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This dissertation investigates how social order was created in the Swedish navy at the end of the Swedish imperial age (1670-1716). During the period the Swedish navy went through many changes that led to an expanding and re-structuring of both the administration of the Admiralty and the naval activities. These changes contributed to shape the life on board ships and at shipyards in more fixed ways than before. The dissertation analyses the social order on the basis of three overlapping themes, inspired by Michel Foucault’s theories on power relationships and the exercise of power. First it investigates how the navy upheld its hierarchy and formed the relations between superior officers and subordinate men, second how the Admiralty and officers exercised power in order to make the subordinates behave in the desired way and third how the subordinates reacted to the control; especially how they formed different strategies of resistance to challenge or escape it. Using micro-history methodology, in-depth analyses have been made of individuals and situations mostly found in judicial cases from the navy’s own court (the admiralty court). Social relations were however not only a result of naval control. They were also highly guided by social orders that existed in civil society. Thus naval rank emerged with marital status, age, experience and masculinity ideals into a complex and shifting hierarchy that was constantly questioned. The dissertation shows that upholding naval social order was dependent on the fact that the Admiralty and officers used both productive and repressive power strategies simultaneously. The naval order offered opportunities and careers to those who were obedient and skilful but could threaten the disobedient troublemaker with severe punishments. The order was also highly dependent on individual relations and situations. Since order primarily was challenged in face to face- situations the superiors had to devise power strategies to control those situations. By doing that they at the same time reduced all resistance to separate, single events and repeatedly rejected the slightest implication of any criticism towards the general social order. The power relations thus were a delicate theater were both superiors and subordinates pretended their actions meant something else than it did. From the point of view of the subordinates the social order always was about obligations and rights but from the superiors’ perspective social order basically was the main difference between chaos and control.

Bakgrund: Sverige är besparat från direkt inblandning i krig sedan 200 år.Under samma tid har svenska läkare vid flera tillfällen medverkat i utländskakonflikter. Samlade studier om dessa individer har hittills saknats.Frågeställning: Vad har motiverat svenska läkare att delta i utländskakonflikters militärsjukvård? Vad har de uträttat och hur har de tolkat sinaerfarenheter?Material: Studien inkluderar alla konflikter där svenska läkare verkat inommilitärsjukvården från 1864 till 1964. Primära källor har inkluderatarkivmaterial som rapporter, brev och dagböcker samt tryckta källor sombiografier och matriklar. Därtill har en stor mängd historievetenskapligsekundärlitteratur som böcker och artiklar använts.Metod: Fyra av konflikterna har studerats mer utförligt. Dessa utgöravhandlingens delarbeten: dansk-tyska kriget 1894, Boerkriget 1899–1902,finska vinterkriget 1939–1940, samt Kongokrisen 1960–1964. För de övrigasex konflikterna har ytligare redogörelser sammanställts. Frågeställningarnahar sedan applicerats på samtliga konflikter för att identifiera vad somförändrats och vad som förblivit oförändrat.Resultat: Deltagandet har skett i ett samspel av kunskapsinhämtning,sympatier och ren äventyrslust. Insatserna har ofta inneburit en risk vilkenökat i och med flygattacker mot sjukvårdsinrättningar och konflikter utanfront. Trots en förhoppning om neutral sjukvård har detta ofta varit svårt attuppnå. Erfarenheterna har ofta upplevts som meningsfulla men har iblandockså kunnat leda till kvarvarande nedstämdhet.Slutsatser: Denna historiska studie ger redskap att förstå och påverkaliknande händelser i vår egen tid. Den kan därför ha betydelse för att lindranöd och öka säkerhet för sjukvårdspersonal i en nutida konfliktfylld värld.

