Jeffrey C. Alexander

Anna Lund

Andrea Voyer

The civil sphere is a distinctively democratic field in modern societies, one that sustains universalizing cultural aspirations and organizational structures and that has tense and uncertain boundaries with other spheres of social life, like the economy, religion, family, and state. Unlike the latter, which are more particularistic and hierarchical in character, the civil sphere defines itself in terms of solidarity – the feeling of being connected with every other person in the collectivity. The utopian ideals of democratic solidarity shape every modern society, even if they are often compromised by the messy realities of social life. This volume uses the theory of the civil sphere to shed new light on Nordic societies, while at the same time drawing on the distinctive experiences of the Nordic nations to reflect on and advance the theory of the civil sphere. Nordic societies have long been admired for creating a distinctive form of social democracy, but this admirable achievement has not been well conceptualized theoretically. Most attempts to explain Nordic social democracy focus on material and organizational factors. This volume, by contrast, emphasizes the cultural foundations and characteristics of social democracy, demonstrating how civil sensibilities are necessary for the creation of an egalitarian and democratic state. Nordic civil spheres, however, are not only pro-civil but also white in color, European in ethnicity, secular in character and gender-equal in a subtly restrictive manner. Such primordialization of state civility is vividly on display in the sometime tense relationships that develop among natives and “foreigners” in Nordic countries, relationships that expose the primordial undersides of the social democratic codes and civil values that constitute the Nordic civil sphere. A major contribution to the theory of the civil sphere and to our understanding of the cultural and normative underpinnings of social and political life, this volume will be of particular interest to students and scholars of sociology and politics.

The Nordic Civil Sphere

Mattias Bengtsson

Marita Flisbäck

I Farväl till arbetet får läsaren lyssna till människors egna röster om meningen med att gå i pension. Här finns de som inget annat önskar än att lämna yrkeslivets vedermödor, till exempel undersköterskan med kronisk smärta som längtar efter att ”ta det vackert”. Men även motvilliga pensionärer kommer till tals. För renhållningsarbetaren, skådespelaren och prästen har jobbet varit ett kall som de gärna vill fortsätta ägna sig åt. Vittnesmålen belyser möjligheter och svårigheter när förvärvsarbetets vardag upphör. Att gå i pension kan väcka tankar på livets förgänglighet och förändra hur vi ser på arbete, ekonomi, familj, vänskapsrelationer och fritidsintressen. Erfarenheter, relationer och saker som vi tagit för givna tycks bli extra viktiga. Sociologerna Mattias Bengtsson, Marita Flisbäck och Anna Lund har intervjuat människor i olika yrken och positioner såväl före som efter pensionstillfället. Med hjälp av existens- och kultursociologiska perspektiv beskriver författarna hur de intervjuade hanterar sin nya tillvaro.

Anna Lund

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