In recent years, both private and public organizations across contexts have begun implementing AI technologies in their recruitment processes. This transition is typically justified by improved efficiency as well as more objective, performance-based ranking, and inclusive selection of job candidates. However, this rapid development has also raised concerns that the use of these emerging technologies will instead increase discrimination or enhance the already existing inequality. In the present study, we first develop the concept of meta-algorithmic judgment to understand how recruiting managers may respond to automation of the hiring process. Second, we draw on this concept in the empirical assessment of the actual consequences of this type of transition by drawing on two large and unique datasets on employment records and job applications from one of Sweden's largest food retail companies. By comparing the outcomes of traditional and algorithmic job recruitment during this technological transition, we find that, contrary to the company's intentions, algorithmic recruitment decreases diversity. However, in contrast to what is often assumed, this is primarily not because the algorithms are biased, but because of what we identify as an unintended human–algorithmic interaction effect.

The article explores technology-human relations in a time of artificial intelligence (AI) and in the context of long-standing problems in social theory about agency, nonhumans, and autonomy. Most theorizations of AI are grounded in dualistic thinking and traditional views of technology, oversimplifying real-world settings. This article works to unfold modes of existence at play in AI/human relations. Materials from ethnographic fieldwork are used to highlight the significance of autonomy in AI/human relations. The analysis suggests that the idea of autonomy is a double-edged sword, showing that humans not only coordinate their perception of autonomy but also switch between registers by sometimes ascribing certain autonomous features to the AI system and in other situations denying the system such features. As a result, AI/human relations prove to be not so much determined by any ostensive delegation of tasks as by the way in which AI and humans engage with each other in practice. The article suggests a theory of relationality that redirects focus away from questions of agency towards questions of what it means to be in relations.

Sammanfattning

Frågor som berör mångfald har kommit att etablera sig som ett ständigt aktuellt ämne på den svenska arbetsmarknaden. Det finns många verktyg att arbeta med för en inkluderande och jämställd arbetsplats. Det första steget för att påverka mångfalden i en organisation är genom rekryteringsprocessen. Syftet med vår studie är att undersöka hur HR-personal arbetar med mångfald i rekryteringsprocessen inom den offentliga sektorn samt vilka de vanligaste utmaningarna är med mångfaldsarbete. I och med den teknologiska utvecklingen vill vi även studera om potentiella AI-verktyg har förändrat villkoren i rekryteringsprocessen. Våra teoretiska utgångspunkter är professionsforskning av Thomas Brante samt den nyinstitutionella organisationsteorin med särskilt fokus på begreppet institutionell isomorfism. Dessa teorier kommer att utgöra grunden för förståelsen av hur gemensamma normer och tankesätt formas inom HR professionen beträffande mångfaldsarbete. Det empiriska materialet har vi samlat in genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sju personer som arbetar med HR inom den offentliga sektorn. Studiens resultat visar att det finns flera etablerade tillvägagångssätt för att främja mångfald, där ett tydligt exempel är så kallad kompetensbaserad rekrytering som används inom många organisationer idag för att försöka skapa en så pass fördomsfri rekrytering som möjligt. Resultatet visar att de vanligaste utmaningarna inom HR är urvalsprocessen. Bland utbudet av kandidater som uppfyller kraven råder det inte alltid en mångfald. Användningen av AI-verktyg framstod inte som särskilt etablerad bland våra respondenter, men det fanns likväl en positiv inställning och en öppenhet inför den betydelse som denna teknologiska utveckling kan tänkas få för framtidens mångfaldsarbete. Studien bidrar till en inblick i hur man inom HR professionen tänker och arbetar med mångfald i rekryteringsarbetet samt vilka utmaningar och potentiella värdekonflikter som kan uppstå.

Purpose: The aim of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge about the diversity of credibility arrangements in new audit spaces “in the margins” of auditing and the implications of such arrangements.

Method: The paper is based on an in-depth qualitative study of the LGBTQI certification run by the Swedish Federation for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and Intersex Rights (RFSL) during its first decade of business. We have interviewed employees and studied documents at the certification units within the RFSL. We have also interviewed certified organizations. 

Findings: We highlight two features that explain the unusual credibility arrangements in this audit practice: the role of beneficiaries in the organizational arrangements chosen and the role of responsibility as an organizing value with consequences for responsibility allocation of this certification. These features make it possible for the RFSL to act as a credible auditor even though it deviates from common arrangements for credible audit.  

Originality/value: The RFSL certification is different in several ways. First, the RFSL acts as both trainer and auditor. Second, the trainers/auditors at the RFSL have no accreditation to guarantee their credibility. Third, the RFSL decides itself what standards should apply for the certification and adapts these standards to the operation being audited. Therefore, this case provides a good opportunity to study alternative credibility arrangements in the margins of auditing as well as their justifications.  

