Billy Ehn
Datos Biográficos
| ID | 259243 |
|---|---|
| NOMBRE | Billy Ehn |
| NOMBRES | Billy |
| APELLIDO | Ehn |
| FIRMA | EHN B |
| AFILIACIONES | Umeå University |
| VERIFICADO | No |
| TOTAL DE OBRAS | 28 |
| TOTAL DE CITAS | 5 |
| OBRAS COMO AUTOR | 28 |
| OBRAS COMO EDITOR | 0 |
| PRIMER AÑO DE PUBLICACIÓN | 1988 |
| AÑO MÁS RECIENTE DE PUBLICACIÓN | 2020 |
| ÍNDICE H | 1 |
Routines — Made and Unmade
Routines are of course much more than a survival technique; they constitute a cultural field full of tensions and paradoxes. The derogatory dimension of a word like routine or habit can be used to ignore or devalue the activities of others. Everyday routines like preparing a meal could become complicated tasks, calling for both innovation and patience. The concepts of routine and habit have a specific Western history. The old world was seen as a …
Antecknat
Ta det inte personligt, men
Critical thinking is one of the most highly respected scientific ideals in the academic life. But when it is practiced, for example in reviewing written texts, it is not always experienced as a good thing. It hurts to be criticised. Therefore this practice will for sure generate dissonant feelings, both in those who are giving critique and in those who are receiving it. In order to manage the ambivalence both parties have to learn a cultural comp…
Akademiska handlag
This special issue looks at everyday life in Academia. While paradigm shifts, university management, research policies and other “big” issues often are discussed, the papers here explore a less analyzed field: the routines and micro-rituals of scholarly life that demand that you learn a special touch or academic savoir-faire. It can be about how people learn to structure a paper, to surf the internet, or how to organize material on the hard disk …
Ute på kulturforskningens bakgårdar
In contemporary cultural studies there has been a marked focus on a modern world in flux and transformation. Life is often depicted in terms of an ever-increasing individualism and a constant fragmentation of social life and old collectives. This paper takes a critical look at this genre. What kinds of processes that create stability and continuity in people’s lives are overlooked or ignored? How can we develop interdisciplinary perspectives to c…
Doing-IT-Yourself Autoethnography of Manual Work
Autoethnography is a method of cultural research where you use your own experiences as a starting point or as examples of more general conditions. You are both the subject and the object of observation. Recently I tried a variant of this method in a Do-It-Yourself project, writing field notes while working as a home fixer with hammer, screwdriver and other tools. I also reflected on some differences and similarities between writing and DIY. The p…
The Secret World of Doing Nothing
In this insightful and pathbreaking reflection on "doing nothing," Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren take us on a fascinating tour of what is happening when, to all appearances, absolutely nothing is happening. Sifting through a wide range of examples drawn from literature, published ethnographies, and firsthand research, they probe the unobserved moments in our daily lives—waiting for a bus, daydreaming by the window, performing a routine task—and ill…
The Secret World of Doing Nothing
This reflection on "doing nothing" takes us on a tour of what is happening when, to all appearances, absolutely nothing is happening. Sifting through a wide range of examples drawn from literature, published ethnographies, and firsthand research, the authors probe the unobserved moments in our daily lives—waiting for a bus, daydreaming by the window, performing a routine task—and illuminate these "empty" times as full of significance. The book le…
Den bortvända kvinnan
Having collected seventy-six photographs and paintings of women seen from behind the author is reflecting on the meaning of this motive. Why have the photographers and the painters, mostly men from four centuries, chosen to represent the women by their backs? Are the women just (secretly) observed from behind, or are they actively turning away from the gaze of the onlooker? The author decides for the second interpretation and makes a connection t…
Ethnography in the Marketplace
What happens when cultural analysis enters the world of applied research and academics become consultants working with corporations and public institutions? The divide between academic research and commercial ethnography has often hampered communication and critical exchanges between these two worlds. In this paper we look at the experiences of consultants, drawing on Danish and Swedish examples. What can we learn from them when it comes to organ…
Akademiska mästerskap
This special issue is devoted to the new ways in which cultural research is evaluated, measured and ranked. What happens when the tools from the natural sciences of citation indexes and quantitative measurements are introduced into the humanities and social sciences? Our introduction discusses this impact and the problems of trying to translate styles of measurement and ranking between different academic traditions. There is often a silent knowle…