This dissertation is a study of how the culture of sensibility was expressed in the everyday practices and social relations of the Gjörwell family. Headed by publicist, publisher and royal librarian Carl Christoffer Gjörwell (1731-1811), the Gjörwell family served as the centre of a wide circle of friends in late 18th-century Stockholm. Gjörwell has been regarded as one of the first Swedish representatives of 18th-century sensibility as well as an archetype of the Swedish cult of friendship. Due to his effusive emotional expressiveness and passionate friendships with other men, Gjörwell has largely been derided as effeminate by researchers from the 19th century onwards. Using theoretical perspectives from the field of the history of emotions (more concretely the perspectives of William Reddy, Barbara Rosenwein and Monique Scheer) this study centres on the emotional practices of the Gjörwell family, especially taking aspects of gender, class, sexuality and power into account. Gjörwell’s vast collection of family and friendship correspondence forms the empirical basis of this study. This study shows that the Gjörwell family and circle of friends in many ways could be regarded as an emotional community in which primarily emotions of happiness and joy are expressed. Furthermore, this study shows how the exercise of power could form part in the creation of an emotional community, as Gjörwell makes constant attempts to influence the way family members and friends manage their emotions, strongly dissuading them from the expression of melancholy. Although he has been viewed as effeminate by posterity, Gjörwell in fact regards himself as manly. This is due to his ability to remain joyful through adversities which testifies to his strong, and therefore manly, nervous organisation. This study thus further illustrates how a marked shift in masculine gender norms took place between the 18th and 19th centuries. This study also shows how expression of tender emotion could be a way of reinforcing personal status. This was due to the close association made between sensibility and virtue, in itself a central concept during this era. As Gjörwell is denied recognition in his professional life, the expression of tender emotion – and thus of virtue – becomes an important aspect of his personal life. 

Review: Johan Östling, David Larsson Heidenblad and Anna Nilsson Hammar (eds.). Forms of Knowledge: Developing the History of Knowledge. Lund: Nordic Academic Press, 2020, 304 pp.

Interpreting the social complexity of the Roman house requires a careful evaluation of existing evidence. With this in mind, recent work in the field has proposed a variety of different approaches, focusing each time on a specific type of source (architecture and décor, ancient texts, material evidence from excavated houses), each in turn recursively deemed more adequate for the purpose or more fruitful and less biased. This opposition of approaches and critiques between scholars has yielded an extraordinarily rich picture that, however, leaves some of the social dynamics of domestic space out of our reach. This dissertation, focusing on the case study of the House of the Greek Epigrams in the northern part of Insula V 1 in Pompeii, suggests a further level of understanding that combines the aforementioned types of sources with simulations and digital analyses to support archaeological interpretation. Everything visible in the house, including its architecture and its decorations, actively participated in the construction of the social identity of the owner of the house and the Romanitas of his family. However, everything visible is so by virtue of light, which is not a mere medium, but actively partakes in social dynamics and can be manipulated to meet certain demands. In this dissertation, light is considered in its dual aspect as a physical and as a visual and sensory phenomenon. Starting from the assumption that light is a powerful social agent, the study investigates, through historically grounded and physically accurate lighting simulations and analyses, the intertwined spatial and social circulation patterns in order to derive new insights into the social dynamics of the Roman house. In particular, this study argues that the social space of the Roman house was characterized by a greater complexity than that conveyed by ancient sources. It suggests a more nuanced picture, one of light and shadow but also of activity at different times of the day and year, and richer in people both in the foreground and in the background.

Review of Øystein Ekroll, “Med kleber og kalk. Norsk steinbyggig i mellomalderen 1050-1550" (Oslo 1997).

Review of: Lars Wollin (ed.), Bilden av Budde. Studier kring en svensk språkpionjär (Samlingar utg. av Svenska fornskriftsällskapet. Serie 1. Svenska skrifter 95), Uppsala: Svenska Fornskriftsällskapet 2011, ISSN 03475026; ISBN 9789197611862, 121 pp. [= Åbo: Åbo Akademis förlag 2011, ISBN 9789517655866.]

