GU-Journal no 5 2012

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GUJOURNALEN 5 | 2012

n o 5 | s e p t e m b e rn/rO 2c t| oabperri l22001 122

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UNIVERSITY OF GOTHENBURG

A deep feeling of freedom Freediving is a euphoric adventure for Peter Johnsen Guide to open access

carolina lunde:

three gu-researchers

Open and quick but not free

Beautyideals are harmful!

Our best creative tips

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Page 8

page 14

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Vice Chancellor

A magazine for employees of the Universit y of Gothenburg

A new vision and strategy will make a difference

It ’ s o f t e n sai d that the process is more important than the final strategy document. There’s much truth to this and it’s one reason why it’s so positive to hear our board commend not only what the vision document consists of but also the development process. The feeling is that there has been both an inclusion of many participants as well as great enthusiasm.

When we now begin the important work of implementing Vision 2020, all the activities at the University have to take their responsibility. The vision and the new strategy, with all their different parts, will be broken down into ongoing, three-year action plans for all the activities in the University, that is, for each faculty and department and at the common university level. The action plans will then be added to with one-year business plans that are connected to the budget.

It will also be important to continuously follow up and evaluate the plans – and that will require the work of both employees and students since we all have responsibility for the development of our University.

If you’d like to know more, you can visit

E d i to r - i n C h i e f a n d P u b l i s h e r

Allan Eriksson 031 - 786 10 21 allan.eriksson@gu.se E d i to r a n d V ic e P u b l i s h e r

Eva Lundgren 031 - 786 10 81 eva.lundgren@gu.se P h oto g r ap h y a n d R e p r o d u c t i o n

Johan Wingborg 031 - 786 29 29 johan.wingborg@gu.se G r ap h ic F o r m a n d Layo u t

Photogr aphy: Julia L andgren

I wa n t to sta r t by wishing all our employees and students welcome to a new school term. As usual lately, we’ve had a flying start with a number of important changes.

As Vice-chancellor, I now have a new management group, starting as of July 1. In addition to myself, there is Pro Vice-chancellor Helena Lindholm Schulz and university director Jörgen Tholin. Of our eight deans, three are new and 16 of our 37 heads of department are new in their roles.

A new work and delegation order started to apply July 1, and the University board made their decision on a new long term vision strategy for our activities on September 6 – Vision 2020. This is an important step in our work. In a world in which competition is increasing and more and more actors want to have an impact on our development, it is very important to have goals and strategies for what we do.

We have that now. The new strategy will apply as of January 1, 2013, and be followed until 2020. This decision was preceded by more than a year and a half of intensive strategy work. More than 1 000 people have had a part in this work in different ways.

Sept/Oct 2012

our web site and load the full Vision 2020 at www.vision2020.gu.se.

I n t e r e st i n g t h i n g s are also happening this fall politically. Among other things, the Government will propose a new proposition for research and innovation. Jan Björklund, Minister of Education, has begun to release information, so we already know about parts of the proposition, such as that three billion crowns will be devoted to elite research in the coming ten years. He wants top international researchers and young, excellent researchers to be recruited. This is good, but we’re still looking for the details in order to see the consequences, and I expect all areas of science to participate in this effort.

As many of you have observed, hardly a day goes by without research and education being discussed in media. We have to navigate intelligently around the changes that are being suggested. My next letter will give more details about what our Government will be developing.

Anders Eurén 031 - 786 43 81 anders.euren@gu.se Contributing writers

Helena Svensson Annika Hansson T r a s l at i o n

Janet Vesterlund address

GU Journal University of Gothenburg Box 100, 405 30 Gothenburg e-post

gu-journalen@gu.se internet

www.gu-journalen.gu.se I SSN

1402-9626 issues

7 issues/year.

The next issue will come out on November 6, 2012.

D e a d l i n e f o r m a n u s c r ip t s

October 18 Mat e r ia l

The Journal does not take responsibility for unsolicited material. The editorial office is responsible for unsigned material.

Feel free to quote, but give your source.

Change of address

Inform the editorial office of the change in writing.

