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This study concerns discursive mobilisations of race and racism in the Swedish debate on equality data, in the case of a controversial statement made by a Swedish Green Party MP. In March 2019, female Muslim MP Leila Ali Elmi argued publicly for introducing equality data in Sweden, in opposition to prevailing colour‐blind and antiracialist norms. Her statement was controversially formulated in terms of 'registering' people 'by race', leading to forceful criticism in the mainstream press and on social media, particularly on Twitter. In a material representing this criticism, we analyse discourse participants' argumentative strategies, focusing on mobilisations of race and racism as acts of subject positioning, performative of a moral identity. Participants positioned themselves as morally righteous, liberal antiracists by virtue of their own antiracialism (Goldberg, 2009, The threat of race. Wiley‐Blackwell, Hoboken, NJ) and colour‐blindness (Bonilla‐Silva, 2010, Racism without racists. Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham, MA), while constructing equality data as a racist practice, and as a threat to a liberal order. They also constructed advocates of equality data, and specifically Ali Elmi herself, as being irrational race ideologues, to be morally condemned for espousing a return to racial thinking comparable to that of German Nazism or scientific racism. The findings point to the exceptional status and character of what we call a colour‐blind antiracialism in Sweden, and further show how far 'liberal arguments for illiberal ends' can go in reinforcing a moral status quo and counteracting antiracist reform. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Education is important in shaping professional identity, including how one approaches norms and normalisation. In the analysis presented in this study, nursing students' own constructions of norms and normality from the outlook of their education are highlighted and problematised. To deepen the understanding of these matters, the aim of this study was to explore constructions of norms and normality among students in nursing education. Students studying in a nursing department at a Swedish university college were approached and asked to consider open survey questions targeting their views on norms and normality; 154 of them replied. After a discourse analytic approach to the data, we could see how the students constructed norms and normality as (a) instrumental instructions, consisting of easy‐to‐digest statements grounded in the profession's obvious moral and ethical values, (b) limiting and frustrating obstacles for personal freedom that were important to challenge, (c) rules to be obeyed for the stability of society and (d) a matter of reflection, with each individual being responsible for understanding differences in norms, perspectives and opinions. We conclude that nursing education would benefit from norm‐critical perspectives, problematising students' own positions to norms, power and privilege. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the Swedish news-press, loneliness among older people is presented as a severe problem that needs to be solved. The issue of who is responsible for reducing loneliness and how this responsibility is designated is, however, rarely discussed. In this study, we have analysed how responsibility is designated and constructed in articles from the Swedish news-press. Focus has been on identifying responsibility in discourses proceeding from the concept of subject positions. This concept has enabled analysis on how responsibility is negotiated and who is positioned as a responsible actor with the ability to perform actions that reduce loneliness. Three dominating discourses were found. In the discourse of responsibility within politics and the welfare state , the responsibility is both self-taken and designated to other institutions held responsible for not initiating sufficient measures to reduce loneliness. In the discourse of responsibility within societal and evolutionary perspectives on loneliness , developments beyond the individual's control are considered to contribute to loneliness. At the same time 'we' in 'society' are considered capable of reducing loneliness, thereby constructing individuals as responsible actors. Within the discourses of responsibility within senior organisations , both senior organisations and people who participate in activities are constructed as responsible actors. In conclusion, the responsibility for reducing loneliness is, apart from the discourse on senior organisations, designated to those working with older people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking a (critical) discursive psychological approach, the present study explores the identity management of the Finnish and Swedish Prime Ministers (PM) in relation to the "refugee crisis" and their countries' asylum policies. By taking a longitudinal approach and analysing the PMs' accounts of the "refugee crisis" from 1‐year period, we focused on the ways rhetorical devices related to ethos, logos, and pathos were used to manage the issues of stake and accountability, as well as on the ways in which categories were worked up to serve particular functions. Our comparative analysis demonstrated significant similarities in the Finnish and Swedish PMs' talk, especially with regard to the transfer from a discourse of pathos and ethos, describing refugees in terms of individualism and humaneness, to a discourse of logos, emphasizing rationality, justifying sharpened immigration policies, and homogenizing refugees. However, the different historical paths of the two countries' immigration policies and the specific political situation had implications for the PMs' discourse. The Swedish PM could feasibly scapegoat the Sweden Democrats and the political right in opposition, whereas the Finnish PM, with the populist radical right as a government partner, engaged more heavily in distinctions between "real, needing" and "false, undeserving" refugees. We argue for the longitudinal approach in the analysis of political discourse, as such an approach allows to identify the changes and continuities in the discourse, as well as to grasp the dialogical interplay between the discourse and its context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a restructuring of Swedish healthcare in the 1990s - moving from a welfare model to one inspired by New Public Management - maternity care in Sweden is increasingly centralised to bigger towns. This has led to several units being relocated or forced to close, and to a bigger distance to maternity care for women living in smaller towns and rural areas. In the present article, I analyse the media reporting on the recent closure of the maternity ward in Sollefteå, a small town in Sweden’s northern region. Using intersectional risk theory, I explore how pregnancy-related risks are articulated in Swedish