Orvar Lofgren
Biographic Data
| ID | 83998 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Orvar Lofgren |
| GIVEN NAMES | Orvar |
| FAMILY NAME | Lofgren |
| SIGNATURE | LOFGREN O |
| AFFILIATIONS | Lund University |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 71 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 302 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 69 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1979 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Rediscovering Europe
Magic, Culture and the New Economy
What happens when economies 'heat up'? This book looks at the 1990s, years of intense economic experimentation, when buzz words such as 'network society', 'the experience economy', 'creative cities' and 'glocalization' were everywhere. A fascinating perspective on 'The New Economy' emerges as the authors explore the worlds of coolhunters, biotech brokers, career coaches, software entrepreneurs and event managers and tackle such questions as: - ho…
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 …
My Life as Consumer
This tendency for aspects of consumer life to become part of life histories has turned out to be a vital resource in an ongoing research project on consumer culture in twentieth-century Sweden. The focus is on consumption, as everyday routine and an arena for day-dreaming, as well as an ideological battlefield. The use of life histories has a long and strong tradition in the discipline of European ethnology, especially in the Scandinavian countri…
Re-Inventing and Deconstructing Europe All in 136 Centimetres
The Nationalization of Culture Reprinted From Ethnologia Europaea 19: 1, 1989
Mess: On Domestic Overflows
Many homes in affluent Western societies have an ongoing battle against domestic mess, because of the steady inflow of new acquisitions. This essay looks at the ways in which mess has travelled through modern history and has ended up as both a powerful metaphor and a constant everyday worry in consumer life. In this process, mess has often been defined as a problematic condition, often reflecting the moral shortcoming of messy individuals. It has…
Emotional Baggage: Unpacking the Suitcase
What makes the suitcase such a sensitive object? It is a container in which emotionalities and materialities are entangled – packed or unpacked in sometimes surprising ways. The suitcase is a container into which not only objects are stuffed, but also emotions and dreams. It can be many things: a distillation of the future, an icon of mobility, a last resort, a threatening or comforting object. A very personal bond might also evolve – ‘me and my …
Containing the Past, the Present and the Future: Packing a Suitcase
Everyday life is a constant negotiation between experiences and memories of the past, the challenges of the present and longings and anxieties about the future. My paper focuses on “the throwntogetherness” of such temporal frames. How are they synchronized or kept apart? My chosen example is the suitcase, which I will analyze with the help of two perspectives focusing on the acts of throwing together and containing, to explore how the past, the p…
Everyday Life, Anthropology of
Design by Ikea. A Cultural History
What is inside a flat pack from IKEA? Not only stuff waiting to be assembled, challenging an inexperienced DIYer, but also a set of values and ideas – some of them with a long history. IKEA is a gl
Modes and Moods of Mobility: Tourists and Commuters
What can we learn from comparing different modes and moods of travel, among, for example, tourists and commuters? This paper contrasts these two very different kinds of mobility, and the ways in which they organise both motion and emotion. It is not only a question about how people interact with various systems of transport, but also how materialities and affects work together. An important topic is the question of how people acquire travelling s…
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 …
Konsten att ignorera och välja bort: Om selektiv kunskap
In Academia archives, office desks and filing cabinets are bursting with material, hard disks are overloaded and calling for more memory space. This paper looks at the routines of selective knowledge. How do scholars learn to decide what is important or not, irrelevant or worth knowing in a given setting and how do we get at such skills that often sink into the unconscious? The focus is on everyday practices of academic work, how people gradually…
Urban atmospheres as brandscapes and lived experiences
At the Ethnologists' Ball Changing an Academic Habitus
Coping with Excess: How Organizations, Communities and Individuals Manage Overflows
Coping with excess: How Organizations, Communities and Individuals Manage Overflows
What does a stockbroker in Istanbul navigating the rush of incoming trading figures have in common with a mother in Stockholm trying to organize a growing pile of baby clothes? They are both coping with excess or overflow. This book explores the ways in which institutions, corporations and individuals define and manage situations of 'too much' - too much information, too many choices, too many commodities or too many tasks. By analyzing a wide ra…
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…
Changing emotional economies: The case of Sweden 1970–2010
