Maria Törnqvist
Biographic Data
| ID | 228454 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Maria Törnqvist |
| GIVEN NAMES | Maria |
| FAMILY NAME | Törnqvist |
| SIGNATURE | TÖRNQVIST M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Uppsala University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-9501-7248 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 38 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2007 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Practical belief and ritualized order in the Waldorf school
Based on a year-long ethnographic fieldwork at a well-established Waldorf school in Sweden, this article explores the production of practical belief through the lens of ritual theory. The school in focus is a socially dense environment in which an incarnated orientation is cultivated through boundary work and shared ritual forms. The article examines how pupils, through ritualized practice, incorporate the school’s aesthetic and moral order in wa…
Impersonal Intimacy
How come that in semi-anonymous contexts characterized by flux and exchangeability, people experience affection, closeness and some sense of trust? The answer, proposed in this article, is that intimacy is not necessarily bound up with personal relationships but with social situations. A situational approach, grounded in classic sociological thinking and queer theory, allows us to challenge the close association of intimacy with personal relation…
Why Zoom Hurts
During the Covid-19 pandemic, videoconferencing rapidly shifted from being a time-liberating support tool to becoming a health concern. This article explores the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue from the perspective of a sample of first-wave blog posts, editorials and chronicles reporting on a drastic digital transition. Besides highlighted complaints over headaches and tiredness, the commentaries convey experiences of failed social relations, a double…
The sensing eye
Vision tends to be associated with the mind and theorized as the least bodily sense. Notably, the eye often symbolizes distance. Foregrounding the fleshy embeddedness of the gaze through an analysis of jitterbug, the present article stresses the bodily and intimate significance of vision in dancing. Analyzing ethnographic observation and interview data, we develop a phenomenological approach to dance and gaze that stresses the need to address mul…
Intimate strangers
What does it mean to know and relate to others in a domestic context characterized by physical, but not necessarily emotional, proximity? This article investigates the role of the body in converting strangers into intimate others within the setting of shared housing. Addressing phenomenological work on situated bodies as sites of perception in dialogue with sociological theories of embodiment and attunement, the article explores tacit everyday kn…
Att skriva kroppen. Ett samtal om feministisk fenomenologi, situerad kunskap och citering som motståndspraktik
Vad innebär det att skriva kropp? Som kropp, om kroppen. Vad händer när abstrakt teori möter levd erfarenhet? Och vilka maktstrukturer och vilket motstånd kan artikuleras när vi flätar samman andras ord med våra egna? I ett samtal mellan filosofen och genusvetaren Lisa Folkmarson Käll och sociologen Maria Törnqvist diskuteras feministiskt skrivande med utgångspunkt i Törnqvists bok Merleaus mamma (2020) – en personlig meditation över föräldraskap…
Communal Intimacy
This article uses collective housing, a voluntary form of shared living positioned in between the conventional intimacy sphere and public life, to explore the relation between the organized and the intimate. Combining multisited observations and interviews, the study reveals collective housing to represent fairly depersonalized homes characterized by residential transition and formalization. Rather than addressing the dwellings in terms of detach…
The making of an egalitarian elite
Research on privilege and education often focuses on institutions that are elite in a rather traditional way, for example schools that instruct the children of the upper classes according to a reproductive logic that reinforces existing inequalities. The present article addresses the fostering of advantage from the angle of a more ambiguous case. The Global College, a municipal Swedish upper secondary school specialized in environmental issues an…
Living Alone Together
In this study, situated in urban Stockholm, communal housing stands out as highly individualized. The residents positively appraise their way of living, not primarily for values related to collective solidarity, but for enabling autonomy, privacy and easy exits. Rather than theorizing this as a contradiction, communal housing is framed as a case of individualized collectivism, a belonging structure that is evaluated for fostering interpersonal re…
Rethinking intimacy
