To Örebro University

Online violence against queer sex workers is a growing research field and societal problem. This article explores modalities of violence against queer online sex workers in Turkey, a context characterised by homophobic and anti-queer politics. Based on narrative interviews conducted with queer online sex workers in Turkey and grounded in a feminist understanding of violence, the article illustrates how different forms of violence travel between the online and offline by identifying three spatiotemporal patterns: the offline experience of online violence, the threatening offline, and the merging of online and offline. The article concludes that while the violence is often banal, mundane, and normalised, the impacts are both felt and embodied in the offline context. Further, broadening the conceptualisation of violence benefits the investigation of how violence(s) travels between the offline and online contexts and where they intersect, thereby contributing to the fields of violence studies, feminist studies, and queer sex work studies.

This article seeks to unpack variations in feminist film sector activists' articulations of collective grievances and demands for change since the mid-1970s and compare them to how gender equality is articulated as a problem in public policy. Based on an analysis of problem representations found in three instances of women's mobilization - from the second wave to #metoo - the article argues that there seems to be a consensus about the appropriate boundaries of what problems can be targeted by policy. Problem representations found in gender equality policies in the film sector do not verbalize structural inequalities. However, feminist activists interpreted them to support their ariculations of structural problems. Feminist activists problem represntations include testimonies of sexual harassment and violence, articulations of structural inequalities, and the promotion of women's separatism. The article also identifies a discursive dislocation produced by critics to gender equality reforms in conjunction to #metoo. The dislocation is produced by successfully opposing gender equality to artistic freedom and denying the existence of structural gender inequalities.

Gender equality measures are now common in the policies of European film industries and can be an important tool for rendering visible gender inequalities. Recent research, however, indicates that top-down institutional gender mainstreaming might mean better conditions for some women in certain aspects, but structural inequalities tend to remain, including lack of an intersectional approach. In this article, these issues are addressed by analysing gender equality policies currently implemented in the Swedish and Spanish film industries. Following Carole Lee Bacchi’s argument that the way in which a problem is represented must be analysed backwards, by looking at the solutions suggested, we unpack what inequalities gender equality measures render visible and, in so doing, highlight the aspects that remain invisible. We also discuss how such problem representation plays out for women in the film industries of both countries and consider the counter-practices women deploy to cope with continuing gender inequality in the film industries of Spain and Sweden. Our main argument is that Swedish and Spanish gender equality policies, despite having increased the presence of women film workers, still fail to render visible the structural basis of inequalities cemented by androcentric film governance structures and a male norm around which the film industry has been built.

This article compares entanglements between activist demands and policy in the Spanish and Swedish film industries using a critical frames approach. Considering contextual factors such as domestic discourse on film policy and resistance against gender equality, the comparison is based on deep insider knowledge aiming to deepen the understanding of feminist activism and its relation to policy in the two countries. In both Spain and Sweden, activists have demanded equality in the film sector since the seventies. Today, both countries feature gender equality measures and vivid feminist organizations. Based on current equality policies, reports from the Swedish and Spanish Film Institutes, documents from feminist filmmakers' associations and interviews with activists, the article shows that feminist activists oscillate between strategically converging their demands to policy and criticizing reforms. Furthermore, policy echoes activists' arguments but are less informed by ideas about structural inequalities. Activists in both Spain and Sweden stand up for the gender equality measures which have been implemented, but the Spanish activists are more prone to simultaneously voice criticism against the reforms..

This article analyses how students in two Swedish upper secondary schools with different demographics articulate inequalities, and how their positions in society give rise to different learning patterns. Using material from focus group interviews undertaken during a teaching module about trust, the article departs from the proposition that learning about trust in school also means negotiating trust and experiences from outside the school context. The article concludes that students who identify as non-ethnic Swedes must bridge the gap between the learning content and their own experiences. Such negotiations allow for a critical view on democratic institutions. However, this critical potential stems from a position that also necessitates more work to ‘learn’ the content provided, compared to the ethnic Swedes who encounter the teaching materials from a position where it can be inserted and combined with an already existing and matching worldview. The article argues that challenging the views and the normative position held by the latter group is a remaining task for citizenship teaching.

In Sweden, the government has been reluctant to regulate streaming platforms, including the measures in the EU Audiovisual Media Services Directive, which aim to maintain domestic and European productions. This article investigates what values are mobilized to legitimate the (non)regulation of streaming platforms in Sweden and what this means for democratic deliberation about platforms, content and culture. Building on policy documents and in-depth interviews, our findings are structured around policies addressing (1) democracy, equality and diversity and (2) European content, production and cultural values. Regulations are perceived to be difficult to enforce and often undesirable. This article identifies a shift in policy where regulating television has given way to producing media-literate, self-governing subjects. We introduce the concept ‘platform gaze’ to explain how regulation has deferred to the desires of platform providers, neglecting, e.g. independent producers. Further, we argue that the political space to discuss streamed content as culture has diminished.