C ov e r

Peter Johnsen, Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Theory of Science

Pam Fredman Reg.nr: 3750M

Reg.nr: S-000256

Contents

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

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Letter from the Vice-chancellor

2 New vision and new strategy News

4 Open Access is something everyone wants, but who should pay?

6 Ranking lists – why do we care? profile 8 The beauty industry exploits young people’s uncertainty, according to Carolina Lunde PhD thesis

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Ylva Sommerland: Manga figures dissolve traditional gender patterns Reportage

12 Indian film expert on the hunt for unknown tales 14 Stuck in a rut? Three researchers give tips for how to become more creative Leisure 16 Peter Johnsen on the euphoria of freediving

8 Carolina Lunde Cosmetic surgery is more accepted among the young.

12 Culture - what’s that?

Maybe we need a new definition, says Vasanthi Mariadass.

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Freediving Peter Johnsen thrives in deep water.

Editorial Office: Incompatible ideals steer universities W e lco m e to a new issue of GU Journalen. This fall looks like it will be extra intense and eventful, and we’re not only thinking about the ongoing re-organisation of the management.

Vision 2020 has just been accepted by the board and now the actual work has to be done.

We live in a time of stronger steering, more competition and stronger focus on trademarks. DN writer Håkan Boström formulated it as a paradox on August 24: The stronger specialisation and the requirement to constantly compare oneself with others can lead to regimentation in the university world instead of higher quality. It’s

even worse that the demands for effectiveness and standardisation don’t go very well together with creativity. Several articles in this issue touch upon this theme.

A n ot h e r n e w t h i n g is that we, together with Skrivkraft, have recently carried out a reader investigation of the Journal’s 550 external readers.

Half answered the web questionnaire, which is a high number. We want to take the opportunity to thank all of you who responded. The questionnaire shows primarily two things: a majority wants to continue to read the Journal on paper and the Journal is

given a very good holistic judgement.

Almost 90 per cent think that the Journal is very or quite good. Threefourths consider the Journal to give a believable picture of the University of Gothenburg. Over 60 per cent read more than half of the contents.

That’s an even better result than what the University’s employees give the Journal. Many readers also took the opportunity to give comments and some of these made us particularly happy. a unique newspaper with an investigative mission in contrast to other publications at col-

leges and universities, which are often purely advertising products. It is brave of the University of Gothenburg to maintain this kind of newspaper and it is therefore important to safeguard it”.

“GUJ is under constant development and is very strong in its position in the universities in Sweden”.

“A personnel newspaper that is unusually outspoken that lives up to the picture of the university as a place for critical reflection”.

“GU J o u r n a le n i s

Allan Eriksson & Eva Lundgren

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News

Open Access – good for everyone?

Each year the University library buys about 20 million crowns worth of scientific journals.

Now the library is hoping that more researchers will discover another way to publish that is quick, simple, open for everyone and, not least important, free – at least for subscribers.

Welcome to Open Access.

It wa s i n A p r i l that Harvard’s library encouraged all researchers to put our their articles on Open Access. The reason was that journal subscriptions had become so expensive that the library no longer considered itself able to afford them.

The University library isn’t really there yet – but Tomas Lundén, team leader and librarian at Digital Services at the library, confirms the increase in prices.

“In 25 years journal subscription prices have gone up three to four times more than the consumer price index. Today, two thirds of the University library’s whole budget for media purchases goes to journals.”

There are a number of problems with the traditional journals: The researcher sends in an article that the journal receives free copyright for. Other researchers contribute to the journal peer reviews, often without being paid. Then, at increasing prices, the university buys back the research it has itself produced. At the end, it’s taxpayers who will bear the costs.

B u t, a s m o r e and more material is being put on Internet, the demands for Open Access have increased, in other words that all research material shall be freely accessible on the Internet.

“It has partly to do with avoiding the high costs. But Open Access also often leads to a speedier publication and more

40 000 ! HOW CAN IT BE THAT EXPENSIVE ?

THEY DIDN´T PAY A PENNY FOR MY ARTICLE!

BUT YOU CAN PUT YOUR NEXT PAPER ON THIS BILLBOARD - FOR ONLY 10 000!