Although intimacy is an area characterized by great variety and complexity, both popular and academic discourses have traditionally revolved around a restricted number of associations, of which the family, the romantic couple and friendship bonds have resided at the very centre. In this article the author argues that an analytical shift that addresses intimacy in terms of a relational quality - a specific mode of interaction and a particular expe…
Krönika
Troubling Romance Tourism
This article aims to explore and make theoretical sense of a stream of tourism that blurs the boundaries between sex, romance and intimacy, and diffuses the line between affectionate and economic relations. The empirical scope is the expanding international tourism of tango dancing-meaning the increasing number of people from all over the world travelling to Buenos Aires to dance tango and engage with the local tango culture. In contrast to women…
Varannan damernas väg till riksdagen. En romantisk historia
This article explores the impact of a romantic discourse in Swedish gender politics and more so; a heteroromantic discourse on closeness and passion between men and women. This is done through a close reading of the Swedish debate on “varannan damernas”, a quota measure to increase the number of women in parliament. The article argues that part of what turned this into a gender political success-story is the heteroromantic framing together with a…
The making of an egalitarian elite
Research on privilege and education often focuses on institutions that are elite in a rather traditional way, for example schools that instruct the children of the upper classes according to a reproductive logic that reinforces existing inequalities. The present article addresses the fostering of advantage from the angle of a more ambiguous case. The Global College, a municipal Swedish upper secondary school specialized in environmental issues an…
Rethinking intimacy
Although intimacy is an area characterized by great variety and complexity, both popular and academic discourses have traditionally revolved around a restricted number of associations, of which the family, the romantic couple and friendship bonds have resided at the very centre. In this article the author argues that an analytical shift that addresses intimacy in terms of a relational quality - a specific mode of interaction and a particular expe…
The sensing eye
Vision tends to be associated with the mind and theorized as the least bodily sense. Notably, the eye often symbolizes distance. Foregrounding the fleshy embeddedness of the gaze through an analysis of jitterbug, the present article stresses the bodily and intimate significance of vision in dancing. Analyzing ethnographic observation and interview data, we develop a phenomenological approach to dance and gaze that stresses the need to address mul…
Living Alone Together
In this study, situated in urban Stockholm, communal housing stands out as highly individualized. The residents positively appraise their way of living, not primarily for values related to collective solidarity, but for enabling autonomy, privacy and easy exits. Rather than theorizing this as a contradiction, communal housing is framed as a case of individualized collectivism, a belonging structure that is evaluated for fostering interpersonal re…
Troubling Romance Tourism
This article aims to explore and make theoretical sense of a stream of tourism that blurs the boundaries between sex, romance and intimacy, and diffuses the line between affectionate and economic relations. The empirical scope is the expanding international tourism of tango dancing-meaning the increasing number of people from all over the world travelling to Buenos Aires to dance tango and engage with the local tango culture. In contrast to women…
Intimate strangers
What does it mean to know and relate to others in a domestic context characterized by physical, but not necessarily emotional, proximity? This article investigates the role of the body in converting strangers into intimate others within the setting of shared housing. Addressing phenomenological work on situated bodies as sites of perception in dialogue with sociological theories of embodiment and attunement, the article explores tacit everyday kn…
Krönika
Varannan damernas väg till riksdagen. En romantisk historia
This article explores the impact of a romantic discourse in Swedish gender politics and more so; a heteroromantic discourse on closeness and passion between men and women. This is done through a close reading of the Swedish debate on “varannan damernas”, a quota measure to increase the number of women in parliament. The article argues that part of what turned this into a gender political success-story is the heteroromantic framing together with a…
Troubling Romance Tourism
This article aims to explore and make theoretical sense of a stream of tourism that blurs the boundaries between sex, romance and intimacy, and diffuses the line between affectionate and economic relations. The empirical scope is the expanding international tourism of tango dancing-meaning the increasing number of people from all over the world travelling to Buenos Aires to dance tango and engage with the local tango culture. In contrast to women…