Så barnsligt
To be called childish is ambiguously; it may mean either immature or spontaneous. Not even children are expected to be childish all the time. Instead they are used by adults as good or bad examples in the construction of norms for desirable behaviour. They are also used as an invocation of the future, as a sort of messenger from our time. What is the message they are supposed to deliver? Many people are occupied by the question about the meaning …
La vie des émotions dans le monde universitaire
L'étude culturelle des émotions se développe dans l'ethnologie contemporaine de la Suède. Cet article explore un contexte dans lequel les émotions sont souvent réprimées, voire « taboues » : le monde universitaire. Comment la jalousie, la fierté, la passion ou l'ennui sont-ils exprimés ou réprimés au quotidien ? Pourquoi le ton ironique est-il un style de communication si répandu parmi les enseignants-chercheurs ? L'article montre, à partir d'une…
Stirra i taket — och andra kulturanalytiska övningar på sjukhus
The author breaks his right foot and is transported to hospital. At the same time he is moved to an alternative everyday life. During some days of passive waiting for operation in the bed, staring at the ceiling, he is reflecting on his experiences as a patient together with three other men in a hospital ward. In a kind of an instant cultural analysis he is writing down ethnographic "field notes", just to have something to do. One thing that surp…
Tillämpad kulturanalys
Since 2002 the Department of culture and media at the Umeå University runs a four years undergraduate programme of Cultural Analysis. Besides the conventional academic training in different interdisciplinary courses the students devote a lot of time practicing at the labour market. One central goal for the programme is that the students learn how to transform theoretical knowledge to practical use in various enterprises and organisations. Another…
Luftslott och andra fantasier
Fantasies are a marvellous tool for escape and freedom. Social life is unthinkable without imagination. It both creates gulfs and bridges them. The conversation on the telephone relies upon guesswork by the listeners. Using very slight data we jump to quite unjustified conclusions about people. On the other hand misunderstandings may be quite creative interpretations of what they think. The distinction between the world outside and the world of i…
Self-Mystification
It has been said that when strangers begin to accept each other because they experience themselves as strange, they start a promising development. This is a rather surprising thought. If I do not understand myself, how should I be able to understand other people? But since understanding and acceptance are not necessarily intertwined, social life may work anyway, in spite of the value and function that “understanding” has for the definition of cul…
Åke Daun och den kritiska etnologin
Vetenskaplig mångfald i praktiken
Humanistiska entreprenörer
Artikeln är en översiktlig reflektion om kulturstudier och kulturforskning i nutid och framtid
Kärlek
Nazism som forskningsobjekt
How is research and teaching on Nazism best conducted? Despite the nearly universal condemnation of an unsanctioned "lecture" by a member of a Swedish Nazi party held at Umeå University in December 1997, a number of complex questions have been raised about the role of the researcher and the research object, as well as about the qualitative difference between conducting thorough-going research into Nazism, past and present, and allowing Nazi ideol…
Etnologiska löften
Ett liv i smärta
What are the (cultural) meanings of pain? From the perspective of individual life stories, chronic pain may be analysed as a common idiom for communicating personal and interpersonal problems. In this paper we read the story of Anna, a Swedish woman, and her life in chronic pain, expressed by herself both as an inner, private feeling and as a social, public phenomenon
Cultural Studies och etnologin
In this introduction, the background to the boom in Cultural Studies in the USA is presented. When this field of research, unwilling to define itself as a discipline, was exported from the Birmingham CCCS, it changed its main direction "from class struggle to the politics of pleasure", from the study of lived experience to textual analysis of representations and discourses. In Swedish ethnology one notes a similar development, although fieldwork …
Doing-IT-Yourself Autoethnography of Manual Work
Autoethnography is a method of cultural research where you use your own experiences as a starting point or as examples of more general conditions. You are both the subject and the object of observation. Recently I tried a variant of this method in a Do-It-Yourself project, writing field notes while working as a home fixer with hammer, screwdriver and other tools. I also reflected on some differences and similarities between writing and DIY. The p…
Ethnography in the Marketplace
