Beyonce och Lasse ett överraskande sms: ”Nu har pappa och jag bestämt att vi reser bort några veckor. Ni är välkomna att bo i Sandäng medan vi är borta. Det finns mat i kylen. Puss. Mamma”.

Åtta månader senare är Leo och Tania fortfarande spårlöst försvunna. Men alla löpande räkningar betalas per autogiro, till och med ICA-kortet fylls på automatiskt varje månad. Lasse är kvar i huset på Österlen efter att ha svultit sig genom en snövinter som lokalt skördade fler liv än pandemin. Beyonce, hans räddare i nöden, kommer nu tillbaka från Christiania och flyttar in med sin katt i föräldrarnas sovrum. 

Familj är en roman om den i grunden slumpmässiga fusion av två individers gener, förhoppningar och minnen som i sin tur är produkter av slumpmässiga kombinationer av ärvda och förvärvade egenskaper och erfarenheter i två eller tre led – så länge det levande minnet varar. Ramhandlingen utspelar sig pandemiåret 2020 på Österlen, men berättelsen sträcker sig över tre generationer och tre kontinenter till bland annat sjuttiotalets Tanzania och den finska krigsvintern 1939-40.

This empirical chapter examines the experience of reporting on, and advocating around, the #MeToo movement 2.0 in Denmark and Sweden, two Scandinavian countries that are ranked among the most gender-equal societies in the world. The #MeToo debates developed in different directions in the two countries, as well as over different time trajectories since its revitalization in 2017. Using the metaphor of “voice(s),” what voices were heard or silenced in the years following the initial #MeToo debate? How were the whys and hows of reporting on sexual violence renegotiated in the post-#MeToo era? We use a mixed methods approach that draws on quantitative and qualitative content analysis; in-depth interviews with journalists, nongovernmental organizations, and activists in both countries (n = 20); participant observations from #MeToo events; and our own participation as expert sources in the coverage of the development of #MeToo in Denmark and Sweden. The study shows how the different patterns of silencing and speaking up illustrate a broader renegotiation of boundaries along two axes. The first axis relates to objectivity/subjectivity in journalistic practices, and the second axis links to the structural/individual foci in the reporting on issues related to sexual violence. However, these renegotiations are highly contextual and intertwined with the political context and civil societal structures in Denmark and Sweden.

This article examines civil society uses of Twitter to promote the climate crisis as an issue in the 2019 national election campaign in Denmark. Theoretically, we draw on Cammaerts’s notion of the mediation opportunity structure and Wright, Nyberg, De Cock, and Whiteman’s notion of climate imaginaries. Methodologically, we draw on Bennett and Segerberg’s approach to studying networked interactions on Twitter. Our findings show that neither the legacy press nor MP candidates used climate-related hashtags promoted by civil society actors. MP candidates did frequently use climate-related hashtags. Nonetheless, these were mainly center-left candidates who mostly called for climate action to be propelled by green growth and technological solutions, while civil society actors called for climate action to be propelled by solidarity and systemic change. We discuss how these articulations of the climate crisis have implications for climate imaginaries and, ultimately, possibilities to act.

This paper is based on a case study of the online media practices of the neo-Nazi organisation, the Nordic Resistance Movement, conducted in the context of an ongoing project on contemporary forms of violent extremism in Sweden. Focusing on the activities of female “online influencers”, the paper explores the contradictory discourses around the role of women as “race warriors” and “Nordic wives” as this is articulated both by the women in the organisation themselves and in the online universe of the organisation more generally. On the one hand, women’s positions are determined and heavily policed by men in an organisation that openly propagates women’s subordination to men and their natural and biological role in the realm of homemaking. On the other, the discourses produced by these women are saturated by ideas of female empowerment, sisterhood, emancipation and the importance of women in the reproduction of the white race. The content analysis of online propaganda produced by female activists about the role of women positions these contradictory pulls of “White femininity” inherent to the white supremacist movements at the current political juncture in which the extreme right is growing and actively looking to recruit women as part of a broader strategy to “mainstream” in Sweden and mobilise internationally.