Illustr ation: Toma s K arl sson

effective spreading of information.”

Today there are two ways to publish Open Access: in Open Access journals or in the traditional journals but with a parallel publication in the school’s database, for example GUP (the University of Gothenburg’s Publications).

“Different subjects have different traditions,” says Tomas Lundén. “Physics, economics and computer science started early to

»The costs sometimes make us not want to publish with Open Access.« Henrik Zetterberg

publish research articles in Open Access in the subject archives on the Web. It’s also more common in other natural science subjects and medicine. But when it comes to the humanities and certain parts of the social sciences, which

primarily give out monographs, Open Access is rarer.”

It will probably increase in more areas, however. More and more financers namely require Open Access, both in Sweden and in the EU. In terms of projects

News

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

»Research that has been done with public funds should simply be freely available.« Tomas Lundén

Henrik Zetterberg Tomas Lundén

that need a great deal of data collection, Vetenskapsrådet even requests that primary data are made accessible. And Chalmers, Malmö University and Blekinge Technical University have already issued a demand for all research to be Open Access.

“It’s not like that at the University of Gothenburg, but the Vice-chancellor has given the University library the task of developing support for Open Access and other forms of publishing,” Tomas Lundén explains.

Q u ic k , e ffec tiv e , simple and free! Why haven’t all researchers already gone over to Open Access?

Among other reasons, because it still costs – for researchers.

“Putting out an article in for example the Public Library of Science costs 10 000–30 000 crowns. Considering that we publish 40–70 articles a year, that comes to a lot of money,” explains Henrik Zetterberg, professor of neurochemistry.

Among the financers that require Open Access, however, it’s possible to apply for grants to cover these costs.

“That’s of course good. But regardless of whether it’s the library, the researchers or the researcher financers that pay, in the end it’s still the tax payers that are responsible for the costs.”

Henrik Zetterberg thinks that since administrative costs are just as high now as earlier, Open Access just implies further fees.

likely that the administrative costs would decrease, at least not in a shorter perspective, since the University library still has to continue its expensive subscriptions.

“Part of the problem is namely that the library subscribes to so B u t it ’ s h a r d ly

called Big Deals, agreements that include a large number of journals of which researchers use only a few,” Tomas Lundén explains. “It means that individual journals can’t be terminated without declining the whole package in which prestigious journals are included. During a transition period, greater publication in Open Access thus means greater costs. But the more journals that go over to Open Access, the greater the price competition should be, which should finally make it cheaper to publish. It must be added that not all Open Access journals take a fee, even if most of the large ones do. And it’s now often possible to parallel publish the article in GUP – for free.”

Another problem is how to ensure that articles are saved for future use, according to Henrik Zetterberg.

“The Biomedical Library has a fantastic cellar! Think that you can go there and ask for an article from 1902! But what happens with all the articles that circulate on the Net?” But the problem is actually the same for traditional journals,” says Tomas Lundén.

“The dividing line goes rather between the big publishers that have resources and the smaller ones that can’t afford routines for saving texts.”

A n i m p o r ta n t argument for Open Access is that research is made available to many more people.

“For instance to researchers in poor countries that can’t afford expensive journals,” Tomas Lundén explains. “But also in our own country, doctors and psychologists at smaller units can follow research developments with Open Access. Research that has been done with public funds should simply be freely available.”

Henrik Zetterberg agrees.

“It’s a very attractive thought that all research should be able to come out to everybody in the whole world. I think we’re on our way in that direction and in principle I’m all for it.”

A national project that inclu-

des the University library is now being done in Sweden. Its point is to promote Open Access publication of scientific monographs at Swedish schools. The work is financed by the National Library of Sweden.

Eva Lundgren

Open acc e ss Financers that require Open Access: FAS, Formas, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Vetenskapsrådet, European Research Council and several areas in EU’s seventh frame program. EU’s coming program, Horizon 2020, is also discussing the demands for Open Access. There is however a possibility to apply for special funding for publication among these financers.

In the Directory of Open Access Journals, www.doaj.org, there are now over 8 000 scientific journals. An initiative for developing scientific Open Access monographs is www.oapen.org.

