Lena Sawyer
Biographic Data
| ID | 3742194 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lena Sawyer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lena |
| FAMILY NAME | Sawyer |
| SIGNATURE | SAWYER L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Gothenburg |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2446-3360 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 28 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 11 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2002 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Notes on collective care as black feminist praxis within, outside, and against the academic industrial machine
In this collaborative meditation, understandings and practices of academic living in the Nordics as Afro-Nordic feminists are enacted through an explorative methodology of engaging and re-imagining forms for knowledge production through the lens of Black feminist theorizations. In particular, we rehearse practices of collective care through a form of collective note keeping, a practice which is in kinship with Christina Sharpe's concept of notes …
Local Memory, City Walking, and Exploring Walking Social Work Pedagogies in Fresno, California and Gothenburg, Sweden
Writing Letters as Counter-Archiving
Can counter-archiving be a form of social care? This essay is a dialogue on this topic among four Afro-Nordic feminists writing to each other in the form of letters over a five-month period during 2021. Using an explorative and intuitive practice informed by Black feminist thought, the authors dive into the archives of their families and of the communities that they relate to and are part of as a way to communicate how and why they approach count…
Listening' With Gothenburg's Iron Well
Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region
This introductory essay places the contributions to this special number in a larger context of Nordic debates and research on African and Black diaspora. In particular this essay presents a critical discussion of the Nordic region as a specific kind of geopolitical categorization and branding which allows certain kinds of stories to be told as well as erased and silenced. Rather than ‘case studies’, the articles in this special number should be s…
Intersectional Normalization Processes in a Swedish Family Assessment Home
This article focuses on normalization processes within a Swedish family assessment home. It discusses how normality is constructed by personnel working at Family House, a fictive name for an assessment home of parental care. The article focuses on the ways in which meanings of race/ethnicity, class, and gender are an implicit part of the normativity constructed by personnel in these institutional settings and are used to position themselves as di…
The power of positioning
This article presents a feminist reading of a Swedish social work academic textbook as a case study. We use a discourse analytic approach and positioning theory, focusing on author positions through different story lines. The aim is to make visible how differences are created and positions of the author/reader normalised in terms of gender, race/ethnicity and class. The analysis illustrates how the organisation of the book privileges a particular…
Engendering 'Race' in Calls for Diasporic Community in Sweden
This article argues that theorists of black/African diasporas should interrogate the specific ways in which 'race' is used to engage people in diasporic projects, and that such projects are intimately intertwined with specifically gendered, sexualized, and generational class relations and positionalities in specific national contexts and spaces. Attention to these intersections can help us better understand hierarchies of power between and among …
Diasporic Hegemonies
POPULAR CULTURE AND TRANSNATIONAL BLACKNESS is the second in a series of two dialogues organized by Deborah A. Thomas and Tina M. Campt as part of a project titled "Diasporic Hegemonies." In this dialogue, Maureen Mahon and Lena Sawyer draw from their ethnographic research within the United States and Europe to discuss the role of Africa (and originary "homelands" in general) in imagining diasporic communities in various locations. They also inte…
Maktrelationer och normaliseringsprocesser i välfärdsstaten
This article argues for the need of intersectional analyses within the field of social work in Sweden. Intersectionality offers an important theoretical tool for more complex understandings of power because it takes its point of departure in an understandingof power as multidimensional, where gender/sexuality, ethnicity/" race" and class are constitutive and bearing principals. Intersectional analyses aim to understand how these dimensions are cr…
Routings
This paper discusses the fissures and disjunctions in calls for African diasporic community in Stockholm, Sweden and shows how the "local" (which in this case is formulated as national) is tinged with a particular Swedish moral discourse in relationship to racism. A disjuncture expresses itself in stories of the national past and people. This is a past described as homogeneous and which strategically "routes" racism to specific transnational spac…
Routings
This paper discusses the fissures and disjunctions in calls for African diasporic community in Stockholm, Sweden and shows how the "local" (which in this case is formulated as national) is tinged with a particular Swedish moral discourse in relationship to racism. A disjuncture expresses itself in stories of the national past and people. This is a past described as homogeneous and which strategically "routes" racism to specific transnational spac…
Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region
This introductory essay places the contributions to this special number in a larger context of Nordic debates and research on African and Black diaspora. In particular this essay presents a critical discussion of the Nordic region as a specific kind of geopolitical categorization and branding which allows certain kinds of stories to be told as well as erased and silenced. Rather than ‘case studies’, the articles in this special number should be s…
The power of positioning
This article presents a feminist reading of a Swedish social work academic textbook as a case study. We use a discourse analytic approach and positioning theory, focusing on author positions through different story lines. The aim is to make visible how differences are created and positions of the author/reader normalised in terms of gender, race/ethnicity and class. The analysis illustrates how the organisation of the book privileges a particular…
