Åsa Wettergren
Biographic Data
| ID | 207433 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Åsa Wettergren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Åsa |
| FAMILY NAME | Wettergren |
| SIGNATURE | WETTERGREN Å |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Gothenburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-5495-0779 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 41 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 225 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 41 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2009 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Förbundsstyrelsens svar till Alinia, Behtoui, Lundberg, Mitchell, Mulinari och Thörn
Anmodan om intresseanmälan för redaktörskap för Sociologisk Forskning 2027–2028
Ordföranden har ordet
The gaze from afar: Climate Action Despite the Loss of Hope
Regarding climate change, catastrophic developments are already ongoing. This does not eliminate the hope that meaningful climate action is possible but can lead to other emotions and emotive-cognitive orientations becoming more central in motivating collective action. We argue for the crucial role of a ‘gaze from afar’, which can validate action even without hope of averting catastrophe. Such a gaze breaks with the conventional model of empathic…
An emotional world
We are grateful to have such enthusiastic and professional support from Bristol University Press, for our dedicated editorial board, and to all of you who submit your great work for publication.Perhaps most of all, we send a massive thank-you to all our reviewers over the past five volumes.Recruiting reviewers is sometimes hard as it seems the world spins faster and faster, squeezing the 'spare time' that most of us need to keep up with unpaid co…
It could be my son! ‘Himpathy’ and the male fear defence in rape trials
Why do legal professionals mention their sons when discussing a new consent‐based rape law? Drawing on feminist legal studies and sociology of emotions, this article investigates a discourse of male fear of rape accusations among Swedish legal professionals and how defence lawyers strategically employ it. The analysis shows that a male fear defence is deployed to evoke a specific kind of sympathy termed ‘himpathy’ among judges. The male fear disc…
Sociologins samtid och framtid, en personlig betraktelse
Emotionalising hope in times of climate change
The aim is to theorise hope from a sociology of emotion perspective and propose a general framework for the analysis of discrete emotions – the emotive-cognitive chain of evaluation – that can be applied by analysing different types of hope. Hope is defined as the emotion of future possibility, distinct from self-confidence, faith and trust. Hope as a foreground emotion, subject to emotive-cognitive evaluation, arises in a bad present (target) as…
Being there’: Emotional memories, gatherings of the Emotions Research Network and happy birthdays
It sounds like lived experience’ - On empathy in rape trials
In this article the intrinsic relation between the formal and the informal aspects of rape trials in Sweden will be scrutinized and discussed, for two main reasons (that are intertwined). Firstly, rape cases are characterized by a word-against-word situation, with few other forms of evidence, and with a rate of convictions much lower than for other criminal cases. The fact that the parties’ statements are placed at the core of the presentation an…
Sociologförbundet har ordet: Vi gratulerar en vital 60-åring
Sociologförbundet har ordet Vi gratulerar en vital 60-åring! Det är tid att ropa hurra och säga stort och varmt grattis! I år publiceras nämligen årgång 60 av Sociologisk Forskning, en sannerligen aktningsvärd ålder. Under årens lopp har tidskriften publicerat aktuell sociologisk forskning och inspirerande och viktiga debatter som legat till grund för nya analyser och tolkningar av historiska och samtida sociologiska fenomen. Sociologisk Forsknin…
Organising outsourced workers in UK’s new trade unionism - emotions, protest, and collective identity
Drawing on the literature of social movements and emotions, this article analyses a case of the union-led movement against outsourcing in the UK. Our focus is on the emotional processes of collective identity formation and the movement culture of new grassroot unions, addressing the themes of movement culture, collective identity and political solidarity. Data consists of participant observations, interviews, and additional website and media mate…
Epistemic emotions in prosecutorial decision making
The article examines epistemic emotions as part of the emotive-cognitive processes of prosecutors' knowledge seeking and decision making in preliminary investigation and court proceedings. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and shadowing of prosecutors in Sweden, we show how emotions motivate and orient prosecutors' inquiries and the fundamental role of the 'certainty-doubt spiral' for 'doing objectivity'. In conclusion, we discuss th…
Emotions, politics and truth
