David Cardell

This book provides an ethnographic contribution to research on children’s consumption, family life and happiness. Various and shifting notions of happiness are explored, as well as conditions for and challenges to happiness, through an analysis of video-recorded interviews and mobile ethnography conducted in two of the most popular theme parks in Sweden. Initially, the study outlines how previous research has conceptualized happiness in association with time and place in a rather static way. Based on a treatise of notions of happiness in philosophy and the social sciences, there is a turn in this thesis towards practice. It generates fundamental knowledge about the complexity of happiness. By employing this approach, it is possible to highlight how happiness is enacted as part of and in relation to ideals of family life, time, childhood, money, consumption, experiences and material things. As we explore the practices of children and their families, we discover that shifting meanings of happiness are located in contemporary culture, where emotions and consumption are of central importance.
The approach is interdisciplinary, and draws on theoretical and methodological contributions in sociology, anthropology and Science and Technology Studies (STS). Notions of meshwork and enactment become important for the exploration of happiness as a complex and changing matter, which productively involves social relations and material things. Throughout the thesis there is a dialogue with previous research on happiness, consumption and childhood which highlights the importance of exploring messy practices, in movement. It is argued that explorations of practice contribute to a critical understanding of how happiness and contemporary ideals of childhood can be approached – through consumption and as part of citizenship in a consumer society where happiness is of central importance.

Inomhuslekland är en växande affärsverksamhet i Sverige. Runt om i landet finns och skapas miljöer till vilka barn och vuxna kan komma under sin fritid, men också inom ramen för skolverksamheter. Under namn som "Busfabriken" och "Lek och buslandet" säljs ...

Cardell, David, (author) Linköpings universitet, Tema Barn, Linköpings universitet, Filosofiska fakulteten Linköpings universitet Institutionen för tema. Tema Barn. Linköpings universitet Filosofiska fakulteten. 2010 Swedish. In: Idrottsforum. - 1652–7224. Related links: http://www.idrottsfo...

De senaste åren har ett fält av kulturindustriell lek etablerats i svenska städer. Under namn som ”Busfabriken”, ”Lek o Bus Landet Multisport” och ”Funhouse” erbjuds möjlighet till konsumtion av inomhus avgränsade rum fyllda av lekredskap, så kallade sportzones och kalasrum ...

Idrott och musik kan förenas som kulturella uttryck, sida vid sida, i lokala, regionala, nationella eller globala kontexter, framsprungna ur behov av att skapa sammanhang mellan uttrycksformer, eller att förmedla känslor, eller att blott berätta om något som ska hända ...

Taking its starting point in needs for understanding of children’s leisure activities and commercial sports, this study produces an interdisciplinary understanding of cultural industrial childhood, through an analysis of a sport event. A critical understanding of contemporary culture is developed using theories on culture industry and empirical studies, including such concepts as branding, play, commercial sports and summer camps. In focus is Sweden’s largest youth sports camp, Stadium Sports Camp. Theories used and discussed in relation to this case include Horkheimer and Adornos thesis on culture industry, Lash and Lurys thesis on global culture industry and notions of entrepreneurial cities and post-politics. In using such concepts an understanding of how events take part in constructing a cultural industrial childhood is developed – highlighting commercially motivated purposes, for partners within the project: the retailer Stadium, Norrköping municipality and sports associations...

Taking its starting point in needs for understanding of children’s leisure activities and commercial sports, this study produces an interdisciplinary understanding of cultural industrial childhood, through an analysis of a sport event. A critical understanding of
contemporary culture is developed using theories on culture industry and empirical studies, including such concepts as branding, play, commercial sports and summer camps. In focus
is Sweden’s largest youth sports camp, Stadium Sports Camp. Theories used and discussed in relation to this case include Horkheimer and Adornos thesis on culture industry, Lash
and Lurys thesis on global culture industry and notions of entrepreneurial cities and post-politics. In using such concepts an understanding of how events take part in constructing a
cultural industrial childhood is developed – highlighting commercially motivated purposes, for partners within the project: the retailer Stadium, Norrköping municipality and sports associations. A multidimensional understanding of the project is developed by drawing on field work, interviews with board members and text analysis. This includes understanding
the event itself, its purposes and how popular discourses within the post industrial society have influenced strategies for future developments of Stadium Sports Camp. I show that childhood today, within the camp, is developed in close relationship to commercially motivated practices such as branding and to the montage of culture industry.

Over recent years, a cultural industrial branch of play and fun, focused on children, has been established in Swedish cities. Under names such as ‘the mischief factory’, ‘play and mischief land multisport’ and ‘funhouse’, opportunities to consume spaces filled with tools for play, so-called sports zones and celebration milieus with different themes, are offered. Children and their parents as well as schools can stay in these spaces for hours or days, as camps are one of the services provided. In information and advertisements for these businesses, playfulness, speed, parties and celebrations are marked out as key components; everything in a world that is claimed to be created for children. This paper critically investigates the temptations and the activities portrayed within this ‘children’s culture industry’ (Langer, 2002) by analyzing informational material and advertisements as presented on websites. The study is based on the hypothesis that these spaces offer, encourage and make possible certain forms of social choreography (Hewitt, 2005) that are connected to logics of productive consumption (Lefebvre, 1991). The paper develops a picture of the characteristics of industrial play in what is conceptualized as the ‘funzone’. The concept of the funzone is developed with support from research on childhood that has highlighted the tensions between nature and culture during this life phase.

Under senare år har barn- och ungdomsidrott anordnats i vinstsyfte av kommersiella företag såväl som ideella klubbar, både i form av stora träningsläger ("camps") och professionellt anordnade extraträningar (s.k. "spelarutbildningar"). Är den ett hot mot den traditionella föreningsidrotten? Karin Redelius, docent i pedagogik vid GH inleder ett samtal med forskare och verksamma inom barn och ungdomsidrott. Medverkande: Karin Mattsson Weijber, RF, Roger Gutavsson, IFK Göteborg, David Cardell, Linköpings universitet och Johan R Norberg, Malmö högskola.