This paper discusses processes of emotionalisation and commodification at home and work, a theme that has been a focus of Arlie Hochschild's research in the USA over the last four decades. What happens when you look at similar processes within another national frame? The American experience is contrasted to that of two periods of rapid cultural and economic change in Swedish society during the early 1970s and late 1990s. Some similarities and dif…
Routinising research: Academic skills in analogue and digital worlds
This paper explores research routines which are so mundane that they are rarely noticed and may be hard to even verbalise. How does one acquire the bodily dexterity of rifling through a filing cabinet, skimming Google lists or judging a book by holding in it one’s hands? Drawing on interviews with and observations among scholars of both the analogue and digital generations, mainly in the social and cultural sciences, I look at how such routines a…
Managing Overflow in Affluent Societies
Opinions: What business anthropology is, what it might become… and what, perhaps, it should not be
No available abstract
Jourhavande etnograf
This special issue on ”experiments in ethnography” is published in honour of ethnologist Billy Ehn. The introduction uses his research during four decades to capture major changes in ways of doing and writing ethnography. What happens when the classic long fieldworks are replaced by a bricolage approach, where very different kinds of materials are combined? How do ethnographers handle the ways in which interviews and observations are mixed with n…
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…
Motion and Emotion: Learning to be a Railway Traveller
The daily commute is often routinized into mindless transportation, which makes it hard to study. But how have commuters acquired the skills of rail travel? This paper looks at the materialities of motion and emotion, drawing on railway travel experiences of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Using a historical perspective to develop an ethnography of the mundane and seemingly eventless, the focus is on the interplay between material infrast…
Materializing the nation in Sweden and America
How has the international ideology of nationalism been used for a differentiating culture-building in shifting national settings'? This article develops a comparative and historical framework to discuss the when, where, how, and why of the national experience, the arenas and situations in which national identity and sharing are materialized, expressed, or contested. The constant remaking of "the national" in Sweden is contrasted with the American…
The Nationalization of Culture
Although nationalism is an example of a cultural force which in many cases has overruled other, traditional identities and loyalties in 19th and 20th century society, the study of nationalism has not been focused very much on the cultural praxis of national identity formation and sharing. As a result, the ideology and politics of nationalism are far better understood than the creation of Hungarianness and Swedishness. This paper discusses some ap…
Romancing the Road: Road Movies and Images of Mobility
Regionauts: The Transformation of Cross-Border Regions in Scandinavia
Many cross-border regions in Europe remain more political dreamscapes than examples of strong transnational integration.The development of the Öresund region through a bridge linking Copenhagen and eastern Denmark with Southern Sweden has been seen as a model for EU region building. Drawing on a multidisciplinary project, this article uses the Öresund case as a starting point, bringing in some contrastive Scandinavian examples. The aim is to disc…
The new economy: A Cultural History
In this article I look at some cultural aspects of the economic frenzy of the 1990s, a period often labelled 'the new economy'. The focus is on the ways in which processes of culturalization became an important part of production, in such fields as e-commerce and 'the experience economy'. How was culture packaged and marketed in new ways, for example in the production of symbols, images, auras, experiences and events? I explore how the technologi…
Our friends in nature: Class and animal symbolism
Reflexions sur le symbolisme social des taxinomies animales et l'anthropomorphisation de ceux-ci. Evolution du symbolisme des animaux en Suede depuis le 16 siecle
Historical Perspectives on Scandinavian Peasantries
Infrastructures are material forms that allow for the possibility of exchange over space. They are the physical networks through which goods, ideas, waste, power, people, and finance are trafficked. In this article I trace the range of anthropological ...Read More
On holiday: A History of Vacationing
Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway
Urban atmospheres as brandscapes and lived experiences
Scenes From a Troubled Marriage: Swedish Ethnology and Material Culture Studies
Why did material culture studies take up such a central space in the develop ment of European ethnology in Sweden and why was this field abandoned, only to return during the 1980s in the new form of studies of 'creative con sumption' ? This paper looks at the changing ways in which the world of goods has been a research topic. Drawing on the Swedish experience it also discusses some ways of revitalizing the field, focusing on the materiality of e…
