Håkan Thörn, sociology, University of Gothenburg

The project has studied and analysed the role of social movements and urban public spheres in the post-industrial transformation of Scandinavian inner cities. The project intended to provide a contemporary historical contribution to current research on urban transformation through two case studies of mobilization and urban controversy around the districts of Christiania in Copenhagen and Haga in Gothenburg. The aim has not been changed during the project.

Three most important results

1.Urban social movements in Gothenburg and Copenhagen have both originated in, and in a most profound been shaped by, the politics that they initially protested against: large-scale urban planning (what we have called "urban engineering") and the political consensus culture that has shaped the Scandinavian welfare state.
2. Urban social movements in Sweden and Denmark have influenced the ideas behind urban transformation occurring during the last decades. Although international research has shown that this has been the case also in other European cities, such as Amsterdam and Berlin, the two Scandinavian cities stand out, with architects and architectural students as important link between on the one hand movements and on the other hand the municipality and the state.
3. Both movements have in some respects, unintentionally, supported gentrification. While the urban movements have sought to resist gentrification, their emphasis on culture (including cultural preservation) seems both to have opened contributed to the gentrification of parts of the inner cities in both Denmark and Sweden

New research questions

How has the inner city's status as urban centre changed, economically, culturally and politically, in the transition to liberal postindustrial city government? How should we understand recent urban protests and movements internationally(Occupy, Right to the City etc) and in Sweden(Megafonen, Pantrarna, Husby Unite, Miljonprogrammets framtid etc), which has got significant attention by the media, in relation to the urban movements studied in this project? Do current urban protests and movements represent new types of urban political phenomena?

International dimension

The international dimension of the project has had four elements:
a) the organisation of international conferences to get input to the project and to communicate its results, b) presentation of papers at international conferences, c) guest lecture presenting the results of the project (in Paris), d) publications in English (see list of publications),
a) The project as co-organiser of conferences:
1. "Re-thinking urban social movements", University of Gothenburg 22/5 2013.
2. "Urban Uprisings in Contemporary Europe: Paris 2005, Athens 2008, London 2011 - What's next?", University of Gothenburg 15/2 2012
3. "Researching Gothenburg", RC21, World Congress of International Sociological Association, University of Gothenburg , July 2010.
4. "Uses of Heritage: then, now and tomorrow", Högskolan i Halmstad den 11 september 2013.
b) Presentation of papers at international conferences:
1. Ann Ighe och Tomas Nilson: "Alternative Culture and Heritage - Christiania and Haga in the 80s", at Uses of Heritage: Halmstad University 11 september 2013.
2. Ann Ighe och Tomas Nilson: "Counter cultures as ambivalent agents for heritage. The Who's? And What? Questions revisited" vid The inaugural Conference of Association of Critical Heritage Studies University of Gothenburg 5-8 juni 2012.
3. Håkan Thörn: "In between social enginnering and gentrification. Urban social movements and the place politics of open space, vid "How to Study Transnational Social Movements", University of Gothenburg, 28-29/9 2011.
4. Håkan Thörn: "Urban Transformation and social movements 1970-2010: "The Cases of the Freetown Christiania in Copenhagen and Haga in Gothenburg", RC21, World Congress of International Sociological Association, University of Gothenburg , July 2010.
5. Cathrin Wasshede: "Double-edged craving for legitimacy: queer strategies and urban citizenship", paper presenterat på session RC 25/32; Gender and Sexuality and Discourses on Citizenship, World Congress of International Sociological Association, University of Gothenburg , July 2010.
c) Gästföreläsning EHES, Paris
1. Håkan Thörn: "Urban restructuring, social movements and the place politics of open space", 3 maj 2012, L' Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, Paris.

The two most important publications

1. Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (eds) (2011) Space for Urban Alternatives?: Christiania 1971-2011.
The book was a result of the fact that we chose to focus on the case of Copenhagen/Christiania during the first period of the project. In addition to contributions by the editors, the book contains contributions by seven scholars that have done research on Christiania in the 2000s, including two from the US, three from Denmark, one from Britain and one from Sweden. All contributions are original.

