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This chapter problematizes the intertwined and multidimensional practices of professional mobility and tourism. The authors challenge traditional understandings of tourism by analyzing how physicians and researchers, while working temporarily in another country, become momentary tourists in-between mandatory job obligations or even while performing their duties. Tourist activities and experiences happen both in planned forms of leisure-oriented activities and excursions, and sometimes just as “moments” – temporary shifts and alterations of one’s mood during other undertakings. The fact that the professionals are both traveling and working in a location influences their interests and perceptions when they momentarily shift to a tourist mode. An “exotic” experience might thus be seeing elephants on their way to work and Oxford dons in their gowns at dinners, but also different ways of organizing seminars or childcare among their colleagues. The authors argue that highly skilled professionals’ combination of academic work and temporary tourist moments could be understood as an ongoing interplay between different types of gazes. The data consists of 73 ethnographic interviews with medical professionals and humanities scholars from Sweden.

Kapitlet bygger på narrativ analys av en intervju med en professionell berättare, med särskild fokus på den effektfulla användingen av genrer som hjälteberättelse och saga inom den livshistoriska ramen.

This chapter takes its point of departure in the complexity of education for sustainable development (ESD) and the potential in regarding the surrounding environment as a resource and complement to the classroom and curricular activities. This inherent complexity demands different approaches to teaching and in this chapter the value of extra-curricular activities (ECAs) is elaborated upon. Two examples of ECAs conducted at Umeå School of Business, Economics and Statistics in Sweden are presented, discussed and analyzed. The chapter brings together a series of linked concepts, namely ESD, ECAs and experiential learning theory (ELT). The described activities provided experiences not possible to embrace within regular course syllabi and have the potential to benefit both students and teachers. A transdisciplinary context, where university and society meet in order to visualize the complexity of sustainability, can encourage dialogue and lifelong learning. A challenging dimension of sustainability is its dynamics, as development is continuous and therefore not always possible to frame in traditional university teaching. A transformative and transdisciplinary learning can take place when guest lecturers, researchers and students meet in a contemporary discourse about sustainability. There is a need for complex learning environments in order to support learning about SDGs and learning for sustainability.

This article analyzes strategies and practices among Swedish Humanities scholars in relation to the demands of “internationalization” and in a frame- work of academic capitalism. The article is based on 30 qualitative interviews with scholars in philosophy, Romance languages and history. There are signs of cognitive dissonance, with conflicting set of norms. Benefits for the aca- demic CV, along with a discipline’s ideals, traditions and its perceived role in society are the main context in which internationalization is understood, im- plemented and contested, with individual variations in international practices as e.g. international mobility, networking or publishing strategies.

Management during a recession is a particular challenge for the CEO of a company. This paper presents a case study of a small, but world-leading manufacturing company located in the sparsely populated northern part of Sweden. Sweden is a country highly dependent on its exports; the company studied was also strongly reliant on its international business. The activities performed by the company during the recession are studied through Resource Based Theory, which puts competitiveness in focus. The strategies adopted by company management during the recession can be summarized as 1) Hibernation: preparing the company for survival, securing access to money, downsizing, and adjusting to challenges 2) Building a team spirit: creating bonds of commitment, solidarity and shared involvement in the company, “we are in this together”. 3) Further training and involvement of the employees, resulting in increasing effectivity and productivity. These strategies helped overcome the crisis and ultimately changed the company culture, where the employees’ commitment has given increased competitiveness. 

This article addresses the relationship between highly skilled international mobility and knowledge by focussing on knowledge transfer work. Empirically, this study is based on interviews of professionals in the Swedish medical field who returned to Sweden after a period of work in other countries. The medical field harbours many transnationally valid competences and standardised lines of work, but even in this field, knowledge transfer is a process requiring effort, skills, negotiation, translation and adjustment to the specific organisational and cultural contexts. The studied professionals’ knowledge transfer work showed a spectrum, ranging from smooth, almost friction-free transfers to the ones where much translation and transformation was required, depending on the context and the professional’s status in the workplace. The professionals also developed and made use of knowledge transfer skills, such as the ability to observe, analyse and adjust to cultural differences between workplaces, healthcare systems or academic systems, as well as the ability to translate knowledge to make it relevant and viable in the specific context.

Comparison is a way to make sense of reality, e.g., by contrasting places, “cultures,” or practic- es. It may present different degrees of something, create a dichotomy, and imply a hierarchy of values. The article analyzes how comparison as a tool is used by highly skilled Swedish profes- sionals when they talk about participating in international work mobility and their subsequent return to Sweden. Empirically, the analysis is based on 46 interviews with Swedish medical professionals and 30 interviews with scholars in Swedish Humanities.

In recent decades, autobiographical storytelling and life experience stories has become increasingly popular in Sweden. Narrative courses, circles, workshops, “narrative cafes” etc. are organized for articulating and sharing memories in interaction with the leader and other group participants, and learning different ways to “discover” and present life experiences in oral and/or written form. Stories about lived experiences are also used in adult education, e.g. training Swedish as a second language for migrants. Stories from life are regarded as a splendid pedagogical tool not only for language training, but also for strengthening group cohesion and creating more cultural understanding among the participants. 

A life story involves an ongoing reconstruction work, as the interpretation of our experiences and our self-perception changes. In my presentation, I draw upon a distinction between "memories" and "representations of memories". It takes some cultural and narrative competence, and often interaction with others, to develop an experience into a suitable story that we share with others. How can such narrative and cultural competence be trained and developed? This paper presentation is based on an interview study with teachers, course leaders and narrative coaches telling about their work to stimulate and shape autobiographical narrating, and depicting the conditions and benefits of such narrating. What are their ideas about the process of evoking memories and “polishing” them into stories, and what are the advantages of narrating life experience? The leaders and teachers talked e.g. about the identity-creating, transformative, social and emancipatory potential.