Fredrik Nyman

Background

Fredrik Nyman has been a Senior Lecturer in Social Work in the Department of Psychology and Social Work since August 2023. Before coming to Mid Sweden University, he worked as a Lecturer (2021–2023) in the Institute for Gerontology at the School of Health and Welfare, Jönköping University. He received his doctorate in Anthropology from Durham University, England (2022) where he wrote an ethnographic dissertation on biosociality and self-help support groups for older people with respiratory diseases. The dissertation has been reworked into a monograph and will be published by Routledge. Fredrik holds a Bachelor's degree (2013) and a Master's degree (2015) in Social Anthropology from Stockholm University. In December 2023, he successfully attained a second Master's degree in Education (with a specialisation in higher education) from Oxford Brookes University, England.

Fredrik defines himself as a gerontologist, and is an active member of both the Swedish Gerontological Society (SGS) and the Swedish National Network for Social Science Research on Ageing and Eldercare. Additionally, with broad experience of working within both interdisciplinary and interprofessional environments, Fredrik also sees himself as a non-disciplinary scholar who seeks to cross and challenge established disciplinary boundaries. He sees his main areas of interest as social work in health care and public health, critical welfare studies, as well as disability and society—where he holds special expertise in the fields of eldercare (old age and ageing) and disability politics. He is also interested in the areas of LGBTQIA+ and sexual politics.

Thematically speaking, Fredrik’s previous research has landed at the intersection of four areas: (1) long-term illness, (2) inequalities in health, (3) stigma and (4) at-risk and vulnerable populations. When it comes to disease areas, he is particularly interested in respiratory diseases (especially asthma and COPD) and HIV/AIDS (and other sexually transmitted infections).

In terms of research methods, Fredrik is a qualitative researcher principally interested in ethnography, participant observation, interviews, and focus groups. Apropos theoretical approaches and analytical concepts, Fredrik is biased towards Michel Foucault, as well as post-structuralism and critical theory broadly speaking. Within his work, he likes to challenge what is often taken for granted; that is, the seemingly inherent social structures that demand constant vigilance, attention, and a willingness to experiment in order to further reveal.