This article explores children’s resistance in relation to the climate emergency through a thematic analysis of climate activist Greta Thunberg’s speeches. Two themes, new to the literature, are ...identified: (1) need for political and social change focusing on the climate emergency, resistance towards laissez-faire behaviour and exhortations, and (2) resistance targets including the political leaders, capitalist ideologies and older generations. This illustrates the power of children in expressing abstract progressive resistance.
This is a commentary to the article “The framing of environmental citizenship and youth participation in the Fridays for Future Movement in Finland” by Janette Huttunen and Eerika Albrecht. In the ...piece I reflect on the analysis and results of this interesting research, focusing in particular on adult’s depoliticization of children's protest and the potential collective social and political impact of the Fridays for Future movement for youth.
This article proposes that children constitute a new climate precariat. This conceptualization contributes to a more comprehensive theoretical understanding of the vulnerability of children in ...relation to the climate crisis. Previous literature tends to treat climate change in an abstract fashion that renders today’s children invisible. Climate precarity consists of three main elements of vulnerability: temporality problems, insecurity and an identity vacuum. In relation to temporality and security, children are suffering from the potential loss of a sustainable future, which spurs the need for urgent action and constant consciousness – in the present. World leaders’ inaction creates an uncertainty regarding whom should be held responsible for taking action in guaranteeing children the future which climate change is at risk of depriving them. The concept of climate precarity could be used to explain children’s collective action in relation to the climate crisis. Children’s concerns in relation to the climate crisis suggest that agency and empowerment are spurred through their resistance towards these vulnerabilities.
This article analyses the gendered nature of teachers’ views on schools and security. Current research on security emphasizes masculinity and the absence of femininity in relation to the security ...field – traditionally dominated by the military and emergency rescue services. However, there is a lack of knowledge on the areas of society that are new to the security field. Schools, pupils and teachers are gendered in many ways. What happens when security is added to this nexus? Existing, limited research suggests that this relationship may be both complicated and gendered. A qualitative content analysis is conducted based on interviews with teachers and principals from two municipalities in Sweden. It shows that teachers hold gendered views of their roles as security actors; of pupils in relation to security, as subjects of risks and sources of threats; and of external security threats. Men are embodied as positive or negative actors, whereas women are embodied mostly as powerless actors. Teachers give voice to a discourse focused on everyday insecurities. This is important, as the role of teachers (in particular women) as promoters of democratic citizens risks becoming undermined, and individual perspectives of security risk becoming replaced by national perspectives.
This article contributes to the literature theorizing military social order, embodiment, and resistance in IR. The military institution is known to resist change, and much research have been devoted ...to challenges to the gendered order of the military. One area that has received little attention, however, is the reluctance of many militaries in the West to facilitate veganism during service in spite of the increasing demand for vegan food options, diversity, and sustainability. Drawing on research on the military social order and gender theory, I conduct an unpacking of conflicting elements and representations of military and vegan bodies, and theorize this reluctance as institutional resistance. Typically, the military does not offer motivations for its stance - which makes it difficult to detect and counter. As a consequence, vegans are silenced and excluded, not facilitated to enter the military. This is a challenge to increasing attempts at governing sustainability and diversity in the military.
Systemic violence against women in the military has existed for decades, but they have mostly refrained from public resistance. However, in the context of the #MeToo movement in Sweden, 1768 women ...published a call for an end to violence and sexual harassment in the military. We analyse this call as a public resistance effort against the military and find that #MeToo is: (i) challenging the norms of the hyper‐masculine military organization, making resistance towards it visible; and (ii) resisting the practices of sexual harassment and lack of responsibility in the military organization. The military organization is questioned when it comes to norms and practices, but there are variations in whether the social order of the military is truly challenged. Still, the call highlights the fragmentation of this ‘last bastion of masculinity’. More research is needed on the erosion of the militarized norms and practices and the effects of the call.
Purpose
Previous studies show that the implementation of gender equality encounters resistance in military organizations, but it is often invisible or seen as confined to anonymous structures or ...troubled individuals. This paper aims to show how the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) use organizational principles to resist implementing gender equality measures.
Design/methodology/approach
The study is a qualitative analysis of discursive strategies in the SAF’s 2013–2018 annual reports to government.
Findings
The organizing principles of instrumentality and distance, while existing in parallel with gender equality efforts, actually pursue logics that prevents the SAF from implementing gender equality. The principle of instrumentality in this context means that gender equality in the SAF is of secondary interest to organizational members. The principle of distancing from the problem includes strategies that alienate female from male officers.
Originality/value
The contribution of this paper is the finding that the use of organizing principles represents conscious organizational resistance to gender equality efforts. This kind of use needs to be revealed and criticized to change military organizations.
National security discourses have entered teacher's classrooms. A strand of largely critical literature in education studies have noted that new security tasks clash with the roles of teachers. ...However, few studies have yet approached this audience about their views on security. This article analyses how Swedish teachers conceive of security in relation to the school system. Data consists of semi-structured interviews with teachers and principals, conducted in medium-sized municipalities in Sweden. The analysis finds that teachers maintain a conceptualisation of security that focuses on the individual. Simultaneously, teachers rarely adopt national security discourses (except regarding school violence) and several argue against emphasising the concept of security in relation to schools. The results offer an opportunity to analyse the views of teachers as audiences in relation to the extension of the security field into the educational domain.
This article explores individual resistance related to a military organization's gender equality work as expressed in online contexts. Resistance is explained as expressions of wider social ...conflicts, grounded in experiences of threats towards military masculinities, challenged by societal and political transformation processes perceived as feminine. The data consists of defence-related blogs and comments. A thematic analysis finds that individual resistance can be understood as blaming and shaming strategies. Five sub-themes are identified: blaming the "feminised" organization, blaming and shaming women's abilities to serve, individualisation of structural problems, verbal violence and violations, and objectification of men working with and supporting gender equality initiatives. The analysis exemplifies how social conflict is transferred to organizations through individual resistance. As gender equality policies are questioned, organizations need to confront resistance also within the online context.
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