And the Directory of Open Access Books is a search service for scientifically examined open access monographs (www.doabooks. org) .

Seminar On Wednesday, October 24, the University library will hold a seminar Open Access and the Humanities. One of the speakers will be Katarina Bernhardsson, Lund University, who will talk about the project Towards Quality-Controlled Open Access Monographs in Sweden. Another will be Astrid Söderbergh Widding, Stockholm University, who will talk about Open Access Publishing in the Humanities.

Time: 10–12 am.

Location: Room K332, Lennart Torstenssonsgatan 6.

Contact the University library at: gup@ub.gu.se Tel: 031-786 66 71 Twitter: @GU_library

Artists are pioneers in Open Access Pictures, music features and documentation from on-going art projects are some examples of what the University library’s database, GUPEA, now contains.

The University of Gothenburg is namely one of few institutions in the world that puts out artistic works on its database.

A m o d e l i s the Journal for Artistic Research, an Open Access journal that publishes examined research projects in all areas of art.

But otherwise it’s pioneer work that’s now being done at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts in putJohan Öberg ting out artistic works and research projects on GUPEA. “There are several difficulties. Art is a happening, not a text, and can thus not always be reproduced in an obvious way. Then there are also copyright issues. But, in principle, representations of finished, published works that have been created with the support of faculty funds or artistic development funds should be made freely available,” explains Johan Öberg, research secretary at the office of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts.

In addition to images, there are metadata, contexts, reflections, critical articles concerning work and so on.

“For the Faculty to be able to shine through at the University of Gothenburg and internationally, what we do has to be shown and also be documented digitally, because it isn’t certain at all that people think about an exhibition in the US or a concert in France that it’s actually connected to our activities here.”

A reason that the Faculty has now systematically gone into the question of art and Open Access is to take action against criticism that emerged in the RED 10 research evaluation.

The artistic publications are now a part of the Faculty’s quality indicators and thus also a resource founding factor.

But a difficulty has been finding a good way to score the works. Things that are represented at renowned museums or that have been played by the Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra for instance are of course considered to be of high quality.

“However, that an art school also has to be on the artistic front edge, and claim their own, new quality concepts makes the task of judging quality extra difficult, but also interesting. For that reason we’ll let external experts examine our own examinations,” says Johan Öberg.

The part of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts that has published the most to date is Valand Academy.

Eva Lundgren

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Notices shanghai list

Quote

»Extravagant parties and skyhigh pay for research bureaucrats are just one symptom of the deeper problem of a difficult over-­organisation of Swedish research.« Bo Rothstein in the Expressen debate on August 16 th.

Four departments form Valand Academy Valand Academy was created on July 1, 2012, by the following art departments: the School of Film Directing, the School of Photography, Valand School of Fine Arts and the Department of Literary Composition, Poetry and Prose. Head of Department is artist and writer Mick Wilson, and pro Head of Department is Mats Olsson. The Valand Academy is the result of considerable development work at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts that started in the beginning of 2010. The seven departments of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts have now become three: Valand Academy, the Academy of Music and Drama and the School of Design and Crafts.

Vision 2020 After one and a half years of preparatory work in which over 1000 persons participated, on September 6th the board of the University of Gothenburg approved a new vision and long term strategy for the years 2013–2020, Vision 2020.

The strategy will be broken down into three-year action plans for each faculty, each department and on a common university level. These will be supplemented with one-year activity plans connected to the budget.

“It’s also important to continuously follow up and evaluate what we’re doing now,” explained Vice-chancellor Pam Fredman. “The work will require the participation of both employees and students since we have a common responsibility for the development of the University of Gothenburg.”

Read more at: vision2020.gu.se.

The Government wants to nominate board members The Government wants a nomination group to give proposals for chairmen and members of university boards. It is currently the vice-chancellor who proposes persons to be a part of the university board. This requires a change in the Higher Education Ordinance.

According to the proposal, the nomination group would consist of one person appointed by the government, the governor of the area and one student representative.

A few rungs up.

So what?

