SCAS News - 26 January, 2016

New Book by Former SCAS Fellow Per Wisselgren

The Social Scientific Gaze: The Social Question and the Rise of Academic Social Science in Sweden,
written by former SCAS Fellow Per Wisselgren, has recently been published by Ashgate (2015).

Per Wisselgren is Associate Professor (Docent) of Sociology at Umeå University. His research interests
include the history and sociology of the social sciences; gender, welfare and science policy studies;
media, cultural and global studies. Currently he is working on a research project entitled "Alva Myrdal
and Cold War International Social Science", funded by RJ. Wisselgren was in residence at the Swedish
Collegium in the autumn term of 2002.

ABOUT THE BOOK:
'The social sciences have, ever since they were first established as academic disciplines, played a
foundational role in most spheres of modern society - in policy-making, education, the media and
public debate - and hence also, indirectly, for our self-understanding as social beings.

The Social Scientific Gaze examines the discursive formation of academic social science in the
historical context of the 'social question', that is, the protracted and wide-ranging discussions on
the social problems of modernity that were being debated with increased intensity during the nine-
teenth century. Empirically, the study focuses on the Lorén Foundation, a combined private funding
agency and early research institute, which was set up in 1885 to promote the rise of Swedish social
science and to investigate the social question. Comprising an heuristic case, the close analysis of the
Foundation makes it possible not only to reconstruct its basic ideas and practices, but also to situate
its activities in broader historical and sociological context.

The Social Scientific Gaze argues that the rise of Swedish social science may be seen not only as an
'answer' to the social 'question', but also as one attempt alongside others - including contemporary
social literature, the philantropic reform movement, and the introduction of modern social policy - to
conceptualize, mobilize and regulate the social sphere. In this process it is furthermore shown how an
ambigious yet distinct 'social scientific gaze' was discursively articulated.'

Read more about the book
Read more about Per Wisselgren