This article contributes to the further understanding of how (service) design can engage with organisational change. It does so by applying translation theory and building on the insights from a 7-year-long collaboration with a public agency, during which three attempts at introducing new ways of working were carried out. Translation theory understands organisational change as an intentional and contingent process through which ideas are materialised in possible translation objects that intervene in organisational practices, structures, and assumptions. The longitudinal study highlights how to bring about change, translation processes, and the objects needed to balance the reproduction and challenging of existing practices, structures, and assumptions within organisations. Moreover, translation processes interact with existing power dynamics, which cause reactions to change interventions by, among other things, influencing the legitimacy and mandate of the processes. Therefore, in addition to the mobilisation of internal organisational knowledge, (service) design that engages with organisational change needs to be aware of both power dynamics and to develop approaches and sensibilities to be able to listen and respond to the consequences that interventions in these dynamics might create. 

JORGE LUIS BORGES (1899–1986) är en av nittonhundratalets mest ikoniska förfat­tare. Hans berömmelse vilar både på den ny skapande litteratur han producerade under mer än ett halvt sekel och på mytologin kring hans liv: han var den unga avantgardisten, den utvalde huvudbibliotekarien vid nationalbib­lioteket i Buenos Aires, den stridbare Peron­-motståndaren som gjorde mer än ett politiskt snedsteg och, på ålderns höst, den blinde bar­den som fostrade en ny generation författare.

I nio essäer djupdyker Borgeskännaren Oscar Hemer i Borges liv och författarskap utifrån lika många perspektiv, till exempel kärle­ken till hemstaden Buenos Aires, de ideliga förälskelserna, fascinationen för den judiska mystiken och förhållandet till Sverige och Nobelpriset.

Idén till boken föddes under arbetet med de tre stora volymer med Jorge Luis Borges verk som Tranan givit ut under de senaste åren. Oscar Hemer — som varit en av redaktörerna och översättarna — började skriva en bok som kan ackompanjera läsningen av Borges egna texter, skriven i en på samma gång lärd och personlig stil.Boken kan ses som en pendang till de tre Borges-volymerna och fungerar både som fördjupning och läsguide, samtidigt som essäerna också är lättillgängliga och allmänbildande för den vanliga läsaren.

This paper traces the recent turn to humour, irony and ambiguity embodied in the adaptation of memes into the repertoire of online propaganda of the militant neo-Nazi group the Nordic Resistance Movement; in a process, we dub the ‘memefication’ of white supremacism. Drawing on a combination of quantitative visual content analysis (VCA) and in-depth visual analysis focused on iconography and symbolism, we explore all memes (N = 634) created and circulated by the group around the 2018 general elections in the country. The analysis proceeds in two steps: First, we present the results of the VCA in which we identified five thematic categories of memes crafting white supremacy, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny and anti-Semitic ideas onto esoteric and popular culture iconography then to map these across a matrix of content and form. We then proceed to the analysis of the cluster of memes coded as violent to explore the iconography and symbolism used to promote violence and death threats and render them banal. We draw on a range of recent scholarship on the entanglement of memes in the rise of the far- right and engage critical perspectives on the necropower of fascism to explore the interplay between ambiguous, playful and jokey imagery on the one hand and the murder fantasies and serious threat of white supremacist violence at the heart of neo- Nazi ideology, on the other.

I projektet Medborgardeltagandets effekter har vi med Demokratikuben som analysverktyg kartlagt hur medborgardialoger i svensk kommunal samhällsplanering organiseras för att tillföra perspektiv på hur medborgardialoger organiseras och hur det kan utvecklas. I denna artikel ska Demokratikuben tillämpas för att skapa en djupare förståelse för medborgardialoger som minipubliker och som politiska rum.

