Kategori Insight

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.

Driving around in Mauritius, suddenly, in the green wild, a shopping mall. It was a somehow unreal feeling walking around in the mall. It was silent, empty and out of it’s cultural context. I went back several times to see if the emptiness only was a coincidence with my first visit, but no. The lines of cashier just sitting with almost nothing to do, the overfilled shelves, the lonely woman walking around.

The local market a few miles away was overfilled, with people and goods. I ask one woman why she was speding time at the local market instead of the mall, she answered: ”Because the fresh and cold feeling at the mall, the cleaness and the perfection makes me so unhappy. All the joy with food is gone. The smell and texture is not there. It’s not food.”

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.

We often talk about a ”new generation” when describing the use of digital media technique and all applications. For this generation media is something natural; integretaded in everyday life and the difference between consuming and producing is no more. One aspect of the mediated society is how this ”new” generation, especially Generation Z, integrate design in everyday life. From an early age they are connected and design as communication strategies and commercial messages are everywhere in their lives. Everything around is part of the identity formation, their own and the social world around them. Two examples from our fieldworks.

A girl 8 years old follow her mom and dad to IKEA. They are supposed to buy a new bed to the girl. The parents find several beds that they like, the girl becomes more and more grumpy. She sits down and says that she wants to go home: My bed in Sims is the only I want.

A boy 6 years old helps his mom to make lunch. He’s responsible for holding the eggs until the mother needs them. He carefully looks at one egg and the red stamp and suddenly says: Oh, this is designed by ICA!

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.

I went to Nike store when in NY and suddenly saw this on the wall. And I thought, owaw, Lebron really does understand how it is to be an anthropologist… !

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)

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!

Sara is in the grocery store. She often complains about the lack of “ecological and local products”, they are more real. When she sees someone working in the store she always talk with them about this. They answer her that there are so few people that actually choose the ecological products, they are too expensive. Sara’s trip to the store always makes her irritated. One day her grocery has started a new brand “I love eco”. Sara doesn’t see it, she is too occupied looking for ecological products as usual. When she suddenly realise the new brand she is not interested, it is too mass produced: “that is ecology for the average person”, she says and continues to look for “real ecological” products. (Sara 26 years in the grocery store)

There is evident that many consumers either go for quality or mass production; you go for soul or the general idea. For example; when it comes to food one either chooses ecological or locally produced or cheap canned good without story or localization. It’s a logical process depending on what currency you use in that certain moment.

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)