s Research Network 11: Sociology of Emotions (RN11) through the nomination of the best paper award following the research network's midterm conference in 2020. The winner of the Best Paper Award 2021 and the 300 euro prize provided by RN11 was Yvonne Wechuli (University of Cologne) for her paper 'Between cripping and reclaiming. Epistemological implications for disability studies'. Two other papers were considered to be of high quality: Gzde Cbek…
Enthusiasm as emotional practice: Sociologising a practice approach to emotions
Comparing culturally embedded frames of judicial dispassion
The aim of this chapter is to outline a theoretical framework for the comparative study of emotions in Western legal systems of different countries. Our focus is on the legal actors, and our primary interest is how internal legal culture - conceptualized as ‘the emotive-cognitive judicial frame’ - is embedded in a broader context of a socio-culturally specific emotional regime. The emotive-cognitive judicial frame combines national emotion norms …
Governing by emotions in financial education
In line with previous research, we consider financial education to be a form of governmentality in the age of financialization. Applying sociological theory of emotions, we investigate the role emotion play in the attempt to govern citizens in Swedish financial education. The material consists of interviews with organizers of the Swedish Like Your Personal Finance educational network and observations of one of its courses, Secure Your Financial F…
Prosecutors’ Habituation of Emotion Management in Swedish Courts
The article examines the professional emotion management underlying prosecutors’ work in court. Building on interviews and observations of forty-one prosecutors at five offices in Sweden, and drawing on sociological theories of emotion habituation, we analyze the emotion management necessary to perform frontstage (in court) professionalism as a prosecutor. We divide our analysis into three key dimensions of habituation: the feeling rules of confi…
Political economies of emotion
Emotions in the pandemic: Crises and politics of change
Mötesboken. Tolkningar av arbetslivets sammanträden och rosévinsmingel: Patrik Hall, Vesa Leppänen och Malin Åkerström
Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv
The Emotional Interaction of Judicial Objectivity
Like other Western legal systems, the Swedish legal system constructs objectivity as an unemotional state of being. We argue that the enactment of objectivity in situ relies on objectivity work including emotion management and empathy. Building on qualitative interviews and observations in Swedish district courts, we analyse courtroom interaction through a dramaturgical lens, highlighting tacit signals and interprofessional emotional communicatio…
Into the 21st century
Power and status in court
Chapter 5 examines judges’ and prosecutors’ background emotions and emotion management from a power and status perspective. How do the dynamics of power and status in the courtroom influence emotions and emotion management strategies? How do judges and prosecutors deal with power in their work roles? How do professional power and status shape judges’ and prosecutors’ interactions with other professionals and with lay people? Increasing workloads …
Why emotions in court?
The aim of the project Emotions in Court (2012–2016), on which this book is based, was to study emotions and emotion management in Swedish courts. Departing from the theoretical distinction between background and foreground emotions, we wanted to find out not whether, but in which ways, emotions are active and acted upon in legal practice. In this chapter, we first present the background and the overall argument of this book, along with its theor…
Fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism
Analyzing fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism, we consider these pivotal emotions to climate activists. The way they are managed affects activists’ motivations and mobilizing strategies. This argument builds on the theoretical premise that emotions energize and orient all actions. Qualitative interviews were carried out with climate activists in Denmark, Sweden, and at two UNFCCC Conferences of Youth. Our analysis shows that fear mot…
The emotional labour of gaining and maintaining access to the field
The role of emotions in qualitative research receives increasing attention. We argue for an active rather than a reactive approach towards emotions to improve the quality of research; emotions are a vital source of information and researchers use emotions strategically. Analysing the emotion work of researchers in the process of gaining, securing and maintaining access to the Swedish judiciary, we propose that the emotion work involved is a type …
Professional Emotions in Court: A Sociological Perspective
Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants 'backstage' - whether at the office or at lunch - in order…
Fun and Laughter: Culture Jamming and the Emotional Regime of Late Capitalism
In contemporary social movement protest in general and in culture jamming in particular fun and laughter are key ingredients. But why and what is the meaning of fun in protest? These questions are answered by analyzing the various meanings and uses of fun and laughter in culture jamming. The data consist of texts and visuals from the websites of five groups, seven in-depth interviews, two participant observations, and the book Culture Jam. The fi…
