I have been co-writing an article with Kristina Börjesson, a PhD and Research Associate at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design, on the topic of “Sustainable revitalization of places.” It has again forced me to really contemplate the concept of social sustainability and society planning.
Sustainable revitalization of places
Street corner culture in the suburbs of Sweden
Two current events have made us revisit the theme of street corner culture. One of them is the never-ending fireriots in Rosengård, the other is a recent gathering held with some of our younger informants. It’s very obvious that street corner culture amongst the younger is a symptom of a social exclusion that is two folded. Firstly, and probably foremost, it deals with the socioeconomic situation which encompass neighborhoods suffering from different forms of deprivation which lead to a notion of powerlessness. Secondly, there is an enormous lack of “things to do” and “places to go” when you are in the in-between age of 15-17 years old. This culture of “att tugga” (that is standing doing nothing and talking about whatever) is not all bad though; it’s far from everyone that is up to mischievous acts. And when listening conversations, subjects and the way things are said, it´s not surprising that hip hop and rap is born in these corners. The danger whit this sort of leisure career though is when the depravation gets idealized to the point where you just don’t care anymore. Or as Anna, 18 years old said: “A lot of the young kids hanging in street corners seem to lack the ability of seeing the connection between cause and effect. Or maybe they just don’t care.”
Rosengård on fire. Photo by Simeon Ogén. Scanpix. Taken from tv4.
Sustainable entrepreneurship and business with care – in case you can’t care
A growing number of small businesses are now delivering food at your door. But it’s not just food. It’s an environmental friendly produced bag of raw food that constitutes a dinner week for a whole family. Well suited for timed crunched parents who just don’t have time to prepare, plan or shop. In Sweden we have more and more following the trend of subscribing to this kind of services (Middagsfrid, Familyfood, Framtidens mat, Årstiderna). It’s all about simplifying your life. This is an interesting development and when hearing from people that use it, it seems to be cost-effective as well since: “When I buy food myself I tend to get so much unnecessary stuff that I have to throw away.” This might be great but it’s also sort of sad and it says a lot about our stressed out society. But hats off- this is a good business idea.
stuff white people like?
In some way the blogosphere is a great field for ethnographic studies and everything is worth some examination regardless of the topic. It doesn’t always have to be so serious or intellectual, the average person just ain’t that deep.
The extremely popular blog (now book and soon to be a tv-series) Stuff White People Like (an article in DN say it has 58 million readers so far) is hardly funny. But it touch upon something that people in general enjoy, the always taboo subjects of ethnicity linked with self-deprecating humour. You can of course do this in a serious way as well, like Moore did with Stupid White Men, but now to the fun part…
You can examine these texts and figure out a lot about our society and no matter how interesting it is… It is, to me, always overshadowed with the fact that only white men are privilege enough to make books (blogs) like this. I know I won’t live to see they day when a Japanese woman write the book “Stupid East Asian women” or a black man write the book “Stuff black people like” – and get away with it. (They might do it but they won’t get away with it.) And that’s also a part of the society we live in.
a modern woman
Ask any woman if she considers herself to be a modern woman and few will say “no”. The other alternative is just not attractive. But what does it mean to be a modern woman?
”My baby is only 3 months old and I am starting to feel that urge to be free. Get out. Go to work. Not to sit at home and breastfeed. I love children but that’s not my thing. I need some space. Typical eh. The modern woman. (Maria is a 37 year old journalist in Stockholm, Sweden)
“When you look at me you see traditional women. I have my chicken and I sell my eggs. But I am actually a modern woman. You can’t see it but my dreams are modern. In my dreams I am a pilot or a doctor. And I live in America. You see now. I am modern.” (Alganech is a 42 year old business owner in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia)
we are marked before we are born
The other day Swedish Radio sent a program titled Boende påverkar fostret (Housing effects fetus) saying that our housing area lay the foundation for our unborn babies health. The comparison was made between a posh Stockholm area (Östermalm) and a, what they call, a “socially segregated neighborhood” in Stockholm (Fittja).