Krönika
Rethinking intimacy
Although intimacy is an area characterized by great variety and complexity, both popular and academic discourses have traditionally revolved around a restricted number of associations, of which the family, the romantic couple and friendship bonds have resided at the very centre. In this article the author argues that an analytical shift that addresses intimacy in terms of a relational quality - a specific mode of interaction and a particular expe…
The making of an egalitarian elite
Research on privilege and education often focuses on institutions that are elite in a rather traditional way, for example schools that instruct the children of the upper classes according to a reproductive logic that reinforces existing inequalities. The present article addresses the fostering of advantage from the angle of a more ambiguous case. The Global College, a municipal Swedish upper secondary school specialized in environmental issues an…
Living Alone Together
In this study, situated in urban Stockholm, communal housing stands out as highly individualized. The residents positively appraise their way of living, not primarily for values related to collective solidarity, but for enabling autonomy, privacy and easy exits. Rather than theorizing this as a contradiction, communal housing is framed as a case of individualized collectivism, a belonging structure that is evaluated for fostering interpersonal re…
Communal Intimacy
This article uses collective housing, a voluntary form of shared living positioned in between the conventional intimacy sphere and public life, to explore the relation between the organized and the intimate. Combining multisited observations and interviews, the study reveals collective housing to represent fairly depersonalized homes characterized by residential transition and formalization. Rather than addressing the dwellings in terms of detach…
Intimate strangers
What does it mean to know and relate to others in a domestic context characterized by physical, but not necessarily emotional, proximity? This article investigates the role of the body in converting strangers into intimate others within the setting of shared housing. Addressing phenomenological work on situated bodies as sites of perception in dialogue with sociological theories of embodiment and attunement, the article explores tacit everyday kn…
Att skriva kroppen. Ett samtal om feministisk fenomenologi, situerad kunskap och citering som motståndspraktik
Vad innebär det att skriva kropp? Som kropp, om kroppen. Vad händer när abstrakt teori möter levd erfarenhet? Och vilka maktstrukturer och vilket motstånd kan artikuleras när vi flätar samman andras ord med våra egna? I ett samtal mellan filosofen och genusvetaren Lisa Folkmarson Käll och sociologen Maria Törnqvist diskuteras feministiskt skrivande med utgångspunkt i Törnqvists bok Merleaus mamma (2020) – en personlig meditation över föräldraskap…
Impersonal Intimacy
How come that in semi-anonymous contexts characterized by flux and exchangeability, people experience affection, closeness and some sense of trust? The answer, proposed in this article, is that intimacy is not necessarily bound up with personal relationships but with social situations. A situational approach, grounded in classic sociological thinking and queer theory, allows us to challenge the close association of intimacy with personal relation…
Why Zoom Hurts
During the Covid-19 pandemic, videoconferencing rapidly shifted from being a time-liberating support tool to becoming a health concern. This article explores the phenomenon of Zoom fatigue from the perspective of a sample of first-wave blog posts, editorials and chronicles reporting on a drastic digital transition. Besides highlighted complaints over headaches and tiredness, the commentaries convey experiences of failed social relations, a double…
The sensing eye
Vision tends to be associated with the mind and theorized as the least bodily sense. Notably, the eye often symbolizes distance. Foregrounding the fleshy embeddedness of the gaze through an analysis of jitterbug, the present article stresses the bodily and intimate significance of vision in dancing. Analyzing ethnographic observation and interview data, we develop a phenomenological approach to dance and gaze that stresses the need to address mul…
Practical belief and ritualized order in the Waldorf school
Based on a year-long ethnographic fieldwork at a well-established Waldorf school in Sweden, this article explores the production of practical belief through the lens of ritual theory. The school in focus is a socially dense environment in which an incarnated orientation is cultivated through boundary work and shared ritual forms. The article examines how pupils, through ritualized practice, incorporate the school’s aesthetic and moral order in wa…
Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Art (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Homelessness and Social Issues (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works) · Diversity and Impact of Dance (3 works)