The increasing size of the elderly population has been described as a major challenge for Western eldercare.In light of such demographic changes, welfare technology has been presented as a solution.It has been claimed, in both international and Swedish government policy, that digital technologies can improve how care is given and received.However, there is limited knowledge about what happens to articulations of care when national goals filter down to municipal local level where the actual care is practised.The aim of this article is to analyse how care and welfare technology are described in municipal strategy documents, and to discuss potential consequences of such articulations for everyday eldercare.A critical policy analysis, building on theories about articulation, was conducted on a selection of 19 policy documents (N = 19) from 18 municipalities.The key analytical results show that care tends to be articulated as an organizational matter and that care is transferred into the future of older people's lives, through self-care and prevention.Interdependence, frailty and alternatives when welfare technology fails to create independence, are not brought up in the documents.Overall, such rearticulations of care indicate a more disembodied eldercare in the future.
With increased internationalisation and academic migration, today Norwegian universities are workplaces with an internationally diverse workforce. Research on international workers reveals challenges concerning topics such as language practices and social inclusion. This article contributes to knowledge about diversity and the university working culture from a perspective we know relatively little about: university administrators. Through organisational theories of inequality, power and discourses, the article explores how administrators frame international diversity, and identifies what is missing, from their perspective. The interviews show a paradox in the way that Norwegian academia handles diversity: on the one hand, internationalisation and international recruitment are prioritised and presented as positive, but on the other hand, there seems to be a culture of silence about the challenging aspects of cultural differences. Distribution of information about social expectations and how working life is culturally organised is not neutral, but can affect people's social inclusion, the extent to which they are organised in labour unions, and even their salary development. The article reveals some of the ways that international researchers are vulnerable in the imbalanced employer-employee relationship at Norwegian universities.
Asylum-seeking minors are viewed as particularly vulnerable but are still exposed to coercive measures permitted by law.This study analyses Swedish Police Authority and Swedish Migration Agency officials' perceptions of coercive measures towards minors in the asylum process in light of the Swedish law, and raises minors' own voices on their experiences of coercive measures.Qualitative interviews were performed with 1) officials at the Swedish Police Authority and Swedish Migration Agency who manage and use coercive actions against minors and 2) former minors with experiences of being subjected to coercive measures.Based on a thematic analysis, the results illustrate how the officials' perceptions about coercive measures are characterized by uncertainty and ambivalence.The minors expressed the importance of how they were treated during the asylum process rather than the coercive measure as such.Swedish law regulating coercive measures needs clarifications to give sufficient guidance for practice.
This theoretical article discusses how specific knowledge regimes have gained increasing influence on the management of welfare services in a Norwegian context.The article argues that a combination of evidence and risk discourses contribute to the shaping of professional practice and families in child protection services.The aim of this article is to show that evidence and risk discourses combined form knowledge regimes as a part of the state's management tools in modern welfare states.The analysis is drawing on a governmentality perspective and illustrates that the impact of such knowledge management in child care protection may have some rational benefits in organizing social work practice.However, the article concludes that it is also important to reflect on how state management tools shape professional practice and affect the lives of families.
