The events leading up to Cyprus gaining independence from Great Britain in 1960 were not the result of instrumental rational calculations, argues sociologist Chares Demetriou in a recently published paper. Instead, a complicated series of interactions between several actors clouded the colonizer's judgement, ultimately leading to the inadvertent independence of Cyprus. A relatively late colonial a

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/british-strategy-dividing-cyprus-ultimately-enabled-its-independence - 2025-09-11

Anna Berglund at the Department of Sociology defended her doctoral thesis in social anthropology ”Ambiguous hopes: an ethnographic study of agricultural modernisation in a Rwandan village” on Friday 4th October. For her PhD project, Anna Berglund spent 13 months in a Rwandan village studying the consequences of agricultural modernization policies. The Rwandan government has since 2006 tried to tra

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/anna-berglund-successfully-defends-her-doctoral-thesis - 2025-09-11

It could have been a Friday the 13th disaster, but Henrik Möller managed to dodge all bad luck and successfully defended his doctoral thesis ”SPECTRAL MATTER: Materiality, Economy, and Culture of Burmese Jade in Contemporary China” on December 13. Henrik Möller states that his research project “examines intersections of material, economic and cultural aspects of carving, trade, and consumption of

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/henrik-moller-defends-his-doctoral-thesis - 2025-09-11

With only a few weeks remaining of its first semester, the maiden voyage of the Master’s program in Cultural Criminology at Lund University is ending. How does this unique criminology master’s program provides nuance to deviance? “I have found the course to be fantastic so far,” says Jack Lowe, one of the 14 students currently in the Master’s program in Cultural Criminology. Having received his ba

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/focusing-seduction-crime-deviance-and-control - 2025-09-11

Lisa Eklund has co-authored the article ”Reacting to social discrimination? Men's individual and social risk behaviors in the context of a male marriage squeeze in rural China”, published in Social Science & Medicine. In China, a shortage of marriageable women is resulting in many single men, some of which engage in risky and potentially hazardous activities. The study by Lisa Eklund, senior lectu

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/marriage-squeezed-men-china-suffer-social-discrimination - 2025-09-11

Declarations and policies drafted by the UN, EU and individual nations basically promise accessibility for people with disabilities. But rhetoric is one thing, practice another. Disabled people have to use creative ways to access many places or resources in their everyday life. The sociologist David Wästerfors has studied what people with various disabilities do to manage troubles with accessibili

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/folk-methods-deal-inaccessibility - 2025-09-11

In a new book, sociologist Lisa Flower shows how lawyers manage their emotions in the courtroom, where emotional displays traditionally are unwelcomed. People practicing and studying law often ignore the role emotions play in court. The idea is that feelings disturb the rationality that is the judicial discipline’s foundation. Neglecting emotions will, if nothing else, make the legal system appear

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/uncovering-obscure-emotional-labour-law-practitioners - 2025-09-11

Professor Antoinette Hetzler has contributed to the anthology Feeling Safe in School: Bullying and Violence Prevention Around the World, published by Harvard Education Press. Professor Hetzler’s expertise concerns conflicts in Swedish schools. In her chapter “Abusive Behaviour in Swedish Schools: Setting Limits and Building Citizenship” she writes:“Sweden has gone further than any other country in

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/antoinette-hetzler-featured-international-anthology-violence-prevention-school - 2025-09-11

People who trust others are less likely to die than those who are distrusting, conclude sociologist Jan Mewes and colleagues in “Trust, happiness and mortality: Findings from a prospective US population-based survey”, published in Social Science & Medicine. The effects of generalised trust - the belief that others, including strangers, can be trusted – were specifically noticeable regarding mortal

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/survival-advantages-people-who-trust-strangers - 2025-09-11

Veronika Burcar Alm has co-authored the article ”Suspected or protected? Perceptions of procedural justice in ethnic minority youth's descriptions of police relations” published in Policing and Society. The researchers interviewed 121 ethnic minority youths living in Finland, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, about their experiences with police practices. The young people say they feel that police offi

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/ethnic-minority-youths-experiences-police - 2025-09-11