Hurray! The University of Gothenburg climbed a few rungs on the Shanghai list and is now considered, according to this list, to be one of the world’s 200 best universities. But why do we care about this onesided ranking?

Sv e r k e r Li n d b l a d , professor of education and among other things member of SUHF’s group for ranking questions, thinks is pleasing that GU has landed in a better place on the list this year. But it’s no guarantee for the future.

The University of Gothenburg should take the opportunity to be happy. The next time we can just as easily fall down a few rungs without any particular reason.”

It isn’t strange that the lists have gotten such attention, but Sverker Lindblad thinks it is bad if they start to steer the University’s development.

“Ranking lists have as their purpose to create hierarchies between schools. The risk of putting too much emphasis on certain areas just to advance on the lists is that it take place at the cost of core activities and, not least, of education.”

H e t h i n k s t h at the advantage of the Shanghai list is that it, unlike Times and QS, is a stable ranking system that doesn’t use doubtful reputation indicators.

“But it’s altogether too narrow and abstract to fill any function

and it gives an extremely angled description of the schools.”

The list, which is called the Academy Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), has existed for ten years and, during this time, the University of Gothenburg has been fairly stable. In the first years the University landed somewhere between 150 and 200 and then fell for a period of seven years to a placement of between 201 and 034. But this year the University

climbed again. On the basis of the indicators that form the basis for the ranking, the unit of analysis and evaluation has calculated a more exact placement: 196.

Last year, the University landed at place 203. we sniffed at the limit of the higher interval and this year we’ve taken the step up. It shows that the University’s researchers are becoming more and more successful and are publishing, even though it’s hard to draw general conclusions,” says Katarina Borne at the unit for analysis and evaluation.

She points out that the

“ La st y e a r

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2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Placement of the University of Gothenburg on the Shanghai list since 2003.

The International Café takes place for international researchers, international staff, PhD students, their families and hosts.

Location: Ågrenska villan, Högåsplatsen 2, Gothenburg Guest Services, www.gu.se/guestservices

News

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

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Photogr aphy: Tor sten Arpi

Professor Sverker Lindblad stresses that rankings don’t say very much about quality.

Shanghai list is developed to distinguish the world’s absolute top universities in natural sciences, medicine and technology.

“The purpose of the list from the beginning was to crease Chinese universities of world class in these areas. Considering the attention the list has gotten, it’s developed to become an established indicator for research intensive schools all over the world. In many ways then it isn’t relevant for us because we’re an education intensive and broad university with many subjects that aren’t counted in the ranking,” says Katarina Borne. happened?

One explanation is that the University’s researchers have published more in journals that are included in the ranking. For example, the number of publications in Nature and Science the latest five-year period has increased from 17 to 21. There’s also been an increase in the number of articles in Science Index Expanded (SSIE) and Social Science Citation Index (SSCI).

For the first time, the University of Gothenburg is also seen in the subject areas of Life and Agriculture Sciences and Social Sciences, but that has sooner to do with the fact that only the 100 top schools were ranked previously while this year it’s been extended to 200.

Things have also gone forward in the areas of Clinical and S o w h at h a s

Pharmacy, where the University of Gothenburg has this year gone up six placements and lands on place 58.

O n e o f m a n y weaknesses is that the Shanghai list only measures a certain type of research and puts relatively much emphasis on

the lists are being given greater attention. They are already important for policymakers and research councils that allocate grants as well as when universities are to choose cooperative partners or when students choose an international education.

“I think that that importance

the basis for developing higher education and research – preferably in a critical interplay with the society at large.”

»Who checks that the background material is correct?« prices, which means that schools that received a Nobel prize many years ago automatically are given a better placement. The school’s profile and the number of employees are also important, which puts the University of Gothenburg at a disadvantage relative to Uppsala University, for example. of ranking lists by heavy actors, such as the League of European Research Universities, is well-founded,” says Sverker Lindblad. “In part, the lists are too poor and in part you can question whether they should be used to steer higher education and research. I a time of increased market adaptation, in the worst case the lists can lead to universities being driven by profit interests.”

Despite all the objections, “ T h e c r itici s m

will become even stronger in the future,” Sverker Lindbald speculates.