Living conditions and its relation to health is neither new or a mystery, but the reaction to this program amongst fellow hoodsresidents where pretty strong since the program proposed the ”new” research in a predestined and permanent social model. A pregnant women said, “Now he is marked even before he is born”, while looking down at her pouching stomach.
I am also tempted to disregard this as deterministic bull shit but I do think that we have to acknowledge the fact that people are social products, but we are also creative, rational and socially reflexive. In other words pregnant mum, there is a lot of hope for your unborn child. Make it happen!
att leka svensk
Sorry, this one must be in Swedish.
Fältanteckningar, februari 2009.
”Min pappa läser tidningen på morgonen. Svenskan. Han har svensk flickvän, så det är därför. Han skulle inte tänka tanken på att beställa hem tidningen om det inte var för henne.” (Sara 16 år)
”Ahh. Min farsa försökte också göra det …. eller han gjorde det ett tag. Försökte leka svensk. Men han bara … ´Va, det kostar?´ (Skratt) Det var den där Dagbladet…Dagens Nyheter som han prenumererade på. Jag kände inte igen min farsa. Han satt där vid frukostbordet med en tidning – en svensk tidning.” (Serkan 16 år)
how to merge CRM and CIM without getting too much information
For the past few years CRM (Customer Relationship Management) has been the obvious model for any business interested in creating customer satisfaction. Today’s article in Dagens Media is however pointing out that the next step, CIM (Customer Involvement Management) is crucial for addressing the next generation consumers, that is – people that grew up with the opportunity to design their own identity and therefore there own brand identity. CIM is new, it’s in development. The term has just recently and sort of insufficient been addressed in Wikipedia. (I’ll give it another month or so and then we probably have a good account of the term.)
As much as I get excited about companies increasing interest in consumers, I am worried that they will take the easy way out by assembling focus groups or in some other “creative” way have …“to many chefs spoiling one soup”. An in depth ethnographic study will merge both CRM and CIM and instead of having a chaotic group of layman experts getting you puzzled about the waste amount of information you will receive, you will have experienced “translator” disentangle the material and pinpoint segmentation, positioning, development, communication, and so on.
a pleasure to “go native” with teenagers
A current Inculture project have once again focused my attention on youngsters of today. As much as I get annoyed by the excessive commercial interest in youth culture – it is always a pleasure to “go native” with teenagers on the verge of becoming adults. They always, quite elegant, manage to simplify complicated issues. For instance, there are several debates about how difficult it is to define the term “knowledge”, it is… facts, skills, experience, good judgment, and so on. When I randomly asked that question to my informants, Hakan had no problems answering it:“Knowledge is what my father teaches me every day. He gives me genuine knowledge, tools to be a human being, just trying to get by in everyday life.” (Hakan, 16 years old)
the multicultural riddle
Neither I can ignore the recent event in Rosengård. In short, currently there is a huge debate in Sweden about the values with in our police force. The incident that fueled the discussion was some recorded racists police statements, aimed at young people in a Swedish suburb populated by, well let’s call them “people with foreign background” – pretty much like my self. All of the sudden (and I guess finally?) Sweden is officially aware of, and might I say in a state of shock, that everyday racism is pretty common, especially amongst people with the right to practice power.
What interests me the most in this, is the simultaneous debate that goes on by many of us that belong to the categories that are being degraded. That is, “Why are people so surprised?” Cause the matter of the fact is we knew,(I am sure that there is some exceptions but) we have always known. And we have been trying to tell, but it never seems to be relevant enough. It’s on the agenda but is never prioritized. I understand that this multicultural riddle is difficult to tackle in Sweden but it’s not that tricky. The sooner you let us in the system, make sure that we are represented in all levels of workforces and so on, the sooner the alienation and segregation that creates hostility from both sides (no one is completely innocent here) the first steps of solving the riddle has been taken. Don’t just talk about it – do it!