Photo: Corey Young, Unsplashed. Three researchers within the Social Science Faculty at Lund University have compiled an anthology challenging the notion of the refugee crisis of 2015. The book also investigates how Germany, Sweden, and Denmark use bureaucracy to control, discipline, and shape asylum seekers’ lives. In 2015, the number of asylum seekers arriving in the EU doubled from the previous

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/how-northern-european-welfare-states-exercise-bureaucratic-violence-asylum-seekers - 2025-09-11

Although violence in close relationships also includes violence in sibling relationships, this is a form of violence that is rarely acknowledged. The sibling relationship is associated with various notions of sibling rivalry and sibling love. Sociologist Veronika Burcar Alm has participated in a book about children and young people in exposed life situations with perspectives from research and pra

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/fighting-your-sibling-ok-right - 2025-09-11

Many patient organisations collaborate with drug companies, resulting in concerns about commercial agendas influencing patient advocacy. In this new study Associate Professor of Sociology Shai Mulinari, has together with Andreas Vilhelmsson, Emily Rickard and Piotr Ozieranski, analyzed financial support from pharmaceutical companies to patient organisations in Sweden between 2014 and 2018. They ha

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/pharmaceutical-industrys-funding-patient-organisations-sweden - 2025-09-11

Veronika Burcar Alm, a teacher at the Department of Sociology, has this year been named Qualified Teaching Practitioner by the Faculty of Social Sciences' Teaching Academy. Meet the department's Qualified Teaching Practitioner Veronika Burcar Alm as she talks about her views on teaching and why she applied to the faculty's teaching academy.The faculty’s Teaching Academy is a means to promote teach

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/teaching-and-learning-interaction - 2025-09-11

Swedish women talk about the shame, threats and fear that went into telling someone about being abused by their partner in this new article "Revealing hidden realities: disclosing domestic abuse to informal others" published by Susanne Boethius and Malin Åkerström in the Nordic Journal of Criminology, and available as Open Access. One in three women Violence against women in close relationships is

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/women-hesitate-when-revealing-domestic-abuse - 2025-09-11

Petra Östergren next to a mural of a sex worker on Marion Street, Wellington, during her 2017 field studies in New Zealand, the only country in the world with an integrative policy.. Photo: Catherine Healy. Social anthropologist Petra Östergren’s research rethinks prostitution policies and receives international response and praise. Her chapter "From zero-tolerance to full integration. Rethinking

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/governing-sex-work-new-way-categorizing-prostitution-policy-may-be-standard-years-come - 2025-09-11

Meetings are common in contemporary working life, but they are often overlooked in academic studies and sometimes defined as empty or boring by employees. Three researchers of sociology now contribute with insights into the culture of meetings. Malin Åkerström, David Wästerfors and Sophia Yakhlef at the Department of Sociology in Lund have written the article Meetings or Power Weeks? Boundary Work

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/lets-pretend-not-meeting - 2025-09-11

Sociologist Tullia Jack's paper questions whether changes meant to increase life quality and provide basic human rights, are actually contributing to deepening social stratification. Tullia Jack has published the paper ‘Without cleanliness we can’t lead the life, no?’ Cleanliness practices, (in)accessible infrastructures, social (im)mobility and (un)sustainable consumption in Mysore, India on www.

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/more-cleanliness-deepening-social-gaps - 2025-09-11

The impact party politics has on the circulation of information about COVID-19 is the topic of a new article in the Canadian Journal of Political Science. Doctoral Student of Social Anthropology Isabelle Johansson has together with researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside published the article titled: ”The Partisan Impact on Local Government Dissemination of COVID-19 Information: Assess

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/how-do-politics-impact-access-information-about-covid-19 - 2025-09-11

Alexandra Franzén, doctoral student of sociology, has published the article “But ÖB Bengt Gustafsson took me by the hand and thanked me. A comparison between Jan Guillou's and Peter Bratt's accounts of the IB-publication in 1973 and 2017 ” in the Political Science journal Statsvetenskaplig Tidskrift. In May 1973, the Swedish journalists Peter Bratt and Jan Guillou exposed the secret Swedish intell

https://www.soc.lu.se/en/article/sociologist-examines-swedish-ib-scandal-1973 - 2025-09-11