About me

Stina Bergman Blix is employed as a researcher at the Department of Sociology. She is working on the project 'Emotions in Court' financed by The Swedish Research Council (2012-2016). Her next research project "The Construction of Objectivity" is also financed by The Swedish Research Council (2017-2019). She previoulsy held a post doctoral position financed by FORTE (April 2012-February 2014). She has been a Visiting Research Scholar at Flinders University, Adelaide, Australia (October 2013-January 2014), and has worked as a temporary Assistant Professor at the department (October 2010-Mars 2012). She defended her thesis "Rehearsing Emotions: The Process of Creating a Role for the Stage" in October 2010. She is Coordinator of the ESA Emotions Network (RN 11), and a member of ISRE and ASA.

For complete CV press here.

Research projects

Teaching

Selected Publications

Roach Anleu, S., S. Bergman Blix, K. Mack and Å. Wettergren (2016)"Observing Judicial Work and Emotion: Using Two Researchers", Qualitative Research, 16(4), 375-391. 

Wettergren, Å and S. Bergman Blix (2016). “Empathy and Objectivity in the Legal Procedure: The Case of Swedish Prosecutors”. Journal of Scandinavian Studies in Criminology and Crime Prevention, Vol. 17, No. 1: 19-35.

Bergman Blix, S. and Å. Wettergren (2016). "A Sociological Perspective on Emotions in the Judiciary", Emotion Review, vol. 8(1): 32-37.

Bergman Blix, S and Å. Wettergren (2015). “The emotional labour of gaining and maintaining access to the field”. Qualitative Research, vol. 15, No. 6: 688-704.

Bergman Blix, S. (2015) "Professional emotion management as a rehearsal process", Professions and Professionalism, Vol. 5(2): 1-15.

Roach Anleu, S., S. Bergman Blix and K. Mack (2015). "Researching emotion in courts and the judiciary: A tale of two projects". Emotion Review, Vol 7(2): 145-150.

Bergman Blix, S. (2014). "Emotional insights i the field", pp. 125-133 in Methods of Exploring Emotions, edited by Flam H. and J. Kleres. London: Routledge

Bergman Blix, S. (2014). Facilitating Emotion Management: Organizational and Individual Strategies at the Theatre" International Journal of Work Organisation and Emotion, Vol. 6(2): 193-208.

Bergman Blix, S. (2013) "Arlie Russell Hochschild", pp. 166-195 in Relationell Socialpsykologi, edited by H. Stenberg and B. Isenberg. Malmö: Liber.

Bergman Blix, S. (2010) Rehearsing Emotions: The Process of Creating a Role for the Stage, Acta Universitatis Stockholmiensis, Stockholm Studies in Sociology N.S. no 45.

Bergman Blix, S. (2009) "Emotional Participation - the use of the observer's emotions as a methodological tool when studying professional stage actors rehearsing a role for the stage", Nordic Theatre Studies, Vol. 21: 28-38.

Bergman Blix, S. (2007) "Stage Actors and Emotions at Work", International Journal of Work, Organisation and Emotion, Vol 2(2): 161-172.

Selected Conference Presentations (oral)

ESA Emotion Network Midterm 7th Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, August 2016

ESA 12th Conference, Prague, Czech Republic, August 2015

ECS Sentencing & Penal Decision-Making Work Group Fifth Symposium, Barcelona, Spain, May 2015

ESA Emotion Network Midterm 6th Conference, Rhodes, Greece, September 2014

ILPC 32nd Conference, London, UK, April 2014.

TASA 50th Conference, Melbourne, Australia, November 2013.

ESA 11th Conference, Torino, Italy, August 2013

ISRE Conference, Berkeley, USA, August 2013.

ESA Emotion Network Midterm 5th Conference, Berlin, Germany, October 2012.

ESA Qualitative Network Midterm Conference, Lund, Sweden, September 2012.

CUES, "Regulating Emotions". Limerick, Ireland, May 2012.