Kriser fungerar som formativa politiska moment som kan förvärra ellerminska rådande ojämlikheter. Vi vet att covid-19-pandemins direkta ochindirekta konsekvenser drabbar utsatta grupper mest. Påföljande politiska kriser riskerar att ytterligare förstärka segregationens ojämlikheter genomatt ”utsatta områden” pekas ut som syndabockar för olika samhällsproblem. Även om det är angeläget med politik mot segregation, är det viktigt attgenomlysa olika selektiva politiska åtgärder riktade mot ”utsatta områden”eftersom de riskerar att förvärra redan utsatta gruppers levnadsvillkor.

Medborgardeltagandets förespråkare har goda skäl för sina argument, men det har också dess kritiker. Å ena sidan hävdar optimisterna att spridningen och den ökade tillämpningen av olika tekniker för dialog och samverkan med medborgare är ett tecken på faktiska behov att stärka demokratisk legitimitet. Det inbjudna medborgardeltagandet framstår inte alltid som en fullmogen praktik men utgångspunkten är att mer medborgardeltagande är ett bättre alternativ än mindre deltagande. Även om inte varje enskilt initiativ uppfyller samtliga deltagandedemokratiska utfästelser bidrar experimenterande alltjämt till ökad jämlikhet, bättre problemlösningsförmåga och legitimitet på sikt. Olika initiativ och experiment formar nät av ”deliberativa system” där brister i vissa forum kan kompenseras av förtjänster i andra. Varje enskilt forum som öppnas för deltagande behöver därför inte förverkliga alla löften och nyttor, utan det viktiga är att utveckla mer porösa och förtroliga relationer mellan offentligt beslutsfattande och civilt samhälle över tid.Kritikerna hävdar å andra sidan att den globala spridningen av tekniker för inbjudet medborgardeltagande är tvetydig och ifrågasätter dess demokratiserande potential. Den representativa demokratins väktare, vanligtvis bekymrade över relationen mellan väljare och valda, konkurrensvillkoren mellan partierna, och andra spänningar i systemet, ser inbjudet deltagande som ett hotfullt inslag. Det politiska systemet som lanserar dessa initiativ är själv förvånansvärt kritiskt. Folkrörelseforskare, också skeptiska, menar att det inbjudna deltagandet sällan inriktar sig på att hantera eller förhandla artikulerade konflikter i det civila samhället. Forskare varnar för ’teknokratiseringen’ av deltagandet och pekar på att det framväxten av en kommersiell marknad för tekniker och aktörer – mötesförvaltare, leverantörer av digitala plattformar, samtalsaktivister med mera. Dessa blir ett nytt slags medium mellan folket och dess företrädare, med oklara ansvarsförbindelser och motiv. Även om tekniker och aktörer säkert kan besjälas av demokratiserande ambitioner står kommersiella motiv i förgrunden. Andra kritiker uppfattar innovationer för demokrati på det hela taget som ett spel för gallerierna och som symptom på avvecklande av demokratiska principer. Väcker nu inte denna polarisering nyfikenhet kring vad det är som sker i inbjudna rum för deltagande? Hur är de organiserade, vad är det för samtal som förs, vilka deltar, fattas några beslut, vem vinner och med vilka konsekvenser för politik och samhälle? Vad är egentligen en ’medborgardialog’? I denna artikel hävdar jag att en medborgardialog är en slags ”minipublik” – ett litet utsnitt av allmänheten som formar en tillfällig offentlighet, ett mikrokosmos för politik.