Modes and Moods of Mobility: Tourists and Commuters
What can we learn from comparing different modes and moods of travel, among, for example, tourists and commuters? This paper contrasts these two very different kinds of mobility, and the ways in which they organise both motion and emotion. It is not only a question about how people interact with various systems of transport, but also how materialities and affects work together. An important topic is the question of how people acquire travelling s…
Concrete transnationalism
In 2000 the bridge across Öresund linking Denmark and Sweden was finally opened. The bridge may appear as a classic, modernist piece of planning and technology, but the actual construction of the bridge coincided with the boom years of 'the new economy'. The ways in which the construction was organized and staged very much came to mirror some important trends of that new economy, including many of its buzz words. Over the years it became more and…
Mess: On Domestic Overflows
Many homes in affluent Western societies have an ongoing battle against domestic mess, because of the steady inflow of new acquisitions. This essay looks at the ways in which mess has travelled through modern history and has ended up as both a powerful metaphor and a constant everyday worry in consumer life. In this process, mess has often been defined as a problematic condition, often reflecting the moral shortcoming of messy individuals. It has…
Double Homes, Double Lives
Linking the Local, the National and the Global Past and Present Trends in European Ethnology
Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin-top:0cm;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;mso-para-margin-left:0cm;line-height:107%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-fam…
Changing emotional economies: The case of Sweden 1970–2010
This paper discusses processes of emotionalisation and commodification at home and work, a theme that has been a focus of Arlie Hochschild's research in the USA over the last four decades. What happens when you look at similar processes within another national frame? The American experience is contrasted to that of two periods of rapid cultural and economic change in Swedish society during the early 1970s and late 1990s. Some similarities and dif…
Island Magic and the Making of A Transnational Region
How can an artificial island and a bridge‐building project shape the dreams and plans for a transnational region? In this article I examine the making of the öresund region of Denmark and Sweden by analyzing the intertwining of bridge construction and region building, from the early dreams and plans, to the actual construction phase, to the ceremonial opening in 2000, and to the difficult transition into an everyday transportation system. The way…
Force of Habit: Exploring Everyday Culture
Introduction: Defining the national
The Sweetness of Horne. Class, Culture and Family Life in Sweden
This paper discusses changing perceptions of home and family life in 19th and 20th century Sweden, exploring the gap between ideals and everyday realities. It traces the emergence of a familistic life style in 19th century bourgeois culture and the construction of new symbolic meanings of home and hominess. The focus is on how these ideas about domesticity were anchored in everyday life and routines. The second part of the paper deals with the wa…
On the Anatomy of Culture The problem of home blindness
The Nationalization of Culture Reprinted From Ethnologia Europaea 19: 1, 1989
At the Ethnologists' Ball Changing an Academic Habitus
Marine Ecotypes in Preindustrial Sweden: A Comparative Discussion of Swedish Peasant Fishermen
Historical Perspectives on Scandinavian Peasantries
Infrastructures are material forms that allow for the possibility of exchange over space. They are the physical networks through which goods, ideas, waste, power, people, and finance are trafficked. In this article I trace the range of anthropological ...Read More
On the Anatomy of Culture The problem of home blindness
Kvinnofolksgöra - om arbetsdelning i bondesamhället
Gränserna mellan manliga och kvinnliga kunskapsområden i bondesamhället var mer flytande än vi ofta föreställer oss idag. Vad kvinnor kunde och fick göra varierade i olika epoker, bygder och samhällsklasser. Orvar Löfgren analyserar här kvinnoarbetets innehåll och betydelse. Han beskriver ett mönster där kvinnors kunskap kommit att undervärderas och idag även undermineras i takt med den teknologiska utvecklingen
The Sweetness of Horne. Class, Culture and Family Life in Sweden
This paper discusses changing perceptions of home and family life in 19th and 20th century Sweden, exploring the gap between ideals and everyday realities. It traces the emergence of a familistic life style in 19th century bourgeois culture and the construction of new symbolic meanings of home and hominess. The focus is on how these ideas about domesticity were anchored in everyday life and routines. The second part of the paper deals with the wa…
Our friends in nature: Class and animal symbolism
Reflexions sur le symbolisme social des taxinomies animales et l'anthropomorphisation de ceux-ci. Evolution du symbolisme des animaux en Suede depuis le 16 siecle