What happens when cultural analysis enters the world of applied research and academics become consultants working with corporations and public institutions? The divide between academic research and commercial ethnography has often hampered communication and critical exchanges between these two worlds. In this paper we look at the experiences of consultants, drawing on Danish and Swedish examples. What can we learn from them when it comes to organ…
La vie des émotions dans le monde universitaire
L'étude culturelle des émotions se développe dans l'ethnologie contemporaine de la Suède. Cet article explore un contexte dans lequel les émotions sont souvent réprimées, voire « taboues » : le monde universitaire. Comment la jalousie, la fierté, la passion ou l'ennui sont-ils exprimés ou réprimés au quotidien ? Pourquoi le ton ironique est-il un style de communication si répandu parmi les enseignants-chercheurs ? L'article montre, à partir d'une…
National Feeling in Sport. The Case of Sweden
The sporting world is a profitable field of cultural studies, especially when it comes to such subjects as feelings and collective identity. Considering its rich social life, its emotional expressions, and its most obvious nationalistic symbolism, sport should have a central place in the general research on nationalism and national culture. In this article the author discuss Swedish sports journalism as a symbolic transformation of sporting activ…
Kulturalisering på gott och ont
Ungdom och multikulturalism
Extensive immigration to Sweden during the last twenty-five years has resulted in a widespread rhetoric of multiculturalism. At the same time, many Swedes are suspicious and even hostile towards immigrants. In this battle between multiculturalism and xenophobic Swedish nationalism, young people are a special target. In this paper I discuss how teenagers living in a highly multi-ethnic district south of Stockholm respond to these two scenarios. Ho…
Cultural Studies och etnologin
In this introduction, the background to the boom in Cultural Studies in the USA is presented. When this field of research, unwilling to define itself as a discipline, was exported from the Birmingham CCCS, it changed its main direction "from class struggle to the politics of pleasure", from the study of lived experience to textual analysis of representations and discourses. In Swedish ethnology one notes a similar development, although fieldwork …
Ett liv i smärta
What are the (cultural) meanings of pain? From the perspective of individual life stories, chronic pain may be analysed as a common idiom for communicating personal and interpersonal problems. In this paper we read the story of Anna, a Swedish woman, and her life in chronic pain, expressed by herself both as an inner, private feeling and as a social, public phenomenon
Etnologiska löften
Kärlek
Nazism som forskningsobjekt
How is research and teaching on Nazism best conducted? Despite the nearly universal condemnation of an unsanctioned "lecture" by a member of a Swedish Nazi party held at Umeå University in December 1997, a number of complex questions have been raised about the role of the researcher and the research object, as well as about the qualitative difference between conducting thorough-going research into Nazism, past and present, and allowing Nazi ideol…
Humanistiska entreprenörer
Artikeln är en översiktlig reflektion om kulturstudier och kulturforskning i nutid och framtid
Vetenskaplig mångfald i praktiken
Åke Daun och den kritiska etnologin
Luftslott och andra fantasier
Fantasies are a marvellous tool for escape and freedom. Social life is unthinkable without imagination. It both creates gulfs and bridges them. The conversation on the telephone relies upon guesswork by the listeners. Using very slight data we jump to quite unjustified conclusions about people. On the other hand misunderstandings may be quite creative interpretations of what they think. The distinction between the world outside and the world of i…
Self-Mystification
It has been said that when strangers begin to accept each other because they experience themselves as strange, they start a promising development. This is a rather surprising thought. If I do not understand myself, how should I be able to understand other people? But since understanding and acceptance are not necessarily intertwined, social life may work anyway, in spite of the value and function that “understanding” has for the definition of cul…
Tillämpad kulturanalys
Since 2002 the Department of culture and media at the Umeå University runs a four years undergraduate programme of Cultural Analysis. Besides the conventional academic training in different interdisciplinary courses the students devote a lot of time practicing at the labour market. One central goal for the programme is that the students learn how to transform theoretical knowledge to practical use in various enterprises and organisations. Another…
Stirra i taket — och andra kulturanalytiska övningar på sjukhus
The author breaks his right foot and is transported to hospital. At the same time he is moved to an alternative everyday life. During some days of passive waiting for operation in the bed, staring at the ceiling, he is reflecting on his experiences as a patient together with three other men in a hospital ward. In a kind of an instant cultural analysis he is writing down ethnographic "field notes", just to have something to do. One thing that surp…