Emotionalising hope in times of climate change
The aim is to theorise hope from a sociology of emotion perspective and propose a general framework for the analysis of discrete emotions – the emotive-cognitive chain of evaluation – that can be applied by analysing different types of hope. Hope is defined as the emotion of future possibility, distinct from self-confidence, faith and trust. Hope as a foreground emotion, subject to emotive-cognitive evaluation, arises in a bad present (target) as…
Epistemic emotions in prosecutorial decision making
The article examines epistemic emotions as part of the emotive-cognitive processes of prosecutors' knowledge seeking and decision making in preliminary investigation and court proceedings. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, interviews, and shadowing of prosecutors in Sweden, we show how emotions motivate and orient prosecutors' inquiries and the fundamental role of the 'certainty-doubt spiral' for 'doing objectivity'. In conclusion, we discuss th…
Who Is a Refugee? Political Subjectivity and the Categorisation of Somali Asylum Seekers in Sweden
The status of refugee refers to activities in the political sphere and is sparsely applied in Sweden where subsidiary protection is much more common. Our aim was to analyse how the status of subsidiary protection is reached in the case of Somalis, by unpacking the inherent logic (or lack thereof) regarding tacit assumptions of what it means to be ‘political’. The type of status matters because of the concrete and symbolic rights and recognition c…
Organising outsourced workers in UK’s new trade unionism - emotions, protest, and collective identity
Drawing on the literature of social movements and emotions, this article analyses a case of the union-led movement against outsourcing in the UK. Our focus is on the emotional processes of collective identity formation and the movement culture of new grassroot unions, addressing the themes of movement culture, collective identity and political solidarity. Data consists of participant observations, interviews, and additional website and media mate…
Emotions, power and space in the discourse of ‘People of the Real World’
The article investigates the discursive trope of ‘People of the Real World’ (PRW) as it was launched by the leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund, during a political campaign week on the Island of Gotland in 2009. Sociological and cultural theories of local vs. cosmopolitan identity, of emotions, and of space, are used to analyse the speech and a selection of newspaper articles from 2009. The PRW discourse defends local, seden…
It sounds like lived experience’ - On empathy in rape trials
In this article the intrinsic relation between the formal and the informal aspects of rape trials in Sweden will be scrutinized and discussed, for two main reasons (that are intertwined). Firstly, rape cases are characterized by a word-against-word situation, with few other forms of evidence, and with a rate of convictions much lower than for other criminal cases. The fact that the parties’ statements are placed at the core of the presentation an…
Into the 21st century
Observing judicial work and emotions: Using Two Researchers
Observation is an important component of research to examine complex social settings and is well-established for studying courtroom dynamics and judicial behaviour. However, the many activities occurring at once and the multiple participants, lay and professional, make it impossible for a sole researcher to observe and understand everything occurring in the courtroom. This article reports on the use of two researchers to undertake court observati…
The gaze from afar: Climate Action Despite the Loss of Hope
Regarding climate change, catastrophic developments are already ongoing. This does not eliminate the hope that meaningful climate action is possible but can lead to other emotions and emotive-cognitive orientations becoming more central in motivating collective action. We argue for the crucial role of a ‘gaze from afar’, which can validate action even without hope of averting catastrophe. Such a gaze breaks with the conventional model of empathic…
Prosecutors’ Habituation of Emotion Management in Swedish Courts
The article examines the professional emotion management underlying prosecutors’ work in court. Building on interviews and observations of forty-one prosecutors at five offices in Sweden, and drawing on sociological theories of emotion habituation, we analyze the emotion management necessary to perform frontstage (in court) professionalism as a prosecutor. We divide our analysis into three key dimensions of habituation: the feeling rules of confi…
Political economies of emotion
Emotions in the pandemic: Crises and politics of change
How Does Climate Change Transnationalise Environmental Movement Organisations? The Case of Denmark