The Power of the Past: Essays for Eric Hobsbawm. PAT THANE, GEOFFREY CROSSICK, and Roderick FLOUND, eds
Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle Class Life
The Nationalization of Culture
Although nationalism is an example of a cultural force which in many cases has overruled other, traditional identities and loyalties in 19th and 20th century society, the study of nationalism has not been focused very much on the cultural praxis of national identity formation and sharing. As a result, the ideology and politics of nationalism are far better understood than the creation of Hungarianness and Swedishness. This paper discusses some ap…
Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middleclass Life
Explains brilliantly the structures and processes of middle-class culture in historical perspective.--Robert Nye, Rutgers University [This] illuminating study of the Swedish middle class around the turn of the century ...is one welcome sign that bourgeois, too, are once again recognized as parts of society worth studying ...to be understood rather than to be savaged. Culture Builders is a welcome sign of yet another development: the ease with whi…
Anthropologizing America
All That Is Native and Fine: The Politics of Culture in an American Region. DAVID E. WHISNANT. Chapel Hill:Klnshlp and Pllgrlmage: Rituals of Reunion in American Protestant Culture. GWEN KENNEDY NEVILLE.Wheeling and Dealing: An Ethnography of an Upper-Level Drug Deallng and Smuggling Community. PATRICIA A. ADLER.Advertising the American Dream: Making Way for Modernity 7920-1940. ROLAND MARCHAND
Culture Builders: A Historical Anthropology of Middle-Class Life
Nationen i den globala byn
På väg genom New Mexico och Medelpad: Roadmovies som samhällsspegel
Road movies comprise a film genre with a growing European audience. European film-makers such as Wim Wenders in Germany, Aki Kaurismäki in Finland and Ulf Malmroos and Jon Lindström in Sweden have experimented with what we consider an idea deeply rooted in American culture, as a symbol of freedom and mobility; the road as a metaphor for life itself, implying risk as well as opportunity. Through an analysis of a range of road movies, the article i…
Materializing the nation in Sweden and America
How has the international ideology of nationalism been used for a differentiating culture-building in shifting national settings'? This article develops a comparative and historical framework to discuss the when, where, how, and why of the national experience, the arenas and situations in which national identity and sharing are materialized, expressed, or contested. The constant remaking of "the national" in Sweden is contrasted with the American…
Introduction: Defining the national
The nation in the global village
En akademisk trettioårskris: Om rutiniseringen av Cultural Studies
During its thirty year history Cultural Studies has developed from an interdisciplinary meeting ground and a "street-urchin of Academia" to a discipline, with its own traditions and routines. Such a process often involves a rather unconscious framing of research and teaching — a tendency to overlook some aspects and to overexploit others. The paper takes a critical look at this transformation, especially at the way in which interests in "everyday…
Leben im Transit: Identitäten und Territorialitäten in historischer Perspektive
Continuity and Change: Aspects of Contemporary Norway
Romancing the Road: Road Movies and Images of Mobility
Linking the Local, the National and the Global Past and Present Trends in European Ethnology
Normal 0 21 false false false DE X-NONE X-NONE /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Normale Tabelle";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-priority:99;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;mso-para-margin-top:0cm;mso-para-margin-right:0cm;mso-para-margin-bottom:8.0pt;mso-para-margin-left:0cm;line-height:107%;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:11.0pt;font-fam…
Marketing the Past
In 1992 a public quarrel started at the opening of the new Stone Age Museum in Swedish Lapland. Were the early local inhabitants from 5000 years ago to be called Swedes or Sami (Lapps)? A couple of years later the newly excavated Viking trading post Birka was presented as an example of an early multi-ethnic Swedish community, with a message of peaceful coexistence among Swedes and immigrants. Modern concepts like 'identity' or 'multi-ethnic socie…
Cyberdrömmar och IT-vardag
Scenes From a Troubled Marriage: Swedish Ethnology and Material Culture Studies
Why did material culture studies take up such a central space in the develop ment of European ethnology in Sweden and why was this field abandoned, only to return during the 1980s in the new form of studies of 'creative con sumption' ? This paper looks at the changing ways in which the world of goods has been a research topic. Drawing on the Swedish experience it also discusses some ways of revitalizing the field, focusing on the materiality of e…
Sociology (33 works) · Political science (31 works) · Art (19 works) · History (19 works) · Aesthetics (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Philosophy (15 works) · Geography (14 works) · Anthropology (12 works) · Computer Science (12 works)