Social media engagements, such as likes and follows, have become crucial for driving algorithmic recommendations and underpinning platform economies. This has given rise to disinformation industries that focus on the production and sale of engagements, including Instagram followers—a phenomenon we term the “engagement as a service” market. However, this market poses significant challenges for empirical research as its operations remain obscured from the scrutiny of platforms, their users, and researchers alike. In this article, we propose a mixed-methods approach to make visible the relationship between the engagement market and platform governance, the latter of which increasingly aims to moderate account behavior in terms of authenticity and inauthenticity—what we refer to as “authenticity governance.” By developing this approach, we explore the relationship between the engagement market and platform ecosystems through three case studies: (1) engagement market responses to platform governance; (2) the evolution of engagement as a service; and (3) testing the quality of engagement as a service on Instagram. These investigations allow us to comprehend disinformation as an ongoing negotiation between the engagement market and authenticity governance. Overall, our three integrated approaches can help researchers move forward with the empirical study of disinformation markets that operate at the periphery of platform ecosystems. In short, this article presents a methodological outlook for analyzing (in)authentic engagements as a form of disinformation.

The financialization of development and the outsourcing of aid work to contracted businesses are strengthening the role of alternative drivers among practitioners engaged in international development work. These relate to but also transcend the dichotomy between altruism and personal self-interest, which often frames scholarly research on aid worker motivations. Focusing on consultants and development finance experts, this article highlights three institutional impetuses that guide practitioners’ work. They are concerned with the international competitiveness of donor operations, the stakes of one’s employer in cross-sectoral partnerships and the reputation and position of one’s professional sub-field. Consultants and development finance experts also highlight considerable staff movements across non- and for-profit institutions. In the increasingly complex architecture of aid interventions, such boundary-crossers operate in a new space of development brokerage, as mediators between public and private sector actors.

This article delves into the moral economy that informs small-scale trade in urban Ghana's growing markets, and that intersects with development, the state, and the global economy. Small-small, emphasizes slow, gradual, dependable progress and inclusiveness. While (re)distributing profit and possibilities, small-small is also used to discredit competitors and is felt to inhibit personal growth. It furthermore often conflicts with neoliberal norms of self-governing and self-optimization. Drawing from fieldwork in Tamale, the study explores how morality intertwines with market dynamics, the nation-state, and politics of informality. Moral economy illuminates the temporal tensions between individual and collective gains against the backdrop of local economic practices and global capitalism. It underscores the moral underpinnings of protectionism and sovereignty amid neoliberal shifts, revealing complex interactions shaping economic life in urban Ghana.

What strategies can be employed to conceptualize peace? In recent years, scholars have introduced an impressive array of “peace with adjectives” in order to make sense of some of the normative and empirical underpinnings of peace. Negative, positive, everyday, virtual, illiberal, partial, insecure, relational, emancipatory, agonistic, and feminist are some of the qualifiers that have been associated with the concept. While the growing attention to conceptualization is a welcomed development, we argue that the proliferation of new terms has led to increased fragmentation in the field of peace studies. Conceptual fragmentation impedes cumulative knowledge production and generates missed opportunities for fruitful discussions across theoretical and conceptual divides. In this article, we aim to provide more clarity to our field by mapping existing peace conceptualizations and identifying the strategies employed by scholars to construct innovative new terms. In our review, we identify 61 concepts and suggest that these conceptual innovations in peace research belong to one of three analytical strategies: developing diminished subtypes, conceptual narrowing, and conceptual expansion. Building on this categorization, we make recommendations for how peace researchers can enhance clarity and deepen constructive discussions between different conceptual approaches.

It is 9 October 2001 and one of the authors, Thedvall, has been working for a month as a stagiaire/researcher at the Directorate General (DG) of Employment and Social Affairs (DG EMPL). It is morning, and she is taking part in an induction course at the DG EMPL to become familiarised with the European Commission, the DG, and their ways of working. Induction courses are frequently held at the DG and the European Commission in general. There is a constant influx of people starting to work as fonctionnaires with permanent positions or arriving as detached national experts (DNEs) or stagiaires staying for a few months or a few years. The influx is matched only by the constant stream of farewell parties and goodbye drinks. People move in and out of the city all the time. Brussels is a city where friends constantly leave. The room, a typical meeting room in the DG with grey/blueish chairs, tables, floors and walls, is filled with a mix of people of different nationalities, positions and levels, from directors to trainees/stagiaires. The day starts out with the Director General welcoming us and talking about the European Union (EU) project. As Director General of DG EMPL, he is particularly pleased that the EU project has expanded to include social issues, moving the EU closer towards a federation. He is convinced that, within this decade or the next, the EU will become a proper federal union with working political processes and a European Parliament as important as its member states’ parliaments.