This paper is based on a case study of the media narratives of the neo-Nazi organisation the Nordic Resistance Movement(NRM) which situates this particular actor within the broader landscape of violent extremism in Sweden today.[i] The empirical data consists of a strategic sample of the organisation’s online content (including web-TV, feature articles, and podcasts) all produced by and for members of the NRM and all presented as ‘culture’ and categorised under labels such as ’entertainment’, ‘pleasure’, ‘humour’ and ‘satire’[ii]. Drawing on a qualitative content analysis informed by the conceptual horizon of narrative inquiry, the paper examines various cultural expressions of neo-Nazi ideology in the organisation’s extensive repertoire of online media. Theoretically, it turns to the work of Miller-Idriss (2018) and Teitelbaum (2018) to bring centre stage the role of popular culture and entertainment in the construction of a meaningful narrative of community and belonging built around neo-Nazism in Sweden today. The paper demonstrates how the organisation with their efforts to boost the culture and entertainment-end of their media repertoire seek to add to the ordinariness and normalcy of neo-Nazi discourse and the banalisation and defusing of its underlying ideologies. Further, the analysis of the convergence between different genres, styles and content into new borderline discourses illustrate how contemporary extreme right movements are complicating the traditional binaries with which scholars have operated such as fascist versus liberal, totalitarian versus democratic and mainstream versus extremist.

This article is based on a case study of the online media practices of the militant neo-Nazi organization the Nordic Resistance Movement, currently the biggest and most active extreme-right actor in Scandinavia. I trace a recent turn to humor, irony, and ambiguity in their online communication and the increasing adaptation of stylistic strategies and visual aesthetics of the Alt-Right inspired by online communities such as 4chan, 8chan, Reddit, and Imgur. Drawing on a visual content analysis of memes (N = 634) created and circulated by the organization, the analysis explores the place of humor, irony, and ambiguity across these cultural expressions of neo-Nazism and how ideas, symbols, and layers of meaning travel back and forth between neo-Nazi and Alt-right groups within Sweden today. 

This article presents the results of a study examining the self-perceived roles of journalists covering the #MeToo movement in Denmark and Sweden. Drawing on qualitative interviews with journalists, editors and activists (N = 20) and participant observation at various #MeToo events, we examine the professional journalism cultures underpinning differences in the coverage and the broader public debate spurred by the movement in the two countries. The analysis is informed by the theoretical framework of role performance [Mellado, C. 2015. “Professional Roles in News Content: Six Dimensions of Journalistic Role Performance”. Journalism Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/1461670X.2014.922276; Mellado, C., L. Hellmueller, and W. Donsbach. 2016. Journalistic Role Performance Concepts, Contexts, and Methods. Routledge) in combination with Tuchman’s (1972. “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual”. American Journal of Sociology 77 (4): 660–679) seminal work on “Objectivity as Strategic Ritual”. This combined framework enables an analysis of how journalists negotiate ideals of objective reporting and activist imperatives when covering the movement and issues of gender (in)equality more broadly. Our study shows that journalists, to a varying degree, felt torn between ideals of impartiality and objectivity and ideals of active reporting oriented towards action and problem-solving but that these experiences differed between the two countries and between newsrooms. We discuss these findings in light of differences in the political climates around issues related to gender in the two countries and partially diverging normative ideals and professional journalistic cultures regarding the extent to which journalism and activism can and should be combined.

This paper seeks to reconcile performative theorizing, which captures the place of systems of thought on foreign policy practice, and broader sociological approaches that link networks and institutions across space, especially as they relate to the global economy. Once developed, the theory, which is termed here ‘spatial performativity’, is applied to recent efforts to promote industrialization through the development of special economic zones in Ethiopia. In doing so, attention is drawn to a burgeoning area of African and Chinese foreign policy and economic cooperation.

This chapter discusses three concepts—cosmopolitanism, conviviality and creolisation—that, although emanating from diverse historical and academic contexts, are clearly interrelated and, arguably, interdependent. Ivan Illich (Tools for Conviviality, New York: Perennial Library, 1973) envisioned a post-industrial convivial society of “autonomous individuals and primary groups” which resembles present-day manifestations of ‘convivialism’. Paul Gilroy (After Empire: Melancholia or Convivial Culture? London: Routledge, 2004) refashioned conviviality as a substitute for cosmopolitanism, denoting an ability to be ‘at ease’ in contexts of diversity. Rather than replacing one concept with the other, this chapter explores the interconnections between them. The urgency of today’s global predicament is a recurring reason to bring them in dialogue. From the perspective of Communication for Development, the as yet little explored axis between conviviality and creolisation is potentially the most interesting one.

