Örebro University

YOUTHBLOCS focuses its interest on the analysis of youth involvement in illegal political activities. During the last years, researchers and commentators have stressed a new upsurge of these type of political actions among the young people of Europe. This youth choice to express political views through illegal modes has been frequently interpreted as one of the many faces of the widely reported “youth escape” from politics that would find expression not so much in an expansion of a kind of political apathy among the younger generation, but in the growing of a preference for styles of political engagement that distance themselves from the conventional ways of being politically engaged. In this perspective, the widespread youth dissent towards the formal political sphere and its institutions and the manifestations of this dissent through illegal forms of involvement cannot be underestimated for both its current effects and potential consequences in terms of legitimacy and strength of the entire European social and institutional system. The proposed project intends to contribute to the understanding of illegal political activities and of their adoption by young people (18-30) through the conduction of a multidisciplinary mixed-method research in two different national contexts - Sweden and Italy - selected because of their differences in terms of current socio-demographic and economic conditions, participatory traditions and welfare systems. The research will be based on the adoption of an intergenerational perspective of analysis, involving young people and their “significant adults” in a study aimed at exploring and explaining the meanings and the practices related to this specific way of being engaged.

Ethical consumerism as a way of protecting society, civil and citizen rights, labour rights, as well as the environment and animal welfare is considered a civil response of consumers to the inefficient socio-environmental policies of governments and public organisations. Despite some initial findings from non-European societies, the great bulk of our knowledge of the phenomenon is related to the European northern and western societies that generally have relatively similar social contexts and structures. Going beyond the conventional boundaries to investigate the issue in a non-western social context and to provide a novel comparative study, the research strategy is to study two very different countries in terms of their social, economic, political and cultural situation, Iran and Sweden. Considering consumption as a social practice that is affected by embedded social regime and setting, the project will apply social practice theory (SPT) and multi-level perspective (MLP) to compare the (im)possibilities of the formation of ethical consumption in target countries. The project will apply in-depth semi-structured interviews and purposive sampling will be utilized to select a diverse sample group in each context. To understand the wide range of social parameters that determine ethical consumerism interviewees will be asked about related corresponding issues. They will also specifically be asked about key factors of buycotting, boycotting and organic products in their personal life. By identifying similarities and differences of consumption practices in response to the embedded social structure and settings in Sweden and Iran the project will contribute to further theorizing about ethical consumerism. The project will also reveal through which social mechanism consumers engage or not in ethical consumerism and what social regimes and structures promote them to be ethical consumer or prevent.

The FIBCOLIT project investigates the impact of fermentable dietary fibres (DFs) on intestinal physiology and inflammation via dietary intervention study in human patients with microscopic colitis (MC), a chronic disease characterised by sustained mild intestinal inflammation. This subject topic has significant interest for public health considering 1) the increased global incidence and prevalence of inflammatory bowel diseases in the last 20 years, and 2) the increased scientific knowledge regarding the role of intestinal inflammation in driving the development of systemic inflammation in metabolic diseases. Currently, considerable knowledge gaps exists regarding the biological and physiological mechanisms that maintain and modulate intestinal homeostasis as well as the pathophysiological mechanisms that lead to chronic intestinal inflammation. The FIBCOLIT project aims to answer these open scientific questions through a multi-omics approach employing several analytical methods to examine DF-induced changes in intestinal barrier function, inflammatory markers, intestinal microbiota composition and functionality, as well as gastrointestinal symptoms, quality of life, and general well-being. The projects utilises a DF known to promote the production of luminal butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid that has been associated with several positive health effects. Overall, the project's methodology allows specific targeting of the mechanistic links between DF intake, butyrate, and intestinal health. Should DF supplementation prove effective at restoring intestinal homeostasis, it could potentially offer a non-pharmaceutical option to the prevention and management of diseases characterised by chronic intestinal inflammation. The project results could potentially also serve as starting point in the development of functional foods for the general public.

Why are sports segregated by gender? Why do women play some sports and not others? What makes gymnastics a feminine sport? Why shouldn’t men compete in synchronised swimming? Why didn’t women compete in Olympic weightlifting before 2000? These questions have gained renewed prominence in the wake of South African athlete Caster Semenya’s legal appeals against the decision by the International Association of Athletics Federations to reduce her testosterone levels, the ‘me too’ movement, revelations of years of abuse in women’s gymnastics, and the controversies around Laurel Hubbard’s transition from male to female and what it meant for her weightlifting career. These issues have cast a fresh spotlight on the gendering of sport which has created barriers to discrimination against women, and a range of psychological and health problems for women, especially young women. This project employs historical sociology to understand how sports’ international governing bodies create, enforce, and dismantle gender segregation. It uses gymnastics, swimming, and weightlifting as case studies to compare how three sports have been engendered through their international federations’ rules and policies. Immersion in historical archives combined with qualitative interviews provide the data for the project, which will be analysed using a gender theory. In doing so, this project aims to provide a critical understanding of the binary gendering of sports as masculine or feminine, and offer new policy recommendations for sports associations to achieve greater inclusivity in sport. It will also expand the scientific skills of the researcher by incorporating sociological theory into history. It thereby broadens her expertise and reinforces a mature research position, improving the fellow’s employability post-project.