Status as been described as an ancient form of social inequality that interpenetrates modern meritocratic institutions, including research and higher education. Status is a multifaceted social phenomenon that can affect the relations between people in many different ways. Despite political and normative changes that promote equal treatment of men and women, deep-rooted gender biases still exist as integral parts of the creation of status hierarchies in academic life. In this chapter, I illustrate this argument using a number of concrete situations from the Swedish Research Council panel groups in which some male reviewers responded with disrespect to the arguments presented by their female colleagues. The analysis is intended to shed new light on the social dramaturgy of gender-based status inequalities in the grant peer review process. It is unusual in putting the emphasis on the panellists’ detailed interactions rather than on the efforts to encourage gender equality in competition results through rule-changes and other prescriptive means. Moreover, it reveals the intersectionality of gender, age and esteem in shaping the behaviour of panellists.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Lulesámi, a subgroup of the indigenous Sámi of northern Fennoscandia, this article explores the relationship between indigenous identity and dress. The gáppte, traditional dress, is a central visual marker of the Sámi, yet on a personal and everyday basis this symbolism enters into dialogue, and sometimes conflict, with people’s life experiences, emotions, interests and expectations. Understandings and experiences of the gáppte are placed within a context in which the Sámi community at times is experienced as fragmented and where a history of colonialism and discrimination has left lasting imprints. As shown in the article, narrations of dress unfold how relationships that for long have been marked by oppression and discrimination raise specific forms of awareness as well as questions around what constitutes the self, and how such self can or should be expressed. Through ten different perspectives of the gáppte, the article reveals how different ways of being Sámi become negotiated and materialized through dress. 

In this paper we offer an empirically rich, longitudinal account of the role and influence of externally sourced experts by the Swedish development aid agency, Sida, from the 1960s until present times. We describe what type of expertise has been required from external experts and how the content and rituals of these contracted experts have contributed – or not – to perceptions of trust and certainty. In the paper we present three eras, all with their distinctive features on the normative rationale and forms for external expertise; 1. 1960s–ca 1995: the Quick-fix implementer era; 2. Ca 1995–ca 2005: the Collaborative turn era; and 3. Ca 2005–2020s: the Proper organization proxy era. We suggest that a mission drift has occurred in Swedish aid as concerns both the in-house expert role of aid bureaucrats and the role of procured experts. The paper concludes that all throughout, external experts have served an important function – that of making organizations in the donor role less uncertain of their decisions on which organizations should receive funding. Interestingly, however, the use of external experts has in all times given rise to additional uncertainty, which, in turn, has called for even more experts. We also find that external experts have repeatedly been criticized for ineffectiveness and consultocracy, meaning that consultants have been influential in the formulation and implementation of policies aimed at restructuring public services.

A core tenet of social work is that clients should be helped to work on themselves so they can improve their lives and their abilities to a point where they are no longer reliant on social services for support. To make this possible, social workers have different models at their disposal. While the clients are ostensibly governed by these techniques, models of social work also shape the subjectivities of the social workers applying them. In this chapter, our focus is on the effect of these models on social workers. Our ethnographic approach allows for a more nuanced exploration of how a technology of governmentality is received by those subjected to it, in this case, the social workers. The study highlights that the effects of the same model on practices and perceptions in the same social context differ between individuals, and allows a nuanced understanding of the effects of governmentality in practice.

This literature review summarizes findings from 63 articles published between 2001 and 2020 that study discretion of frontline workers at migration control. The results demonstrate that discretionary practices in various migration control situations (e.g., border zones, migration agencies, courts, public welfare services, and detention centers) are widespread but share common patterns. Frontline workers’ racialized prejudices and perceptions of migrant deservingness were the most dominant patterns found in the data, although there were some disagreements about which were most influential. Discretion of frontline workers was described as foremost detrimental to migrants, as itamplified the migrants’ vulnerable situations, even if it occasionally could increase individual migrants’ room for agency and strategic maneuvering. Contrary to the assumption underpinning the control gap-thesis in immigration policy literature that governments’ capacity to control migration is hampered by the significant discretion at the frontlines, many studies in our sample describe how governments shape the discretionary practices of frontline workers through informal, subtle, and opaque governing strategies. These informal governing strategies enable central governments to deflect responsibility for discriminatory and inhumane policy outcomes. 

Farming sea cucumbers for export to China is an emerging form of mariculture in Tanzania. It is encouraged by the government’s Blue Economy development paradigm, which aims to raise income in fishing communities while protecting the ocean. This paper interrogates sea cucumber farming in Kaole, a coastal fishing community where humans and sea cucumbers have coexisted for many years, although the jongoo bahari has lived as a wild creature in the ocean, not as a commodity in bounded farms. The paper probes the relationship between humans and sea cucumbers, focusing on interdependencies in the politics of care in a pluriversal multispecies world in the making (Escobar 2020, Ingold 2018, Puig de la Bellacasa 2018). It also explores the web of shifting political and ecological relations that are entangled in the practices and politics of domestication in the political ecology of blue growth (Barbesgaard 2018, Swanson et al 2018). The paper draws on ongoing fieldwork for Swahili Ocean Worlds (2022-2024), a research project carried out in collaboration with researchers from the University of Dar es Salaam, supported by the Swedish Research Council/Development Research. See swahilioceanworlds on YouTube and Instagram, and https://www.su.se/english/research/research-projects/swahili-ocean-worlds-fishing-communities-and-sea-sustainability-in-tanzania. 