An increasingly organized culture of hate is flourishing in today’s online spaces, posing a serious challenge for democratic societies. Our study seeks to unravel the work-ings of online hate on popular social media and assess the practices, potentialities, and limitations of organized counterspeech to stymie the spread of hate online. This article is based on a case study of an organized “troll army” of online hate speech in Germany, Re-conquista Germanica, and the counterspeech initiative Reconquista Internet. Conducting a qualitative content analysis, we first unpack the strategies and stated intentions behind organized hate speech and counterspeech groups as articulated in their internal strategic documents. We then explore how and to what extent such strategies take shape in online media practices, focusing on the interplay between users spreading hate and users counter-speaking in the comment sections of German news articles on Facebook. The analysis draws on a multi-dimensional framework for studying social media engagement (Uldam & Kaun, 2019) with a focus on practices and discourses and turns to Mouffe’s (2005) con-cepts of political antagonism and agonism to operationalize and deepen the discursive di-mension. The study shows that the interactions between the two opposing camps are high-ly moralized, reflecting a post-political antagonistic battle between “good” and “evil” and showing limited signs of the potentials of counterspeech to foster productive agonism. The empirical data indicates that despite the promising intentions of rule-guided counter-speech, the counter efforts identified and scrutinized in this study predominantly fail to adhere to civic and moral standards and thus only spur on the destructive dynamics of digital hate culture.

Background: The project “Precision Health and Everyday Democracy” (PHED) is a transdisciplinary partnership that combines a diverse range of perspectives necessary for understanding the increasingly complex societal role played by modern health care and medical research. The term “precision health” is being increasingly used to express the need for greater awareness of environmental and genomic characteristics that may lead to divergent health outcomes between different groups within a population. Enhancing awareness of diversity has parallels with calls for “health democracy” and greater patient-public participation within health care and medical research. Approaching health care in this way goes beyond a narrow focus on the societal determinants of health, since it requires considering health as a deliberative space, which occurs often at the banal or everyday level. As an initial empirical focus, PHED is directed toward the health needs of marginalized migrants (including refugees and asylum seekers, as well as migrants with temporary residency, often involving a legally or economically precarious situation) as vulnerable groups that are often overlooked by health care. Developing new transdisciplinary knowledge on these groups provides the potential to enhance their wellbeing and benefit the wider society through challenging the exclusions of these groups that create pockets of extreme ill-health, which, as we see with COVID-19, should be better understood as “acts of self-harm” for the wider negative impact on humanity.

Objective: We aim to establish and identify precision health strategies, as well as promote equal access to quality health care, drawing upon knowledge gained from studying the health care of marginalized migrants.

Methods: The project is based in Sweden at Malmö and Lund Universities. At the outset, the network activities do not require ethical approval where they will not involve data collection, since the purpose of PHED is to strengthen international research contacts, establish new research within precision strategies, and construct educational research activities for junior colleagues within academia. However, whenever new research is funded and started, ethical approval for that specific data collection will be sought.

Results: The PHED project has been funded from January 1, 2019. Results of the transdisciplinary collaboration will be disseminated via a series of international conferences, workshops, and web-based materials. To ensure the network project advances toward applied research, a major goal of dissemination is to produce tools for applied research, including information to enhance health accessibility for vulnerable communities, such as marginalized migrant populations in Sweden.

Conclusions: There is a need to identify tools to enable the prevention and treatment of a wide spectrum of health-related outcomes and their link to social as well as environmental issues. There is also a need to identify and investigate barriers to precision health based on democratic principles.

Refugees are already a vulnerable group in society and are in a stressful situation due to their often uncertain legal status in seeking asylum and integration in the new society after migration. Refugees are, in general, at greater risk of poor health outcomes when contracting Covid-19, exacerbated by poor living conditions and difficulties in accessing healthcare. The longer-term social consequences of the pandemic also disproportionately impact refugees, including social isolation, unemployment and difficulties to obtain correct health information. The aim of this paper is to review the social and health consequences that Covid-19 has brought to the refugees residing in Sweden. This needs to be emphasized in order to mitigate against these likely consequences and improve the overall well-being among such a highly vulnerable group in society. As Covid-19 demonstrates, human health needs to be understood holistically, meaning that the vulnerability of any individuals, or even nations, is a vulnerability for the whole population requiring urgent action. 

