No abstract

Girls face gendered violence on an everyday basis, and this may have severe health consequences.Purpose: The aim of this study was to learn about gendered violence facing girls in rural Sweden in their everyday life, as it is experienced by the girls themselves. Method: Using the photovoice method, we worked with 35 girls in an upper secondary school, aged between 16 and 20, to explore how they navigated social spaces and developed strategies for increased safety. Results: Thematic analysis revealed two main themes (constant fear and strategies) and four sub themes (fear of being raped, fear of being labelled and excluded, being "appropriately" sexually active, and appearance and performance for increased feelings of safety). Conclusion: We considered how gendered violence facing girls led to fear and marginalization in a range of situations and interactions. Consequently, girls occupied significantly smaller social spaces compared to boys, and we argue that this was reproduced and upheld through everyday practices informed by hegemonic masculinity and performativity.

Research has shown for decades that gendered violence against girls and women is a major public health problem with devastating long-term health consequences for individuals and communities alike. Knowledge of gendered violence against girls and young women thus needs to be increased not only in urban, but also in rural areas, and from girls’ own perspectives. Research methods should also be developed that will facilitate the possibility of reaching policy makers, i.e. to reach those with the power to bring about social change. This study had two main goals. The first was to use photovoice as a methodology to gain increased knowledge about gendered violence against girls and young women in rural Sweden, while the second was to discuss the potential of reaching social change through photovoice as well as offer some critique. We worked with 35 adolescent girls enrolled in an upper secondary school in rural Sweden. Six workshops, which focused on (un)safety, different forms of violence, and the consequences of violence, were analyzed with an action-oriented approach and content analysis. The photovoice material also resulted in an exhibition that was used to reach policy makers. The findings show that the girls’ ability to control their own lives was limited and that a number of different situations in their everyday lives were related to a reduced sense of space and reduced sense of agency. The findings also highlight that the girls were constantly sexually harassed online, which created a feeling of being unable to escape. We argue that photovoice is suitable in mediating girls’ perspectives and in engaging and informing key policy makers, although the method alone cannot assure social change.

According to narrative trends, digitalization has the potential to deconstruct both power structures and practices of exclusion in society. What we argue here is that this deconstruction is not the result of digitalization alone, it is dependent on how digitalization is done. On the contrary, digitalization has often resulted in reproduction instead of transformation and deconstruction, i.e. digitalization tend to uphold practices instead of challenging them. Being slightly more provocative, what becomes digitalized is often what we can easily capture and understand. Similarly, when we open up for an increased participation in the creation of digital artifacts (sometimes expressed as demand-driven, citizen-centered, or participatory development), those participating in digitalization are often already known; the use of already established contact channels making them easy to reach and connect with. Such logics raise questions about the intersections of norms and power and the potential transformative character of digitalization. The aim of this paper is to, through a theoretical framework combining critical information systems, policy enactment and norm critical design, introduce a reflexive design method to gently provoke norms. We analyze the need to intervene in the everyday practices of digitalization. This is done in an empirical case study of the making of a regional digital cultural heritage portal. The results indicate that digitalization needs norm critical interventions to change existing practices and prevent norm reproduction. Otherwise, as in this case of the digitalization of cultural heritage, digitalization runs the risk of strengthening existing power structures and excluding practices instead of challenging them.

According to narrative trends, digitalization has the potential to deconstruct existing power structures and increase participation and democracy in society; however, we will argue, it is unable to accomplish these changes on its own. Specifically, the deconstruction of existing structures cannot happen through digitalization alone; instead, these results depend on how digitalization is done. It is important to focus on understanding what happens in the digitalization process, what is transformed, as well as when it is done, and by whom. We will, therefore, combine a policy enactment framework with a critical analytical framework of digitalization to create a possibility to address the institutional power aspects of digitalization in a specific setting i.e., cultural heritage. We do this by analyzing how policy enactment, which is a way to understand policymaking as a process of organizational interpretations and translations by diverse policy actors, affects the construction of cultural heritage. The results show how digitalization easily becomes a process that is unable to question, it tends to engulf all other values, and cultural heritage is turned into meta-data, getting 'clicks' on the internet and attracting tourists to the region.