This article explores how economic information was turned into newsworthy content in Sweden during the 1960s and 1970s. Professional norms and identities of “business journalists” were during the 1960s yet to be developed, and there were concerns raised whether issues about the corporate world and the economy were suitable to turn into journalistic news content at all. Conceptualizing newsworthiness as a logic of appropriateness, the analysis focuses on the roles that professional norms and identities played in forming nascent economic news practice. The empirical findings show that there was not one way—or one place—that this newsworthiness was constructed. Instead, nascent economic news was produced in two highly separated organizational settings: one rooted in the journalistic world and one in the business world. Depending on the context, significantly different methods and ideas guided the nascent work of creating newsworthiness for economic information. 

Denna uppsats syftar till att utforska användningen av Hammarbys supporterbegrepp Hammarbyism. Genom att följa Supportrarnas Matchprogram som är en central knytpunkt i Hammarbys supporterkultur och genom djupintervjuer med individer inom Matchprogrammet går det att se mönster i vad som försöks förmedlas med hjälp av begreppet Hammarbyism. Med Hammarbyismens användning som utgångspunkt går det att utforska Hammarbys supportergemenskap och kultur.

This article aims to expand both the analytical gaze of diplomacy studies and anthropological interests in the field of transnational think tanks, advocacy and policy advice. Drawing on ethnographic data from three such organisations, itinvestigates secrecy practices within transnational think tanks, focusing on how everyday practices undertaken in secrecy amount to discreet diplomatic efforts. In a variety of ways, secrecy is utilised as a resource in foreign relations and diplomacy, thereby aiming to leverage status and influence. Although outwardly striving for transparency, secrecy practices are thus vital in the striving of transnational think tanks to establish themselves as actors of consequence in foreign relations and diplomatic circles. It is argued that practices of secrecy are part and parcel of the power games played, in which all participants learn and master what to discuss and what not to display. These practices, however, also imply a challenge in terms of accountability and transparency.  

This anthropological essay investigates the meaning for a recovering drug addictto be free from drugs. The paper includes three semi-structural interviews withrecovering addicts as well as material from one podcast, to investigate theconcept of being free from drugs from recovering addicts perspectives. To helpinvestigate the subject further, research regarding dominating Swedish politicalnorms is being presented in this paper. The essay consists of a theory- andliterature overview regarding addiction and recovery to help understand whatbeing clean from drugs means for a recovering addict. This essay ultimatelyargues that being free from drugs can mean being functional, living withouthighs and spirituality and meaning.

A constant increase in droughts in Eastern Africa has impacted the region's agricultural sector. Small-scale farmers produce most of Kenya’s agricultural output and are particularly vulnerable to drought. They also play a crucial role in combating such environmental shocks. This thesis aimed to explore how drought affects small-scale farmers in Kenya and what coping mechanisms they use. It further studied what was needed for small-scale farmers to implement adapting and mitigating strategies. These objectives were examined through the cases of Narok County and Nakuru County. An ethnographic field study was conducted to collect data through the qualitative methods of observations and semi-structured interviews. Finally, the findings were analyzed using a Political Ecological framework to explore drought’s social, economic, and political implications and the importance of indigenous knowledge systems and local perspectives. 

The findings showed that drought affects small-scale farmers through lower yields, fewer income opportunities, financial strains, food insecurity, and impaired well-being. The coping mechanisms small-scale farmers use are mainly indigenous agricultural conservation practices. They also use more technical equipment and non-agricultural solutions to cope. Financial, material, and information resources combined with local participation to create enabling policies and favorable environments are needed to implement adapting and mitigating strategies. Accountable networks are also needed, focusing on government support and the assistance of international actors. However, these networks showed to be influenced by economic and political interests relating to mainstream ideas of development. 

Rapporten beskriver de huvudsakliga stegen i att skapa data om dödsorsaker med fokus på vilka lagar och regler det styrs av och strukturen följer av detta. I Sverige dör årligen ca 90 000 personer, mestadels på sjukhus och sjukhem, men även i hemmet. Det är oftast patientens läkare som bedömer dödsorsaken. Hur undersökningar av dödsorsaker rent praktiskt bör gå till är i mycket begränsad utsträckning styrt av förordningar. Lagen föreskriver när klinisk obduktion får ske, men det är en bedömningsfråga när det är av särskild betydelse att ta reda på dödsorsaken och kliniska obduktioner hör numera till ovanligheten. Lagen föreskriver också när rättsmedicinsk undersökning kan komma ifråga, men rättsmedicinska obduktioner kan i sig innefatta olika undersökningar. Det är egentligen enbart rättsmedicinska läkare som har utredning av dödsorsaker som främsta arbetsuppgift, medan alla andra typer av läkare verksamma på vårdcentraler och olika sjukhuskliniker mer eller mindre sällan behöver arbeta med detta.

