Mid Sweden University

This article analyses the construction of vulnerable and resilient subjects and their dialectical relationship with Swedish total defence policies. Using a post-structural policy analysis, it investigates the problem representations and subjectification processes within these policies. In these, resilience is suggested as the solution to the ‘problem’ of the challenged society, with capable, active and responsible citizens expected to come to the rescue of a society challenged by the crises, disasters and wars of the 21st century. We find that vulnerability is not only constructed as an opposite to resilience but also as a threat. Thus, in the policies, ‘the vulnerable’ are not only considered needing care and attention–but something to fear. This is not only reminiscent of the individualism and responsibilisation associated with the ideal of the resilient citizen but also a vivid example of how societal problems and welfare state challenges are securitised in processes that risk silencing other modes of subjectification and dispossesses individuals and societies of other visions. The main contribution of this paper is the exploration of the dialectical relationship between resilient and vulnerable subject, illustrating how the construction of these subject positions relies on each other rather than as being two separate entities. 

In this article, the role of the home in citizen crisis preparedness is explored by utilising a theoretical framework that highlights the home as a sociological phenomenon and as a base for the construction and maintenance of ontological security. The aim of this article is to explore the performativity of crisis preparedness, and the ways it is co-produced through gendered imaginaries of home, identity and relational security. By foregrounding the interplay between preparedness practices and ontological security, the article analyses how ideas of home and social relations are mobilised in the enactment of preparedness, and how these enactments reproduce or unsettle gendered identities and expectations. In so doing, we explore how the home becomes a place for preparedness, as well as how understandings of home and preparedness are constructed in relation to gendered identity formations. The study is based on semi-structured interviews with 26 participants, all living in Sweden. A thematic analysis of the material reveals three empirical themes: (1) Staying at home, (2) Leaving home and (3) ‘Doing’ crisis preparedness - ‘Doing’ gender. The analysis shows that citizen crisis preparedness is a deeply gendered practice, where ontological security is constructed in relation to both place and gender. Women’s sense of security is in large part relational, family-oriented, and collective, while men’s sense of security is more often individual, competence-oriented, and materially anchored. Both forms of security are connected to the home – but the meaning of home varies depending on who is speaking, what practices are carried out there, and what resources are available.

Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet (SLU) och Institutionen för stad och land, har sedan 2019 i uppdrag av regeringen att arbeta för att stärka forskningen kring Sveriges landsbygder genom förbättrad samordning och samverkan mellan de aktörer som bedriver forskning inom landsbygds- och regional utveckling i Sverige. Uppdraget går under namnet Uppdrag landsbygd och syftar till att stärka upptagningen och tillämpningen av kunskaper om landsbygdsutveckling, och stödja spridning av den kunskap om landsbygder som forskningen utvecklar.

Inom ramen för Uppdrag landsbygd har SLU anlitat forskare vid Mittuniversitetet (Linda Kvarnlöf och Sophie Kolmodin) och Umeå Universitet (Veronica Strandh) för att utreda följande frågor om beredskap i svenska landsbygder:

1.Hur påverkas landsbygder i olika delar av landet av kriser och nya utmaningar?

2.Vad kan göra landsbygderna mer robusta i ett sådant perspektiv?

3.Hur kan landsbygdernas roll för hela landets beredskap tydliggöras och stärkas?

I följande rapport sammanfattas arbetet med denna utredning. I slutet av rapporten ges även ett antal rekommendationer, med syfte att ytterligare stärka svenska landsbygders beredskap. Rapportens innehåll grundar sig främst i en genomgång av tidigare forskning, och en redovisning av empiriska exempel som vi bekantat oss med genom vår egen forskning. Rapportens rekommendationer har tagits fram i dialog med representanter från myndigheter, regioner, kommuner, civilsamhällesorganisationer, näringsliv och universitet.