Keywords: Covid-19, refugees, social situation, health information

Conviviality has lately become a catchword not only in academia but also among political activists. This open access book discusses conviviality in relation to the adjoining concepts cosmopolitanism and creolisation. The urgency of today’s global predicament is not only an argument for the revival of all three concepts, but also a reason to bring them into dialogue. Ivan Illich envisioned a post-industrial convivial society of ‘autonomous individuals and primary groups’ (Illich 1973), which resembles present-day manifestations of ‘convivialism’. Paul Gilroy refashioned conviviality as a substitute for cosmopolitanism, denoting an ability to be ‘at ease’ in contexts of diversity (Gilroy 2004). Rather than replacing one concept with the other, the fourteen contributors to this book seek to explore the interconnections – commonalities and differences – between them, suggesting that creolisation is a necessary complement to the already-intertwined concepts of conviviality and cosmopolitanism. Although this volume takes northern Europe as its focus, the contributors take care to put each situation in historical and global contexts in the interests of moving beyond the binary thinking that prevails in terms of methodologies, analytical concepts, and political implementations.

During the 1992–95 war, the vast majority of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina relied on international humanitarian assistance for survival. Material goods sent as humanitarian aid were crucial to the civilians trapped in Sara-jevo under siege. This chapter presents what some of the residents remember and how they talk about it two decades later. The analysis pursues how the act of narration of a particular person–object interaction activates corporeal memories and establishes affective links – resonances in the body and mind – between then (when the experience was acquired) and now (when one narrates it), between what the research participants talked about (their humanitarian aid-related experiences), and how they talked about it (affects that were revived in the course of narration). The vivid descriptions of sensual experiences concerning humanitarian aid – the tastes and smells of food and feel of clothing items received from distant donors – witness to the lingering sensual effects those experiences still have today.

Abstract  The article contributes to our understanding of how trade is politicized and how civil society activists manage the tensions between multiple collective action frames in a complex political context. When viewed alongside the Brexit referendum and Trump’s US Presidency, it is easy to see the 2013–2016 campaign against a European Union–US Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership as a further example of an apparently growing populist ‘nationalism.’ Yet, in the European context—where campaigning was most visible—there was in fact extensive reliance on, and re-iteration of, a transnational ‘European’ frame, with antecedents in the 1999–2006 campaign against General Agreement on Trade in Services negotiations. As the article argues, transnational campaigning operates within a nexus of multiple, and sometimes conflicting, geographic frames. In both campaigns discussed here, activists typically engaged with the wider public via the national context and, sometimes, with allusions to ‘national autonomy.’ However, their activism was dependent upon a frame espousing ‘transnational solidarity.’ Developed over time, this structured their transnational relations with other groups and more full-time activists.

Denne artikel præsenterer en undersøgelse af mediedækningen af #MeToo-bevægelsen inabolandene Danmark og Sverige. En komparativ indholdsanalyse viser forskelle i genrer,kilder og temaer på tværs af de to lande. Analysen viser endvidere, at dækningen overvejendeplacerede #MeToo inden for en individuel handlingsramme, der fremstiller seksuelle overgrebsom et personlig snarere end samfundsmæssigt problem i begge lande. Imidlertid var denindivid-orienterede handlings-frame og en de-legitimerende frame fokuseret på kritik af#MeToo mere udbredt i den danske dækning. En framing-analyse viste ydermere, at deroverordnet kunne observeres fire forskellige nyhedsframes i dækningen: #MeToo som 1)en online kampagne, der forbinder individer i et netværk af personlige vidnesbyrd, 2) en delaf en bredere og langvarig historisk social bevægelse for ligestilling mellem kønnene 3) enunødvendig kampagne drevet af politisk korrektheds-kultur og til sidst 4) en heksejagt og enfolkedomstol. Artiklen diskuterer disse resultater i relation til de politiske og kulturelle forholdpå køn- og ligestillingsområdet i de to lande.