Rapporten visar hur det trots stort intresse för kvaliteten hos dödsorsaks-bedömningarna finns mycket lite kunskap hur dödsorsaksbestämning går till i praktiken. Rapporteringen av dödsorsakerna sker via ett dödsorsaksintyg som skickas till Socialstyrelsen. Dödsorsaksintyget är format utifrån reglerna för internationell sjukdomsklassifikation för statistiska syften, ICD, och har som syfte att standardisera hur rapporteringen går till. Socialstyrelsen ger riktlinjer för hur dödsorsaksintyg ska fyllas i, men det huvudsakliga arbetet med att följa ICD:s klassificeringsregler sker främst i samband med att inrapporterade dödsorsaker kodas av ett automatiskt klassificeringsprogram, baserat på ICD:s regler. Narkotikadödlighet och arbetet med en specifik substansmodul kopplat till dödsorsaksregistret lyfts fram som exempel på vilka anpassningar och samarbeten som behöver göras för att hantera ett klassifikationssystem som underminerar mer specifik kunskap om en specifik form av dödlighet. I slutorden ges förslag på frågor av vikt att arbeta vidare med, framförallt gällande hur läkares bedömningsarbete gällande dödsorsaker liksom konkret registerarbete går till.

Collaboration between academia and practice is crucial for addressing complex societal challenges and generating new knowledge. However, bridging the perceived gap between these two domains has proven challenging due to differences in language, expectations, and time horizons. In this article, we question the usefulness of framing these differences as a gap and explores alternative approaches to fostering academic–practice collaboration. With the help of organizational institutionalism and theory on configurational boundary work, we propose the concept of “institutional knots” to temporarily ease tensions and reconcile differences between researchers and practitioners. Drawing on two case studies, we examine how temporary knotting activities can support and enable collaboration without undermining participants’ distinct expertise and professional roles. By embracing and understanding the gap from such a perspective, we argue that institutional knots provide an alternative metaphor and valuable framework for organizing and managing academic–practice collaboration. The findings contribute to the literature on how collaborations may be organized by offering a complementary understanding of the gap metaphor and providing practical insights for researchers and practitioners seeking to navigate and leverage their differences.

I den här studien undersöks vilken social och praktisk funktion en ideell verksamhet fyller för personer i social utsatthet. Syftet med studien är att ge en holistisk bild av vad verksamheten betyder för besökarna, och hur den platsen formas av de som är där. Studien ger dessutom en förståelse för vilken roll delar av det civila samhället fyller för både individer, och för samhället i stort. Empirin som ligger till grund för studien baseras på observationer och samtal som gjorts under ett två månader långt fältarbete på en ideell verksamhet i Stockholm. Empirin analyseras med teorier om socialt kapital, sociala nätverk, fiktiv familj, tid, plats och agens. Studien visar att det är sociala behov som motiverar människor i social utsatthet att besöka verksamheten, och verksamheten som undersöks beskrivs som en social plats med specifika normer och regler som besökarna tillsammans upprätthåller. Dessutom ges flera exempel på hur verksamheten kan öka besökarnas sociala nätverk och sociala kapital. Den ideella verksamheten jämförs med en fiktiv familj, eftersom relationerna som formas där liknar biologiska familjerelationer i fler avseenden. Därtill visar studien att personalen på verksamheten går utanför sina officiella arbetsuppgifter och ger en dold hjälp, vilket innebär social och praktisk hjälp som inte är synlig för resten av samhället. 

This article explores Ethiopian girls' narratives of risks and vulnerability during their migratory journeys to, in and from Saudi Arabia. It discusses how risks of depri-vation  and  abuse  that  drive  girls  to  leave  their  homes  are  sustained  during  the  migration  process.  The  re-search primarily draws on interviews with 35 deported girls  from  Saudi  Arabia  to  analyse  intersecting  struc-tural, sociocultural, gendered and personal factors that force  them  to  take  these  risks.  It  argues  that  although  Ethiopian  girls  migrate  to  escape  childhood  poverty  and  vulnerability,  these  conditions  are  not  averted  but  reproduced during migration. By foregrounding the ex-periences of deported girls, the article further discusses how  the  desire  to  support  familial  livelihoods  engen-ders  their  circular  migration  and  how  multiple  actors  of migration take advantage of their labour and bodies against  the  backdrop  of  limited  institutional  support  systems.

This thesis examines feminist commodity networks through an ethnographic case study of QVWC SHOP in Melbourne, Australia. The work is built through an emic perspective on the understanding of selling, producing, and buying through the QVWC SHOP. The emic perspective is also connected to the larger systems, such as social networks and community building. QVWC SHOP is a store focusing on selling locally made items by women, including cis, trans and nonbinary. QVWC SHOP is part of the Queen Victoria Women’s centre in Melbourne, which is a non-profit building that rents space for different organisations for women’s needs. The centre is also an important cultural space, organizing events and exhibitions around the year. In 2020, the Women’s centre opened the QVWC SHOP, that they promote as a feminist shop selling goods made by women, for women. The focus in this thesis is on understanding how the shop builds a community for the women involved with the store, reflect over what feminist commodities are and what it means to be a producer, employee, or consumer at the QVWC SHOP. The reflections are built through data from participant observation and semi-structured interviews with interlocutors from the field, as well as relevant theoretical works. Furthermore, themes of care, sustainability, attachment, and solidarity are all important in the work. Overall, this thesis focuses on the processes of creating social networks and community building in the context of a feminist shop.

