The Emergence of the Democrat: Popular education and the Process of Democratic Subjection in Sweden 1830-1940

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https://miun.diva-portal.org/smash/project.jsf?pid=project:4446

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Title [sv]

Demokratens födelse: demokratisk fostran i svensk folkbildning 1830-1940

Title [en]

The Emergence of the Democrat: Popular education and the Process of Democratic Subjection in Sweden 1830-1940

Abstract [sv]

In the early 19th century Sweden was a society of estates and ranks, and the majority of the population had probably never heard of the concept of democratic elections or of the practice of sitting at the same political table as the master of the house or the owner of the factory. A little more than 100 years later, the majority of the Swedish people can be described as liberal democrats. The purpose of this project is to analyse and explain the emergence, production and reproduction of liberal democratic subjects, by studying one of the most important institutions of the process, the popular education. Analysing the making of democratic subjects as a political project will problematise the established paradigm that the democratisation processes in the West were natural, successive and uncontested. Our way of approaching democracy is inspired by newer research, which originates from Foucauldian and Gramscian approaches. We investigate this process in a longer historical perspective, 1830-1940. The main research questions are the following: In what ways did the popular education nurture a democratic mind, and on the other hand, what were the limits of this project - what habits and thoughts were branded non-democratic? Who was not considered a democrat, or not trusted to be part of the group of democratic citizens? The research will be conducted by Anne Berg (1830-1880) and Samuel Edquist (1880-1940) from 2012 to 2015, resulting in a mutual book and articles.