In this thesis an exploratory approach has been used to study settlement and mobility among hunter-gatherer societies in Northern Sweden during the 2 000 – 0 BC period. The focus has been on developing the topics of bifacial point use and raw material management of quartzand quartzite materials. The study combines the information generated at multiple analytical scales in order to address knowledge gaps and facilitate new research. The thesis consists of an introductory text and four research papers. The first paper discusses modelling approaches in archaeology. It stresses the interlinked nature of models that are created at different spatial scales, and that weaknesses in lower-lying models may impact higher-level models in a study. The paper also discusses the question of whether an analysis is better suited for modelling in the “variable space”, rather than geographical space, as the data my need to undergo unnecessary simplification that hides certain features. The second paper is an evaluation of the current dating evidence for bifacial points made of quartz or quartzite in Norrland. The study includes 124 radiocarbon datesfrom 30 excavated sites with finds of bifacial points or preforms in the County of Västerbotten. Bayesian modelling is used to evaluate the potential for building a chronological model for bifacial point use in the region. The results indicate that few artefacts can be related to a dated feature, with only 3 dates that may be argued to stem from a secure dating context that dates the points. These dates all fall within the 1 900 – 1 700 BC period. The third paper is a spectroscopic study of quartz and quartzite material. The study is based on a dataset of 126 quartz/quartzite points and preforms from 47 sites along the upper Ångerman River. Non-destructive analysis was performed using three different spectroscopic instrumentations (Near Infrared, Raman, X-Ray Fluorescence). The data were evaluated using Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA). Each instrumentation showed detectable differences in the material, such as the presence or absence of graphite. The study highlights the potential of non-destructive screening methods and lays the foundation for future survey efforts. The fourth paper is a spatial analysis of the distribution of bifacial points and preforms made of quartz and quartzite within the County of Västerbotten. The Ångerman and Ume/Vindel Rivers exhibit different distribution patterns, with higher proportions of preforms closer to the mountains. The distribution pattern is evaluated using Exploratory Data Analysis, including geostatistical methods. The capacity for previous settlement and mobility models to explain the observed patterns are then discussed in the light of factors such as archaeological survey coverage.

This thesis is about the economic aspects of public procurement of services through auctionsin Sweden. It focuses on two different institutions, auctions used to find foste r-parents forboarded out children in the 19th century, and auctions of cleaning service contracts in the 20 thcentury. I n both cases, the contracting entity is the municipality or its representative, thelowest bidder wins the auction, and is paid in accordance with his/her bid.In the child auctions, c hildren were allotted to foster-parents by means of an open biddingprocess, the descending English auction, where the bids were given continuously to theauctioneer. In modern public procurement sealed bids ar e used in accordance with the firstprice,sealed bid auction. The first part of this thesis is about price formation in the childauctions and a study is made of the children who were auctioned several times, indicatingasymmetric information among bidders or adverse selection in this market. These subjects arestudied using field data on 601 child auctions held in Northern Sweden during the period 1863to 1889. The empirical findings in the first paper suggest that the foster-parents had a cleareconomic motive in these auctions. The child characteristics significantly affect the amount ofcompensation paid to the foster-parent. There is also evidence that farmers preferred older,more productive children. The second paper studies whether a re-auctioned child commandeda higher or lower price than a child that was not re-auctioned. The results indicate some formof asymmetric information because foster-parents demanded a higher level of compensationfor a re-auctioned child. The results also suggest that the probability that a child was reauctionedincreased if he/she was not healthy.The third paper in the thesis discusses a kind of "paradox". Although there is a competitiveeffect on the bids in the auction of cleaning service contracts, the contracting entity has anoption, given by law, to restrict the number of bidders. In th is paper, an implementation costis introduced fo r the contracting entity to justify such a restriction. The results, based onSwedish municipality data, indicate that contract and municipality characteristics, assumed toaffect the implementation cost, affect the volume of the procurement, and the number ofbidders, but not necessarily the choice of allocation mechanism. The final paper studiesregional differences in bids, costs, and competition in municipal procurement using the samedata as in paper [3]. The results show higher estimated costs for completing the contract, butlower estimated mean bids in the major city area of Stockholm compared with the res t of thecountry. This is explained by lower profit margins and higher operational costs in the majorcity area. An analysis is also carried out of why the lowest bidder is not always the contractedbidder. digitalisering@umu Härtill 4 delar.