Akademiska mästerskap
This special issue is devoted to the new ways in which cultural research is evaluated, measured and ranked. What happens when the tools from the natural sciences of citation indexes and quantitative measurements are introduced into the humanities and social sciences? Our introduction discusses this impact and the problems of trying to translate styles of measurement and ranking between different academic traditions. There is often a silent knowle…
Så barnsligt
To be called childish is ambiguously; it may mean either immature or spontaneous. Not even children are expected to be childish all the time. Instead they are used by adults as good or bad examples in the construction of norms for desirable behaviour. They are also used as an invocation of the future, as a sort of messenger from our time. What is the message they are supposed to deliver? Many people are occupied by the question about the meaning …
La vie des émotions dans le monde universitaire
L'étude culturelle des émotions se développe dans l'ethnologie contemporaine de la Suède. Cet article explore un contexte dans lequel les émotions sont souvent réprimées, voire « taboues » : le monde universitaire. Comment la jalousie, la fierté, la passion ou l'ennui sont-ils exprimés ou réprimés au quotidien ? Pourquoi le ton ironique est-il un style de communication si répandu parmi les enseignants-chercheurs ? L'article montre, à partir d'une…
Ethnography in the Marketplace
What happens when cultural analysis enters the world of applied research and academics become consultants working with corporations and public institutions? The divide between academic research and commercial ethnography has often hampered communication and critical exchanges between these two worlds. In this paper we look at the experiences of consultants, drawing on Danish and Swedish examples. What can we learn from them when it comes to organ…
The Secret World of Doing Nothing
In this insightful and pathbreaking reflection on "doing nothing," Billy Ehn and Orvar Löfgren take us on a fascinating tour of what is happening when, to all appearances, absolutely nothing is happening. Sifting through a wide range of examples drawn from literature, published ethnographies, and firsthand research, they probe the unobserved moments in our daily lives—waiting for a bus, daydreaming by the window, performing a routine task—and ill…
The Secret World of Doing Nothing
This reflection on "doing nothing" takes us on a tour of what is happening when, to all appearances, absolutely nothing is happening. Sifting through a wide range of examples drawn from literature, published ethnographies, and firsthand research, the authors probe the unobserved moments in our daily lives—waiting for a bus, daydreaming by the window, performing a routine task—and illuminate these "empty" times as full of significance. The book le…
Den bortvända kvinnan
Having collected seventy-six photographs and paintings of women seen from behind the author is reflecting on the meaning of this motive. Why have the photographers and the painters, mostly men from four centuries, chosen to represent the women by their backs? Are the women just (secretly) observed from behind, or are they actively turning away from the gaze of the onlooker? The author decides for the second interpretation and makes a connection t…
Doing-IT-Yourself Autoethnography of Manual Work
Autoethnography is a method of cultural research where you use your own experiences as a starting point or as examples of more general conditions. You are both the subject and the object of observation. Recently I tried a variant of this method in a Do-It-Yourself project, writing field notes while working as a home fixer with hammer, screwdriver and other tools. I also reflected on some differences and similarities between writing and DIY. The p…
Ute på kulturforskningens bakgårdar
In contemporary cultural studies there has been a marked focus on a modern world in flux and transformation. Life is often depicted in terms of an ever-increasing individualism and a constant fragmentation of social life and old collectives. This paper takes a critical look at this genre. What kinds of processes that create stability and continuity in people’s lives are overlooked or ignored? How can we develop interdisciplinary perspectives to c…
Ta det inte personligt, men
Critical thinking is one of the most highly respected scientific ideals in the academic life. But when it is practiced, for example in reviewing written texts, it is not always experienced as a good thing. It hurts to be criticised. Therefore this practice will for sure generate dissonant feelings, both in those who are giving critique and in those who are receiving it. In order to manage the ambivalence both parties have to learn a cultural comp…
Social and Educational Sciences (13 obras) · Computer Science (9 obras) · Psychology (8 obras) · Philosophy (7 obras) · Political science (6 obras) · Education, Healthcare and Sociology Research (5 obras) · Sociology (5 obras) · Art (4 obras) · Aesthetics (3 obras) · Epistemology (3 obras)