What can we learn about gender complementarity from water deities in Igbo cosmology for a more nuanced appreciation of gender disparity and religion in Africa for sustainable development? This paper explores femininity and spirituality in Flora Nwapa´s literary worldmaking (Uimonen 2020), through the lens of African womanism (Ogunyemi 1996). Focusing on the Lake Goddess, it discusses the ideals of gender complementarity and human-environmental balance in traditional Igbo society as well as the impact of religious colonialism (Jell-Bahlsen 2008, 2016). The Lake Goddess (also known as Ogbuide, Uhammiri, or Mammy Water) is a recurring character in Flora Nwapa’s fiction, but she is also an important deity in Igbo/Oguta cosmology, signifying how water is life. From an African womanist perspective, we can also appreciate the Lake Goddess in relation to the cultural ideals of gender complementarity, alongside her river husband Urashi. Although Christian fanatics have tried to wipe out the position of water deities in Nigeria since colonial times, they continue to be served and worshipped by devotees. While recognising the social significance of religion in everyday life in African societies, this paper insists on a broader appraisal of divine power and spirituality, as exemplified by water deities. Historically anchored in pre-colonial African cultural contexts, such sacred water beings can inspire more sustainable models of development, especially in this age of climate crisis, environmental destruction and patriarchal capitalism.

Purpose - This paper explores practices of foresight within the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) program Futures Literacy, as a form of transnational governmentality–founded on the interests of “using the future” by “emancipating” the minds of humanity.

Design/methodology/approach - The paper draws on ethnographic material gathered over five years within the industry of futures consultancy, including UNESCO and its network of self-recognized futurists. The material consists of written sources, participant observation in on-site and digital events and workshops, and interviews.

Findings - Building on Foucault's (1991) concept of governmentality, which refers to the governing of governing and how subjects politically come into being, this paper critically examines the UNESCO Futures Literacy program by answering questions on ontology, deontology, technology and utopia. It shows how the underlying rationale of the Futures Literacy program departs from an ontological premise of anticipation as a fundamental capacity of biological life, constituting an ethical substance that can be worked on and self-controlled. This rationale speaks to the mandate of UNESCO, to foster peace in our minds, but also to the governing of governing at the individual level.

Originality/value - In the intersection between the growing literature on anticipation and research concerning governmentality the paper adds ethnographically based knowledge to the field of transnational governance. Earlier ethnographic studies of UNESCO have mostly focused upon its role for cultural heritage, or more broadly neoliberal forms of governing.

“Community participation” is a common concept in contemporary development initiatives worldwide. As an approach, it aims to include the targeted population in its planning and implementation, by recognizing the need in understanding local contexts, beliefs, and values. As such, this thesis aims to explore the possibilities, as well as limitations, of community participation, specifically in the context of post-conflict development through a case study of a development project, The Bugesera Societal Healing Initiative (BSHI), in Rwanda. This is done within the theoretical context of the anthropology of development and post-development theory. Through ethnographical inquiry into the lives of BSHI participants suffering from trauma following the 1994 Genocide, this thesis conveys the essence for development organizations in catering to the specific needs of a given local population. In turn, this is placed in a broader discourse, within the development sector as a whole, to understand the limitations and obstacles in achieving comprehensive societal transformation. It is argued that, while development initiatives driven by the idea of community participation may succeed on a local level and positively impact the targeted population, it may still leave wider political structures perpetuating issues of, for instance, poverty unaltered. In this, it seems that for these structures to be addressed, it requires a more radical approach to development in which the status quo is being challenged. 

The fence provides two functions in wildlife management. First, it physically blocks, deters or impedes wild animals from access to protected areas or resources. Second, the fence signals impassability, danger, pain or irritation to animals through both of these pathways: the actual blockade and the signal of no access both communicates to wild animals that they should stay away, producing area effects which constrain animal mobility. The mere presence of a fence, while imperfect and potentially passable, can come to establish an area effect of avoidance. In this regard, fences are part of an interspecies communication on the basis of mutually understood signals in the landscape. In this paper, we consider how fences, both physical, such as walls, and virtual, such as 'biofences' that use sensory deterrents, signal danger or no access to wildlife, and with what practical and conceptual limitations. Through a framework of ecosemiotics, the communication of signals between wildlife and humans, we discuss the communicative role fences play in human-wildlife interactions. First, we outline the way in which ecosemiotics may be leveraged to manage human-wildlife conflicts by utilizing fences as signals. Then we explain miscommunication, and how this impacts the success of fences. Finally, we discuss the normative problems of attempting to signal to wildlife how to behave and where to be, and raise the need for bidirectional communication across species, such that wild animals are also seen as participants in negotiating space and access around humans.