ILPC 30th Conference, Stockholm, Sweden, March 2012.

ESA 10th Conference, Geneva, Switzerland, September 2011

ASA 106th Annual Meeting, Las Vegas, USA, August 2011

Research Projects

The Construction of Objectivity

This project, financed by the Swedish Research Council (VR), will start 2017 and is made in collaboration with Åsa Wettergren and Moa Bladini from Gothenburg University and Nina Törnqvist at Stockholm University.

The aim of this project is to study the emotive-cognitive applied process of judicial decision-making in Swedish prosecution offices and courts, by following legal cases from prosecution, district court, to the court of appeal. We study: 1) Emotive-cognitive construction of objective decision-making; 2) Dimensions of encoding subjective lay narratives in a legal case into objective judicial categories; 3) Emotive-cognitive components of changed decisions. Using qualitative methods we combine interviews and shadowing with concerned prosecutors and judges and observations of the trials.The project addresses problems with the positivist notion of objectivity which does not allow legal actors to reflect upon how they do use emotions at work, thereby obscuring when personal sensibilities interfere with professional decisions. Besides the potential for developing legal education this knowledge advances theory about emotions, rationality and objectivity.

Emotions in court

The project "Emotions in Court" is financed by The Swedish Research Council (VR) and by the Swedish Research Council for Health, Working Life and Welfare (FORTE), and made in collaboration with Åsa Wettergren from Gothenburg University.

Previous research has shown that emotion and reason are not dichotomies; on the contrary, both are important components for rational action. Nevertheless, most research on emotions has focused on emotional labour in service and nursing. There is relatively little research on emotion in bureaucratic organizations. The democratic judicial system is one such organization where impartiality and objectivity are guiding principles implying a-emotionality. The purpose of the project is to investigate emotions and how emotions are dealt with in Swedish court procedures. Which roles do emotions have during court procedures and in the intervening day-to-day interactions between the professional actors involved?

Within this project we have initiated international collaboration with Professor Sharyn Roach Anleu and Professor Kathy Mack at Flinders University, Australia and have so far co-authored two methodological articles (see publications).

Rehearsing Emotions

My PhD thesis Rehearsing Emotions takes as its starting point the dramaturgical metaphor of the world as a stage, which is used in sociological role theories. These theories often presume what stage acting is about in order to use it as a simile for every day acting. My intention was to investigate how stage actors actually work with their roles, in particular how they work with emotions, and how it affects their private emotions.

The thesis draws on participant observation and interviews with stage actors during the rehearsal phase of two productions at a large theatre in Sweden. The results show that the inhabiting of a role for the stage is more difficult and painstaking than has been assumed in role theories so far. Shame and insecurity are common, particularly in the start up phase of the rehearsals. Interestingly, these emotions do not disappear with growing experience, but instead become recognized and accepted as part of the work process.

The primary focus is the interplay between the actors’ experience and expression of emotions, often described in terms of surface and deep acting, concepts which are elaborated and put in a process perspective. Analysis of the rehearsal process revealed that actors gradually decouple the privately derived emotional experiences that they use to find their way into their characters from the emotions that they express on the stage. Thus private experiences are converted to professional emotional experiences and expressions. When the experience has been expressed the physical manifestation can be repeated with a weaker base in a simultaneous experience, since the body remembers the expression. It is important though, that the emotional expression is not completely decoupled form a concomitant experience; then the expression looses its vitality. The ability to professionalize emotions makes the transitions in and out of emotions less strenuous but can infiltrate and cause problems in the actors’ intimate relations.

Teaching

Thesis examiner and supervisor for BA and MA students

Lecturer in Advanced Qualitative Methods

Previous teaching

Introduction to Sociology (course responsible)

Sociological Theory III (course responsible)

Sociological Theory, for the Psychologist Programme (course responsible)

Introduction to Sociology, Social Science Teacher Programme
(course responsible)

Sociological Analysis III

Sociological Analysis II

Sociological Analysis I (course responsible)