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Swedish healthcare is governed by laws and policies that emphasise equitable access and treatment on equal terms. Recent directives increasingly promote person-centred care, urging practitioners to pay attention to diverse individual needs. Yet reports consistently show that healthcare that is culturally framed as ‘women’s healthcare’ – including both specialist and primary care – fails to meet such aims. Public debate highlights widespread dissatisfaction. What drives this discontent, and what does equitable access to care mean in such contexts?

This dissertation explores patient critiques of access to care within ‘women’s healthcare’, using material obtained through ethnographic interviews. Drawing on feminist phenomenology and patients’ narrated experiences, the analysis explores the norms and ideals that are conveyed through the patients’ accounts, focusing on what they articulated as barriers to access and what they perceived themselves to have been denied relative to their expectations of care. The analysis broadens understandings of healthcare encounters as cultural processes and of access to care from the standpoint of patients who were situated in individually experienced yet culturally shaped conditions.

The findings show that seeking care involved navigating norms concerning pain, patient positions, and clinical practice – that were shaped by cultural assumptions about femininity and women’s bodies, which were experienced as restricting access to adequate care. They also show how the patient critiques were themselves culturally formed, influenced by digital communities and broader societal ideals that emphasised knowledge exchange, mutual recognition, and the desire not only to be cared for but also to be cared about as complex, embodied subjects. The dissertation contributes to and nuances previous research on patient satisfaction, healthcare equality, person-centred care, and the meanings of access to care.

Hur används filosofiska inslag i etnologisk forskning? Och vad kan filosofer lära sig av etnologer?

Denna rapport presenterar resultaten från en intervjustudie genomförd under 2024 med 20 kvinnor som fött barn inom de senaste två åren. Nitton av de tjugo intervjuade kvinnorna levde i heterosexuella relationer och en person levde själv. Syftet med studien är att öka förståelsen för hur den sexuella hälsan påverkas av graviditet, förlossning och tiden som nybliven förälder, samt att identifiera utvecklingsbehov av hälsofrämjande insatser som kan stärka svensk förlossnings- och eftervård.

This report presents the findings from an interview study conducted in 2024 with 20 women who had given birth within the previous two years. Nineteen of the twenty interviewed women lived with a partner of opposite sex, while one lived alone. The purpose of the study was to deepen our understanding of how sexual health is affected by pregnancy and childbirth and to identify the kinds of health-promoting interventions that might strengthen Swedish maternity and postpartum care.

With a specific focus on the presence/absence of interlocutors’ participation in the process, the chapter by Elin Wallner explores and exemplifies the undertaking of organising, analysing and writing ethnographic material, collected through in-depth interviews.

Med ett specifikt fokus på närvaro/frånvaro av deltagarnas medverkande i processen utforskar och exemplifierar kapitlet uppgiften att organisera, analysera och skriva etnografiskt material insamlat genom djupintervjuer.

Texten är en prövande undersökning av postpartumberättelser som narrativ genre med särskilt fokus på framställningar av kroppens betydelse. Den granskar digitala berättelser om förlossningsskador, vilka innehåller redogörelser av och meningsskapande kring skador som ska läkas, kroppar som återhämtar sig, mentala utmaningar i att anpassa sig till den nya situationen liksom möten med vården.

This article problematizes humane research approaches in sensitive research. I explore methodological possibilities and ethical challenges when approaching sensitive sources with compassion and consideration, and creating safe spaces in the context of my ethnological research process. My sources, referred to as sensitive, are human sources, and the article is based on fieldnotes collected during my doctorate, where I used qualitative ethnographic methods consisting mainly of semi-structured in-depth interviews. Analysing my fieldnotes, I explore possibilities and challenges of employing humane approaches in research with sensitive sources, in relation to the concepts of research ethics and researcher ethics. Humane approaches can work as tools to access intimate information and to navigate sensitive situations considerately. However, such interaction can also open up for certain risks, which are ethically significant for both the quality of the research and the wellbeing of the study participants.

Elin Wallner utgår från kunskapsproduktion i vårdmöten, dvs. patienters möte med sjukvården, och diskuterar vad begreppet epistemisk orättvisa betyder för hennes förhållningssätt till studiedeltagarna.