This thesis examines the intricate relationship between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, Bangladesh. Mangroves in Shyamnagar are found both in the Sundarbans, the largest mangrove forest on earth, and in adaptation projects called nature based solutions (NbS), framed by the resilience narrative. The first part offers an introduction to these discourses, including the role of NGOs and governmental institutions, and critically analyzes the ways in which capitalist and modernist worldviews have influenced the establishment of new interaction zones between humans and mangroves through NbS projects, highlighting the omission of power dynamics and histories of dispossession. The second part delves into the nuanced relationships with the mangrove that transcend dominant global and organizational discourses. By emphasizing the agency of the mangrove as an active participant and co-creator of society in Shyamnagar, the boundaries between humans and nature, and communities and non-humans, are blurred. This challenges the notion of human exceptionalism and underscores the interconnectedness of all beings in shaping local landscapes, dynamics, and identities. The final part explores the relationships of care between humans and mangroves, recognizing the significance of care and affect in shaping human subjectivities and relationships with the biophysical environment. This thesis thereby emphasizes the importance of maintaining multispecies care even within practices that introduce anthropocentric, capitalistic, and market-oriented worldviews. By critically examining these dimensions, this thesis offers insights into the complex interactions between mangroves and humans in Shyamnagar, ultimately contributing to a broader understanding of the interplay between nature, society, and resilience. 

This chapter sets out to do two things: to discuss international standards as a form of soft law and to demonstrate the usefulness of organization theory in doing so. International standards have received substantial scholarly attention during the last 20 years, but they have rarely been discussed as a kind of soft law, despite how well they fit the definition. Using insights from organization studies where scholars long have been theorizing about standards, we show how standards tend to dilute responsibility. Standards have a tendency to generate more organization and instead of clarifying or concentrating responsibility, it seems difficult to find anyone responsible in a world of standards. Discussing standards as an example of soft law, the framework for responsibility dilution presented in the chapter speaks to scholars also outside the realm of standard studies specifically.

The Lipa Temporary Reception Centre is a transit camp, located in the North-West part of Bosnia and Herzegovina, for only single men who cross the Balkan Route to enter the European Union territory through the Croatian border.

This thesis aims to describe the life inside the camp, combining an analysis of Lipa architecture with the experiences of the people who transited through there. A focus on space and relationships will then drive this thesis, reflecting on how the transit camp features and stylistic decisions affected people's experiences: discussing how places and individuals mutually influenced each other in such a context. More specifically, it will highlight the broad political implications that led to the opening of migrant reception centres like Lipa and discuss their hypothetical temporary nature, studying the roles played by European Union Institutions and non-governmental organizations within the field.

This research is the outcome of ethnographic fieldwork conducted inside the Lipa Temporary Reception Centre from November 8th until December 19th and from the investigation of the existing literature regarding the design of camps and the Balkan Route. 

This text explores locally recruited staff within a growing category of organisations in the international aid industry: Development Finance Institutions (DFIs). DFIs are banks that offer risk capital to development projects in the global South, increasingly using tax-funded aid money. Based on interviews with 13 DFI investment managers, I show how Kenyan DFI staff challenge three of the signature attributes commonly assigned to local development professionals: their 'local' expertise does not contrast with or preclude international expertise, but rather overlaps with it; their formal authority and career ladders are not restricted to technical or support positions - many field offices are headed by local employees; and they rarely face job insecurity given their competitive qualifications and permanent employment contracts. Meanwhile, decisions on investments are rarely taken by these field office staff but by their colleagues at headquarters, and unlike the latter, even those local recruits who head their field offices usually lack a secure place in the global organisation of their DFIs. This suggests that structural inequalities between donor and recipient country staff - integral to the development industry - have not disappeared in DFIs but rather relocated: from within the walls of field offices to the relationship between these offices and headquarters.

The world is currently experiencing a surge of investment in, and development of, large-scale infrastructural building projects, frequently captured by the term 'megaprojects'. Distinguished by the bulk of their envisioned materiality, the volume of financial capital required to build them, and the complexity of technical, legal, administrative, and political tools needed to bring them into operation, megaprojects do not easily lend themselves to ethnographic inquiry. While in recent years, ethnographic attention to infrastructure has given rise to a burgeoning theoretical apparatus and a growing anthropological subfield in which the various aspects of megaprojects have been analysed, scale as a concept has remained under-theorised. Exploring scale-making ethnographically and unpacking the work that scale does for various actors and publics, the contributions collected in this issue make a theoretical contribution to the anthropology of infrastructure by showing how scale connects the everyday making and the spectacular politics of megaprojects.