newspapers, and how such articulations relate to power and ideology. Articles from three Swedish newspapers, published during a 4-month period, have been analysed using critical discourse analysis. I conclude that the newspaper articles were most likely to stress the family as the main ‘risk victim’, while the pregnant woman was rarely the focus of risk articulations. When she was, risks were described as ‘worry’ or ‘unworthiness’, and never in medical terms. When such articulations appeared within an individualist ideological discourse, they were naturalised and as such, disconnected from the political decision to close the maternity ward. My contention is that a feminist perspective is largely missing in the media articles and that a bigger focus on the effect that maternity ward closures have for women living outside urban centres is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Swedish welfare debate increasingly focuses on market liberal notions and its healthcare perspective aims for more patient-centered care. This article examines the new Swedish Patient Act describing and analyzing how the patient is constructed in government documents. This study takes a Foucauldian discourse analysis approach following Willig's analysis guide. The act contains an entitlement discourse for patients and a requirement discourse for healthcare personnel. These two discourses are governed by a values-based healthcare discourse. Neo-liberal ideology, in the form of New Public Management discourse, focusing on the value of efficiency and competition, is given a hegemonic position as laws and regulations are used to strengthen it. The new Swedish Patient Act seems to further strengthen this development. The Act underlines the increased entitlement for patients, but it is not legally binding as it offers patients only indirect entitlement to influence and control their care. To safeguard the patient's entitlement under the Patient Act, healthcare personnel should be made aware of the contents of the Act, so that they can contribute to the creation of systems and working methods that facilitate respect of the Act's provisions in daily healthcare work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides a comparative study of the discursive construction and use of Otherness among anti-immigration populist radical right politicians in Sweden and Finland. Based on rhetorical and critical discursive psychology, our analyses of discourse within nine political blogs identified three distinct representations of Otherness. These representations of a deviant group of people, of a threatening ideology and of inner enemies are highly familiar from previous research on radical right discourse. However, what seems to characterize populist radical right discourse in the Nordic context is the strong reliance on the rhetorical juxtaposition between the welfare system and immigration. Our study furthermore highlights how populist radical right politicians exploit the digital discursive tools provided by political blogging. These tools, first, create a sense of connectedness and mutual understanding between blogger and reader and, second, allow the blogger to convey messages that are hostile towards immigrants and ethnic minorities without expressing an explicit personal opinion. In combination, the features provided by political blogging and the discursive and rhetorical strategies that deny racism make discourse within a populist radical right political blog especially powerful and convincing. We conclude that research must be sensitive to this 'digital discourse', as it reaches a public far beyond the sphere of a political blog through its potential to spread and influence mainstream media. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aim The aim of the study is to uncover and reveal how nurses as a profession and their working conditions are dramatized and portrayed in Swedish media narratives about the shortage of nurses. Background The media is an arena where stakeholders can air their views of the healthcare sector in general and the situation for nurses in particular. The focus in this study is the debate in Sweden on the shortage of nurses. Design Qualitative discursive study. Method A discourse analysis of media narratives about nurses and their working conditions published in several Swedish newspapers from 2009-2014. 1779 articles were included in the study. A selection (113 articles) of these articles was further analysed using a qualitative discursive psychological approach. Findings Nurses are portrayed as being good, concerned about and critical of healthcare managers and politicians for not taking action. The accused actors justify their actions by partially accepting or displacing responsibility. The shortage of nurses is framed as a social problem - a threat to patients' safety. Seven different types of metaphorical expression frame the problem as inevitable, beyond control, abstract, an individual and collegial problem and nurses as replaceable. In addition, nurses and patients are dehumanized and no-one is held responsible. Conclusions This study analyses the role of the media in emphasizing the seriousness or obscurity of the problem and possible solutions to it. Alternative narratives are needed to re-frame the nursing shortage and to find sustainable solutions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we seek to explore the tensions between advocacy and self advocacy autistic movements in a Swedish context with a special focus on the meanings that enable the production of particular understandings of autism and the autistic subject. Drawing on articles written for the Swedish advocacy magazine Empowerment written for and by people with autism, the discourse analysis explores two competing discourses: a reformist and a radical. The reformist discourse underlines a goal of (political) representation expressed in Empowerment. It may be understood as an important part of producing a legitimate autistic political subject-positioned as a full member, with a full membership-within a parent-dominated autistic advocacy movement. The reformist discourse can be viewed as a result of a negotiation, where full membership is conditioned on the parents' terms and granted on specific terms. These include working together (neuro-inclusively), advocacy based on interest rather than identity/position as a specific target/member group, agreement upon a definition of autism as a disability (a deficit) a person has rather than an identity. In relation to this, an alternative legitimate autistic subject is produced through invoking the counter-hegemonic radical discourse. Such a narrative produces the 'Asperger' or 'Aspie'. Here, the 'full membership' refers to a sense of identification with sense of belonging to and being at home with other people with autism. It contains a certain amount of autistic solidarity within the group of adults with autism. Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]