Thörn, H. (2013) Stad i rörelse: Stadsomvandlingen och striderna om Haga och Christiania.
The book has a comparative approach through which two similar cases contribute to deepen our understanding about the meaning of universal processes of social change, that is how global and transnational social processes have concrete meanings in national or local contexts. It thus addresses the research project's over-arching problem: to which extent general patterns discerned in international research regarding the relationship between urban change and urban movements also exist in the two cases we have studied. And the other way around: if and how patterns that in an over-arching perspective can be defined as universal (for example gentrification) have national and local specificities. Comparisons are in the book also made with other countries and cities in Europe.

Publication strategy

We strived for international publication but also for making our research results as accessible as possible to the public outside the Academia. In the latter case, one major book of the project (in English) has been made available in open access, and another has been published in Swedish. International publication has been made in the form of chapters in a book published by a major international publisher (Palgrave) and in journals. In addition to Thörn's internationally published article (2012a), three articles by Wasshede, by Nilson & Ighe and by Martins Holmberg under publication (the two latter were employed for 2 months each in order to be able to write articles in connection to the project.

Publications

1.    Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (eds) (2011) Space for Urban Alternatives?: Christiania 1971-2011. Stockholm: Gidlunds. I open access:
http://gupea.ub.gu.se/handle/2077/26558
2.    Thörn, H. (2013) Stad i rörelse: Stadsomvandlingen och striderna om Haga och Christiania. Stockholm: Atlas.
3.    Thörn, H. (2012a) “In Between Social engineering and Gentrification: Urban Restructuring, Social Movements, and the Place Politics of Open Space”, Journal of Urban Affairs, 34 (2).
4.    Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (2011) ”Introduction: From ‘social experiment’ to ‘urban alternative’ – 40 years of research on the Freetown”, i Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (eds). (2011)
5.    Nilson, T. (2011) “Weeds and Deeds – Images and Counter Images of Christiania and Drugs”, i Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (eds) (2011).
6.    Wasshede, C. (2011) “Bøssehuset – Queer Perspectives in Christiania”, i Thörn, H., Wasshede, C. and Nilson, T. (eds) (2011).
7.    Wasshede, C. (kommande 2012) ’From the lonely homophile in the darkness to rainbow families in the streets – a story of liberation?’, i Larsson, B., Letell, M. & Thörn, H. (eds). (2012) Transformations of the Swedish Welfare State: From Social Engineering to Governance, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
8.    Thörn, H. (kommande, 2012) “Governing movements in urban space”, i Larsson, B., Letell, M. & Thörn, H. (eds). (2012)
9.    Thörn, H. (2010) “Proletarians, proggers and punks: Haga and a Hundred Years of Social Movements”, i Helena Holgersson, Catharina Thörn, Håkan Thörn, Mattias Wahlström (eds). (Re-)Searching Gothenburg: Essays on a Changing City. Göteborg: Glänta förlag.
10.    Thörn, H. (2010). ”Proletärer, proggare och punkare: Folkhemmet, Haga och de sociala rörelserna”, i Helena Holgersson, Catharina Thörn, Håkan Thörn, Mattias Wahlström (red). (2010b)
11.    Wasshede, C. (2010) ”Beard and skirt – gender bending in public space”, Holgersson, H., Thörn, C., Thörn, H. & Wahlström, M. (eds). (2010b)
12.    Wasshede, Cathrin (2010) “Skägg och kjol på Avenyn”, i Holgersson, H., Thörn, C., Thörn, H. & Wahlström, M. (red). (2010a).
13.    Holgersson, H., Thörn, C. ; Thörn, H. and Wahlström, M. (2010). “A critical view of Gothenburg”, i Helena Holgersson, Catharina Thörn, Håkan Thörn, Mattias Wahlström (eds). (2010b) (Re-)Searching Gothenburg: Essays on a Changing City. Göteborg: Glänta förlag.
14.    Holgersson, H., Thörn, C. ; Thörn, H. and Wahlström, M. (2010). ”Trettiosju studier av en stad i förändring”, i Helena Holgersson, Catharina Thörn, Håkan Thörn, Mattias Wahlström (eds). (2010b) Göteborg utforskat: studier av en stad i förändring.  Göteborg: Glänta förlag.