Environmental movements have always dealt with intrinsically transnational issues. At the same time, many issues and strategies among environmental movement actors have been articulated as nation-based. An increased emphasis on the issue of climate change and preparations before the UN Climate Summit in 2009, held in Copenhagen, fuelled the mobilisation of both new and established environmental movement actors in Denmark. The 2009 Climate Summit …
Commentary: Sociology of emotions from an embedded perspective
Fun and Laughter: Culture Jamming and the Emotional Regime of Late Capitalism
In contemporary social movement protest in general and in culture jamming in particular fun and laughter are key ingredients. But why and what is the meaning of fun in protest? These questions are answered by analyzing the various meanings and uses of fun and laughter in culture jamming. The data consist of texts and visuals from the websites of five groups, seven in-depth interviews, two participant observations, and the book Culture Jam. The fi…
The Significance of Social Movements to Human Rights and Global Solidarity
Neil Stammers London, Pluto Press, 2009, ISBN 9780745329116 (paperback), £14.99, x + 286 pp., indices Hakan Thorn London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006, ISBN 978-1-4039-3937-1 (hardback), £18.99 ISBN 97
Laughing Saints and Righteous Heroes. Emotional Rythms in Social Movement Groups
Laughing Saints and Righteous Heroes. Emotional Rythms in Social Movement Groups." Social Movement Studies, 11(3-4), pp. 477–478
Emotions, power and space in the discourse of ‘People of the Real World’
The article investigates the discursive trope of ‘People of the Real World’ (PRW) as it was launched by the leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund, during a political campaign week on the Island of Gotland in 2009. Sociological and cultural theories of local vs. cosmopolitan identity, of emotions, and of space, are used to analyse the speech and a selection of newspaper articles from 2009. The PRW discourse defends local, seden…
Who Is a Refugee? Political Subjectivity and the Categorisation of Somali Asylum Seekers in Sweden
The status of refugee refers to activities in the political sphere and is sparsely applied in Sweden where subsidiary protection is much more common. Our aim was to analyse how the status of subsidiary protection is reached in the case of Somalis, by unpacking the inherent logic (or lack thereof) regarding tacit assumptions of what it means to be ‘political’. The type of status matters because of the concrete and symbolic rights and recognition c…
The emotional labour of gaining and maintaining access to the field
The role of emotions in qualitative research receives increasing attention. We argue for an active rather than a reactive approach towards emotions to improve the quality of research; emotions are a vital source of information and researchers use emotions strategically. Analysing the emotion work of researchers in the process of gaining, securing and maintaining access to the Swedish judiciary, we propose that the emotion work involved is a type …
How Does Climate Change Transnationalise Environmental Movement Organisations? The Case of Denmark
Environmental movements have always dealt with intrinsically transnational issues. At the same time, many issues and strategies among environmental movement actors have been articulated as nation-based. An increased emphasis on the issue of climate change and preparations before the UN Climate Summit in 2009, held in Copenhagen, fuelled the mobilisation of both new and established environmental movement actors in Denmark. The 2009 Climate Summit …
Observing judicial work and emotions: Using Two Researchers
Observation is an important component of research to examine complex social settings and is well-established for studying courtroom dynamics and judicial behaviour. However, the many activities occurring at once and the multiple participants, lay and professional, make it impossible for a sole researcher to observe and understand everything occurring in the courtroom. This article reports on the use of two researchers to undertake court observati…
Commentary: Sociology of emotions from an embedded perspective
Fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism
Analyzing fear, hope, anger, and guilt in climate activism, we consider these pivotal emotions to climate activists. The way they are managed affects activists’ motivations and mobilizing strategies. This argument builds on the theoretical premise that emotions energize and orient all actions. Qualitative interviews were carried out with climate activists in Denmark, Sweden, and at two UNFCCC Conferences of Youth. Our analysis shows that fear mot…
Power and status in court
Chapter 5 examines judges’ and prosecutors’ background emotions and emotion management from a power and status perspective. How do the dynamics of power and status in the courtroom influence emotions and emotion management strategies? How do judges and prosecutors deal with power in their work roles? How do professional power and status shape judges’ and prosecutors’ interactions with other professionals and with lay people? Increasing workloads …
Why emotions in court?