Modern hunting is an ambivalent practice, torn between leisure and labor. Nowhere are these conflicting dimensions better manifested than for wild boar—a simultaneous game and pest species in many countries. Here, we consider the sociological, political and cultural phenomenon of wild boar hunting from a change perspective, starting at its historical roots to future implications concerning the changing demographics, drivers, needs and practices of a modernizing hunting community. Using the case context of France, we present an approach to deconstructing each component of wild boar hunting firstly, and subsequently the external forces that change the nature of hunting. The objective of this manuscript is to discuss of the wild boar optimal harvesting to be applied in changing social and ecological environment. Findings show that the challenges facing wild boar management will likely intensify in the future, especially under the spotlight of a controversial public debate.

This thesis dives into the future imaginaries of blockchain professionals in Hanoi and Saigon. Looking at sites of futures enactment, and constant negotiations around an emerging technology, economy, and start-up ecology. The blockchain industry has risen to prominence in the socio-economic and technological imaginary of geeks, financial speculators, and states around the globe. In this thesis, I investigate a hitherto underexplored context of technological imagination. Based on physical and digital ethnographic fieldwork among blockchain professionals in Hanoi and Saigon and through an amalgamated theoretical lens with nodes in the anthropology of future imaginaries, emerging technologies, digital materiality, and anthropological theories of value, I set out to map and critically engage with the modes by which professionals in and around the Vietnamese blockchain industry imagine the future. These future imaginaries appear not only in speculative, predictive, and hopeful proclamation but too in present enactment; thus, doings in real time become crucial in this investigation. Technologies of imagination often deviate in form and teleology, so consequently, processual negotiations are continually unfolding. Convoluted alliances within actors are often placed at odds, or in line, with broader imaginaries predicated on different levels of social scale. These spaces between imagined future and enacted reality, along with how these are negotiated amongst, ultimately provide complex embedded contexts through which socio-technical assemblages, conceptualizations of value, and emerging phenomena can better be known in ways beyond techno-solutionist or -determinist narratives and critiques of multiple futures.

This book analyses the ideology that China's leader Xi Jinping has crafted during his decade in power. China’s political system and domestic and foreign policies have, between 2012 and 2022, become more defined by the political thought of Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader of the Chinese Communist Party since the time of Mao Zedong. Today, Xi’s China is embroiled in superpower rivalry with the United States and its allies. Therefore, ongoing ideological transformation in the People’s Republic is destined to have global repercussions. Yet surprisingly, the ideological mission of Xi Jinping is poorly understood. Based on analysis of Xi Jinping’s collected speeches, the book argues that China’s new state ideology is constructed around the three key concepts of loyalty, discipline, and greatness. Xi’s mission is about ideological re-orientation and re-activation, as well as organizational innovation, seeking to frame China’s “national self” as a collective unit under one political banner and one leader. However, despite the monumental Party-state effort to boost the new ideology and state-scripted “moral careers”, the book contends that Xi Jinping cannot take for granted that political and patriotic loyalty will forever trump the formation of “disloyal moral careers” in society. 

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conceptualise our understanding of public value accounting (PVA) by studying the use and usefulness of performance measurements (PM) as a management tool. The authors do this from a perspective in which they address the complexity of various (sometimes conflicting) assessments of performance measurement and management (PMM) by different stakeholders. Design/methodology/approachAn interpretative case study using qualitative methods. The paper is based on 30 interviews conducted in 2018 and 2019 with respondents working with PMM at different levels, such as politicians, officials and health-care professionals. The study context was Region Stockholm (RS) in Sweden and its health-care division. FindingsPMs become an instrumental tool for PMM, which led to output being promoted above outcome. The authors show that there is a conceptual shortcoming in the discussion of PVA, as the effort needed to achieve outcome-based information might exceed the ability of an organisation to deliver it. The authors address the importance of studying the interaction among different stakeholders, including politicians, the public and media, in research on PVA, as well as possible power relationships among stakeholders. Originality/valueThe authors contribute to the growing research on PVA and its call for more empirical research by offering a more nuanced interpretation of PVA activities. The authors do this by studying PMM and the nature of these activities in a public sector organisation from a multiple-stakeholder perspective.

As living beings, seaweeds exist at the periphery of people’s awareness, and not much is known about what they mean to people, and the relationships we can have with them. They are useful, versatile commodities, and multitask as foodstuffs for people and other beings, as sources of biofuel and medicinal compounds, and the list goes on... but, what else?

This work seeks to shed light on the kinds of relations that people can have with seaweeds when relationships of use are purposefully bracketed out, in order to understand their social and symbolic worlds. To this end, during the months of November through January, the author discussed the perceptions of seaweeds with the neighbours of the area of Loch Hourn, a sea-loch (fjord) in the western seaboard of the Scottish Highlands, and some other nearby townships. The present study interlaces participant observation nuanced by the winter and the weather, and interviews, to explore how, through relations of biosociality, companionship, awareness and interanimation of the environment, alternative configurations of knowing, Gaelic tradition, symbolism, and hope, seaweeds embody different aspects of the meaning of‘sanctuary’.