The significance of civil society has long been recognized in crisis and disaster research (Solnit, 2010). Nevertheless, characterizing volunteers merely as "good Samaritans" responding to specific needs oversimplifies the multifaceted nature of their engagement. While volunteers often frame their actions as a "way of living", exclusively emphasizing positive aspects neglects the complexities surrounding voluntary work within civil society. 

To emphasize the compelxity surrounding voluntary crisis work, this article aims to analyze how civil society actors make sense of spatial-political structures in order to motivate their ” choice” to perform voluntary work. Consequently, we consider voluntary work, in both voluntary and involuntary terms, and argue that we need to view volunteerism as a result of structural conditions such as financial cuts in official service, changing political ideology, and the changed organizing of society. Drawing on interviews with individuals active in Swedish civil society, both affiliated and unaffiliated with Civil Society Organizations, various types of voluntary and involuntary work emerge, often intertwined with political ideology and societal critique. Therefore, the article demonstrates that voluntary work extends beyond altruism, encompassing internal and external struggles marked by politicization, power dynamics, positioning, and the collective pursuit of societal improvement.

In the summer of 2018, both fire and rescue services and volunteers fought against the extensive wildfires that spread over the northern parts of Sweden. The challenges were many and one of the most obvious was the lack of resources provided by the state, both material and human. This lack of official resources, together with the long distances that characterize the rural northern parts of Sweden, have been highlighted in subsequent evaluations as one of the main reasons for the widely spread fires. The lack of official resources in itself can be understood as a consequence of several years of dismantling and centralization of the Swedish fire and rescue service. However, the responses from the local community were enormous. Local volunteers, spontaneous as well as organized, assisted in firefighting; in providing food and services; in offering shelter for evacuated, and many other things. In disaster research, volunteer activities have often been described as something that “fills the void” when official resources are scarce. This seems to be particularly true in rural contexts. This paper applies a critical perspective on rural disaster volunteerism by framing it as an expression of rural vulnerability and peripheralization: as something that is performed as a compensatory act in rural communities affected by social dismantling. In other words, both place and politics are central in understanding rural voluntary activity. Inspired by the theoretical concept geographies of voluntarism, this paper argues that people make sense of volunteer initiatives in relation to both the place where these activities take place and in relation to the power relations associated with this place. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to explore how rural disaster volunteerism intersects with structural conditions of rurality. 

During the last decade Swedish risk and crisis communication have come to shift focus away from communicating risks towards promoting the need for individual preparedness. At the heart of current preparedness campaigns stands the resilient subject: a citizen capable, responsible and active enough to face and manage the threats and dangers of the 21th century. This turn from risk towards resilience illustrates what other researchers (see Bankoff 2019; Bergström 2018; Chandler 2013) have pointed out before us: resilience, meaning citizens’ and communities’ abilities to adapt to risk, crisis and disasters, is the morale imperative of current security policies and politics. In this paper we turn our focus to Swedish crisis preparedness campaigns to explore how the resilient subject is portrayed in both text and visual material. Guided by Gillian Roses’ (2022) visual methodology, our analysis indicate that Swedish crisis preparedness campaigns emphasize the material attributes needed to make “us” resilient. In doing so, the campaign material portrays the resilient subject as being a consumer rather than a citizen – and preparedness as being a matter of the ability to consume appropriate preparedness attributes.

Följande artikel utgår från intervjuer med frivilliga och evakuerade från de skogsbränder som drabbade Gävleborgs och Jämtlands län under sommaren 2018. Artikelns syfte är att utforska om och hur människor knyter sina upplevelser av en klimatrelaterad kris till den mer omfattande och ständigt pågående klimatkrisen. Genom artikeln utvecklas begreppet krisbiografi, teoretiskt och metodologiskt, för att belysa hur människors erfarenheter av kriser kan förstås mot bakgrund av deras personliga biografier. Resultaten visar att klimatkrisen, och dess utsträckning i tid och rum, är av central betydelse för såväl människors meningsskapande av skogsbränderna som för deras personliga krisbiografier.