The aim of the project Emotions in Court (2012–2016), on which this book is based, was to study emotions and emotion management in Swedish courts. Departing from the theoretical distinction between background and foreground emotions, we wanted to find out not whether, but in which ways, emotions are active and acted upon in legal practice. In this chapter, we first present the background and the overall argument of this book, along with its theor…
Background emotions in legal professional life
Chapter 2 presents an overview of the professional profiles of judges and prosecutors. These profiles are the outcome of judges’ and prosecutors’ different functions and work tasks in the legal system and of how they are selected for their respective careers. These partly shared profession-specific circumstances to generate emotive-cognitive dispositions and challenges. Uniting features are professional pride, a highly valued independence, and a …
Concluding discussion
Chapter 7 presents a summary of the book’s empirical results and thereafter develops and discusses the theoretical implications relating to its main concepts: the emotive-cognitive judicial frame, emotional profiles, and background emotions. We conclude that the emotive-cognitive judicial frame lacks workable concepts for disentangling and evaluating emotional information. The judicial frame thus serves a disciplining and performative function by…
The dramaturgy of court emotions
Chapter 4 focuses on the drama of the court ritual; how emotions and emotion management are silenced by the entire dramaturgy of the legal setting. We demonstrate how the performance of the different legal roles, nevertheless, relies on skilled empathic engagement in, and management of, the emotions of the lay people in court. The concerted performance of objective justice furthermore requires the professionals to communicate emotions between the…
Objectivity work as situated emotion management
Chapter 6 scrutinizes the core of a legitimate rule of law and power usage: objectivity. The emotive-cognitive judicial frame holds positivist objectivity to be static, something one ‘is’. Furthermore, objectivity is assumed to be unemotional, because emotion, as opposed to instrumental pure reason, carries social bonds and affiliations, and morality (good and bad, likes and dislikes). We challenge this notion of objectivity by showing, first, th…
Organizational emotion management
Chapter 3 examines the joint and divided hardships, to which the legal professionals submit in order to prove their worth in the group of judges and prosecutors, by presenting how emotion management is embedded in the organisations of the courts and the prosecution offices. We first demonstrate how neoliberal management ideology organizes emotion, pushing a less personalized and more detached relation to cases. We then proceed to demonstrate the …
Professional Emotions in Court: A Sociological Perspective
Professional Emotions in Court examines the paramount role of emotions in the legal professions and in the functioning of the democratic judicial system. Based on extensive interview and observation data in Sweden, the authors highlight the silenced background emotions and the tacitly habituated emotion management in the daily work at courts and prosecution offices. Following participants 'backstage' - whether at the office or at lunch - in order…
The Emotional Interaction of Judicial Objectivity
Like other Western legal systems, the Swedish legal system constructs objectivity as an unemotional state of being. We argue that the enactment of objectivity in situ relies on objectivity work including emotion management and empathy. Building on qualitative interviews and observations in Swedish district courts, we analyse courtroom interaction through a dramaturgical lens, highlighting tacit signals and interprofessional emotional communicatio…
Into the 21st century
Political economies of emotion
Emotions in the pandemic: Crises and politics of change
Mötesboken. Tolkningar av arbetslivets sammanträden och rosévinsmingel: Patrik Hall, Vesa Leppänen och Malin Åkerström
Sociologisk Forsknings digitala arkiv
Comparing culturally embedded frames of judicial dispassion
The aim of this chapter is to outline a theoretical framework for the comparative study of emotions in Western legal systems of different countries. Our focus is on the legal actors, and our primary interest is how internal legal culture - conceptualized as ‘the emotive-cognitive judicial frame’ - is embedded in a broader context of a socio-culturally specific emotional regime. The emotive-cognitive judicial frame combines national emotion norms …
Governing by emotions in financial education
In line with previous research, we consider financial education to be a form of governmentality in the age of financialization. Applying sociological theory of emotions, we investigate the role emotion play in the attempt to govern citizens in Swedish financial education. The material consists of interviews with organizers of the Swedish Like Your Personal Finance educational network and observations of one of its courses, Secure Your Financial F…
Psychology (23 works) · Sociology (21 works) · Political science (20 works) · Law (13 works) · Epistemology (12 works) · Politics (12 works) · Social Psychology (12 works) · Law (10 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Law in Society and Culture (7 works)