This book is an experimental interrogation in the crossroads of literature and anthropology (fiction and ethnography). “Southern Crossings” refers to travels in the Global South, i. e. India and, primarily, South Africa, whereas “contaminations” invokes a supposed tradition of genre transgression and cross-over writing. The form aims at being congenial with the subject: an exploration of purity vs. impurity, or racialisation vs. creolisation, and a reflection on identity and boundaries, personal and collective. Close readings of Mary Douglas (Purity and Danger), Edouard Glissant (Poetics of Relation) and others (Appadurai, Coetzee, Zimitri Erasmus) are interfoliated with a fictional autoethnography in third person (and third gender), spanning from 2007 to 2018. Many anthropologists have tried literary or journalistic forms of expression, but this book is an unusual, if not unique, approach to anthropology from the literary writer’s position. It ambitiously competes on both literary and academic merits.

The introductory chapter discusses conviviality in relation to the adjoining concepts cosmopolitanism and creolisation. Inspired by the Spanish term convivencia, Ivan Illich envisioned a post-industrial convivial society of “autonomous individuals and primary groups” (Illich 1973), which resembles present-day manifestations of “convivialism”. Paul Gilroy refashioned conviviality as a substitute for cosmopolitanism, denoting an ability to be ‘at ease’ in contexts of diversity (Gilroy 2004). Rather than replacing one concept with the other, this book seeks to explore the interconnections—commonalities and differences—between them. The urgency of today’s global predicament is the recurring argument in the discussion of all three concepts, and a further reason to bring them in dialogue. Whereas conviviality and cosmopolitanism are already tightly intertwined, creolisation is arguably a necessary complement to the other two.

This chapter assumes that the globally resurging nationalism, identity politics and xenophobia may be explicated by the conceptual dichotomy Purity-Impurity. South Africa is an especially apt case for such analysis. Twenty-five years after the transition, its inhabitants are still divided according to the apartheid categories and very modest progress has been made in breaking former barriers and changing attitudes. Yet, whereas apartheid was one of the foremost applications of a “politics of purity”, the Western Cape has also historically been one of the epicentres of creolisation. By means of an experimental cross-genre (literary and academic) approach, the apartheid vision of “separate development” is here interrogated as suppressed creolisation. The chapter is an abbreviated excerpt from a forthcoming diptych on creolisation vs. racialisation in South Africa.

With the 2015 refugee migration and its aftermath as a main reference and focal point, this anthology uses Conviviality as a lens to examine the current challenges to democracy. Conviviality and the inter-related concepts Cosmopolitanism and Creolisation are assumed to provide tools for analysis as well as forms for “cross-cutting communication”. Originally introduced by Ivan Illich (1973), conviviality was re-launched and re-defined by Paul Gilroy (2004) against a backdrop of social, racial and religious tensions in post-imperial Britain, denoting an ability to be at ease in the presence of diversity without restaging communitarian conceptions of ethnic and racial difference, and has subsequently been refined to provide “an analytical tool to ask and explore in what ways, and under what conditions, people constructively create modes of togetherness” (Nowicka & Vertovec 2014: 2). In Gilroy’s understanding conviviality was a substitute for cosmopolitanism, which in his view had been hijacked as a pretext for Western “supposedly benign imperialism” in the aftermath of 9/11 and the war on terror (Gilroy 2004: 66). But rather than replacing one concept with the other, this anthology seeks to explore the interconnections – commonalities and differences – between cosmopolitanism and conviviality. Creolisation is the other supplementary concept, by constituting a valid alternative to conventional interpretations of cross-cultural contact and allowing agency and influence to hitherto marginal and subordinate cultures and peoples (Cohen and Toninato 2010).