Engendering 'Race' in Calls for Diasporic Community in Sweden
This article argues that theorists of black/African diasporas should interrogate the specific ways in which 'race' is used to engage people in diasporic projects, and that such projects are intimately intertwined with specifically gendered, sexualized, and generational class relations and positionalities in specific national contexts and spaces. Attention to these intersections can help us better understand hierarchies of power between and among …
Local Memory, City Walking, and Exploring Walking Social Work Pedagogies in Fresno, California and Gothenburg, Sweden
Listening' With Gothenburg's Iron Well
Intersectional Normalization Processes in a Swedish Family Assessment Home
This article focuses on normalization processes within a Swedish family assessment home. It discusses how normality is constructed by personnel working at Family House, a fictive name for an assessment home of parental care. The article focuses on the ways in which meanings of race/ethnicity, class, and gender are an implicit part of the normativity constructed by personnel in these institutional settings and are used to position themselves as di…
Maktrelationer och normaliseringsprocesser i välfärdsstaten
This article argues for the need of intersectional analyses within the field of social work in Sweden. Intersectionality offers an important theoretical tool for more complex understandings of power because it takes its point of departure in an understandingof power as multidimensional, where gender/sexuality, ethnicity/" race" and class are constitutive and bearing principals. Intersectional analyses aim to understand how these dimensions are cr…
Routings
This paper discusses the fissures and disjunctions in calls for African diasporic community in Stockholm, Sweden and shows how the "local" (which in this case is formulated as national) is tinged with a particular Swedish moral discourse in relationship to racism. A disjuncture expresses itself in stories of the national past and people. This is a past described as homogeneous and which strategically "routes" racism to specific transnational spac…
Maktrelationer och normaliseringsprocesser i välfärdsstaten
This article argues for the need of intersectional analyses within the field of social work in Sweden. Intersectionality offers an important theoretical tool for more complex understandings of power because it takes its point of departure in an understandingof power as multidimensional, where gender/sexuality, ethnicity/" race" and class are constitutive and bearing principals. Intersectional analyses aim to understand how these dimensions are cr…
Diasporic Hegemonies
POPULAR CULTURE AND TRANSNATIONAL BLACKNESS is the second in a series of two dialogues organized by Deborah A. Thomas and Tina M. Campt as part of a project titled "Diasporic Hegemonies." In this dialogue, Maureen Mahon and Lena Sawyer draw from their ethnographic research within the United States and Europe to discuss the role of Africa (and originary "homelands" in general) in imagining diasporic communities in various locations. They also inte…
Engendering 'Race' in Calls for Diasporic Community in Sweden
This article argues that theorists of black/African diasporas should interrogate the specific ways in which 'race' is used to engage people in diasporic projects, and that such projects are intimately intertwined with specifically gendered, sexualized, and generational class relations and positionalities in specific national contexts and spaces. Attention to these intersections can help us better understand hierarchies of power between and among …
The power of positioning
This article presents a feminist reading of a Swedish social work academic textbook as a case study. We use a discourse analytic approach and positioning theory, focusing on author positions through different story lines. The aim is to make visible how differences are created and positions of the author/reader normalised in terms of gender, race/ethnicity and class. The analysis illustrates how the organisation of the book privileges a particular…
Intersectional Normalization Processes in a Swedish Family Assessment Home
This article focuses on normalization processes within a Swedish family assessment home. It discusses how normality is constructed by personnel working at Family House, a fictive name for an assessment home of parental care. The article focuses on the ways in which meanings of race/ethnicity, class, and gender are an implicit part of the normativity constructed by personnel in these institutional settings and are used to position themselves as di…
Refracting African and Black diaspora through the Nordic region
This introductory essay places the contributions to this special number in a larger context of Nordic debates and research on African and Black diaspora. In particular this essay presents a critical discussion of the Nordic region as a specific kind of geopolitical categorization and branding which allows certain kinds of stories to be told as well as erased and silenced. Rather than ‘case studies’, the articles in this special number should be s…
Listening' With Gothenburg's Iron Well
Writing Letters as Counter-Archiving
Can counter-archiving be a form of social care? This essay is a dialogue on this topic among four Afro-Nordic feminists writing to each other in the form of letters over a five-month period during 2021. Using an explorative and intuitive practice informed by Black feminist thought, the authors dive into the archives of their families and of the communities that they relate to and are part of as a way to communicate how and why they approach count…
Local Memory, City Walking, and Exploring Walking Social Work Pedagogies in Fresno, California and Gothenburg, Sweden
Notes on collective care as black feminist praxis within, outside, and against the academic industrial machine
In this collaborative meditation, understandings and practices of academic living in the Nordics as Afro-Nordic feminists are enacted through an explorative methodology of engaging and re-imagining forms for knowledge production through the lens of Black feminist theorizations. In particular, we rehearse practices of collective care through a form of collective note keeping, a practice which is in kinship with Christina Sharpe's concept of notes …
Sociology (10 works) · Gender Studies (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Law (5 works) · Anthropology (4 works) · Diaspora, migration, transnational identity (4 works) · Social science (4 works) · Ethnic group (3 works)