Anna Bredström
Senior Associate Professor
https://liu.se/en/employee/annbr25
Active projects
A New Biologism?
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
The aim of this project is to examine the extent to which ethnic differences in health are ascribed a biological significance in a Swedish context, and if so, how that may impact on equality in health care as well as attitudes on race and ethnicity.
The project will meet its aim through two case studies: Psychiatric Ill-health (Depression/Anxiety) and Diabetes (Type 2) in Sweden. Both Psychiatric Ill-health and Diabetes constitute major health problems both globally and nationally, and in both cases, migrants are identified as disproportionally affected. Migrants vulnerability is explained both with reference to sociocultural factors and to genetic or neurobiological differences between different ethnic groups. The latter have gained increased significance during the last decades, which has been interpreted by scholars in science and technology studies as a “biomedicalization” of society. Some also argue that biomedicalization is transforming the social categories of race and ethnicity to primarily biological categories.
Through a detailed empirical study, this project thus examines to what extent this is true in Sweden.
Managing the Unreliability of Migration Control
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
This project examines the utilization of biometrics and EU information technology systems in migration management, in the areas of asylum (EURODAC); borders (SIS II) and visas (VIS). The project builds on field research that revealed that authorities place great trust in biometric data, yet paradoxically, it also showed that the systems suffers from numerous insecurities and a lack of transparency.
The proposed project extend this earlier research by further probing its biopolitical implications posing three key research questions: (1) How do biometric technologies and the concerned EU IT systems enact identities along the lines of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, age and ability?; (2) What patterns emerge around how Swedish migration and police authorities meet insecurities?; (3) How do the systems affect the everyday life of migrants living in Sweden and their travels to and across Europe?
Qualitative observations and interviews are employed to examine how migration and police authorities use and interpret the technologies; and interviews with migrants aim to grasp how the technologies impact on their lives.
Finished Projects
Swedish Genes? Ancestry and Ethnicity in Human Genetics Research
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
Underpinned by the rapid advancement in gene sequencing technologies, there has been an upsurge of genetics research that focus on genetic differences and make use of racial, national and ethnic categories as proxy for genetic ancestry. This project focuses on how methodological, translational and ethico-political matters are dealt with in Sweden-based human genetics. The primary aim of the project is to explore how national, ethnic and racial categories are defined and made use of in genetics research with a particular focus on research that either is produced in a Swedish academic context, or focuses empirically on Sweden. By comparing three fields of human genetics secondary aims are to examine possible tensions between basic science and clinically oriented research, and discuss possible implications for clinical practice and pharmaceutical commerce. A key focus in the project is to situate the discourses on race and ethnicity in our empirical material in a broader discursive/material terrain. Methods include interviews with key researchers, participant observations at research meetings and analysis of published results and other written materials.
Promoting Multicultural Conviviality Through Transversal Dialogue
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
This project develops theoretical insights and methods for the purpose of aiding anti-discriminatory education to accommodate value conflicts in society. The project builds upon previous research that has identified value conflicts related to gender and sexuality as a challenge for education that seeks to combat discrimination against racial and ethnic minorities, in particular in situations where gender equality and sexual rights are articulated as ‘Swedish’ values.
The project employs qualitative methods and consists of fieldwork carried out in two upper secondary schools over a period of two years. The fieldwork follows an interactive research design where the researchers conduct classroom observations, interview teachers and students, provide feedback and, subsequently, develop the continuing practice in close cooperation with the participants. Drawing upon theories of feminist intersectionality and multicultural conviviality, the project seeks to promote reflexive knowledge among the participants, and to develop anti-discriminatory pedagogies that are inclusive and sensitive to diverse experiences and conflicting values among the participants.
Young People and Sexual Risk-taking
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
The aim of this project is to examine representations, knowledge and experiences around youth and sexual risk. The recent years´increase of sexually transmitted diseases indicates that sexual risk taking among young men and women are relatively common. Previous research has also shown that such risk taking varies among different groups of young people. The project will therefore specifically focus on how – depending upon class, ethnicity and sexual identity – different masculinities and femininities are linked to sexual risk taking. The project sets out from a theoretical understanding that social structures and cultural contexts shape the understanding of what constitutes “risky” and “safe” sexual practices. It uses discourse theory as an over all methodological framework, and applies several qualitative methods. It is divided into three substudies: (1) the first examines informational and educational safer sex material targeting young people; (2) the second examines, through focus group interviews, how young people interprets a selection of the same material; (3) and the third observe the formal school based sex education through observations and single interviews.
Tourism and development: critical perspectives
Josefina Syssner, Research fellow
In recent decades, tourism and travelling has increasingly come to be recognized as a highly complex field of research that raises questions that are both local and global, that involves questions about identity and self-understanding, as well as questions relating to human rights, development, global economy and international political relations. Still, there are yet few Swedish textbooks where contemporary tourism and travel is highlighted from a critical perspective, or where issues of global power relations are in focus. Therefore, the purpose of this project has been to produce text books in Swedish, in which international tourism and travel are confronted with new, critical, theoretical perspectives.
HIV/AIDS, Sexual Risk Taking and Intersectionality
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
Project 2
Previous research indicates that young people’s sexual risk taking varies depending upon gender, ethnicity and class. A main aim of the study is therefore to explore the issue from an intersectional perspective focusing on how intersections of race/ethnicity, gender, sexuality and class shape young people’s sexual practice in general and sexual risk taking in particular. In addition, the project consists of two subprojects, one focusing on sexual risk taking in relation to alcohol consumption, and the other on sexual risk taking among gay and lesbian youth.
Theoretically, the project sets out from a perspective where sexual risk taking (as well as alcohol consumption) is understood as shaped by socio-cultural and structural factors. By adopting a qualitative approach (using focus groups and individual interviews), the project seeks to expand a research field that is dominated by quantitative studies.
After the Success with the New Generation of Antidepressants
Anna Bredström, Senior Associate Professor
The purpose of this project is to explore the complex changes brought about by the SSRI revolution from an intersectional and multi-sited perspective. The project particularly focuses on understandings of the self and on experiences, practices, biomedical knowledge production and discourses related to depression and medication. The project applies an explorative and interdisciplinary approach. It involves researchers in science and technology studies (STS), gender studies, developmental biology and cultural studies and thus bridges the epistemological gap between the natural sciences and the social sciences/humanities. The project is multi-sited and focuses on four themes: (1) the everyday experiences of patients/users of SSRI; (2) the clinical practices and professional experiences of primary care physicians that meet and treat these patients; (3) the developments and changes in the production of biomedical knowledge on brains and SSRIs as well as its dissemination into clinical practice; and (4) the discursive construc¬tion of the self, depression and SSRI-usage in policy and public debate. Throughout the project the following questions will be central: (a) how are depression and depressive-like symptoms understood and experienced and what treatments and strategies are seen as appropriate?; (b) how are the effects and efficacy of SSRIs experienced, conceptualised and measured?; (c) how is the self understood, and what is the relation between self and body?; and (d) how are these processes affected by and affecting how different masculinities and femininities are bodily experienced, lived as identities and discursively shaped?