T h e r e a r e alternatives to ranking individual universities, namely analysing how higher education and research function as a system and how they can be improved. Sverker Lindblad suggests greater openness and insight into these question and a critical approach to the lists: “Who checks that the background material is correct and who examines the ones who make the examinations? Here, iReg, Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence play an important role in developing a set of golden rules for ranking, the so called Berlin Principles. Instead of being steered by ranking lists, put the questions about science and knowledge on the agenda as

Sta ffa n E d é n , who is vice rector for research questions, still thinks that it’s pleasant that the University has moved forward.

“That we publish more is partly a consequence of an actively leadership and that higher demands on publishing has direct economic incitements, but for the individual department and for the University. Regardless of what you think, the ranking lists are important, not least for selfconfidence.”

But he maintains that the University of Gothenburg can’t change focus to adapt to the criteria that form the basis of one-sided ranking systems.

“We have to work with the whole picture.”

Allan Eriksson

shang hai li st The so called Shanghai list was published on August 15.

Not surprisingly, the 100 listen is dominated by American universities – a total of 53 – with Harvard University, Stanford University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology leading the list.

In Europe, the University of Cambridge (5) holds the highest placement and among Swedish universities Karolinska Institute is in place 42. In Sweden, the University of Gothenburg is is fifth place, after Lund University.

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Profile

text annika Hansson | Photography Johan Wingborg

Beautiful, at any price?

The search for the perfect appearance has created a billion-dollar industry.

“It’s controlled by very strong market forces. It’s a shame because it means a great deal of suffering, especially for young people who have to form their self-image.”

So says Carolina Lunde, university lecturer at the Department of Psychology, who is investigating how young people view beauty interventions.

P

eo p le h av e always wanted to make themselves beautiful. The difference today is a very strong beauty industry that’s driven by the hunt for money.

“They live on people’s dissatisfaction with how they look. It makes many young people fall short. I think it’s a terrible shame. We should have come farther.

There’s all reason to have a critical debate about the beauty industry because it leads to serious consequences such as eating disorders,” she says.

Thirty-three year old Carolina Lunde is dressed in jeans, a black blazer and sneakers when we meet for an interview in her room at the Department of Psychology near Linnéplatsen in Gothenburg.

O u t s i d e t h e w i n d ow you can see Annedal Church through summer’s green leaves. On the wall she has pictures of children and a painting of a woman who is lying down, reading. Her desk is clean and there’s a pink fan in the bookshelf. There’s an impression of good organisation.

“I cleaned before you came,” she says and laughs.

Carolina Lunde’s investigation is called Ska gå ner sju (i alla fall fem) kilo innan jag opereras (I’m going to lose seven (five, anyway) kilos before I get operated). One thousand young people will be interviewed about body image, self-image, relations and beauty interventions. She also uses fashion trend blogs.

There were interesting results from a pilot study that the research group already did with 110 high school students. They found that particularly younger boys believe

that plastic surgery gives social benefits – like that you get a job more easily if you’ve undergone a beauty intervention.

Of the girls interviewed, about 20 per cent could consider a beauty intervention some time in the future. Among the boys, half as many thought the same.

“These interventions are marketed today as a way that’s available to change your appearance,” says Carolina Lunde.

And she believes that media plays a big role here.

In the pilot study, body image was also measured, and they got unexpected results.

“I was surprised. I thought that body image was related to attitudes about beauty interventions, but that wasn’t at all the case.”

Carolina Lunde’s investigation is divided into two parts, of which the first has to do with fashion trend blogs.

“They’ve become immeasurably popular and are extremely powerful. Most of all it’s younger girls who write and read fashion blogs. If anyone puts out a picture of a sweater in the blog, it can be sold out in the stores the day after.” wants to investigate who reads fashion blogs and what function they have. Perhaps subgroups of readers can be distinguished. Some of the big, influential fashion blogs have to do with beauty interventions and they put out pictures of people who have done interventions.

“It’s often ordinary people, like you and me, in these pictures. And we identify us often with people who are like us.”

For that reason it can be thought that readers of fashion blogs might be more posiC a ro li n a Lu n d e

tive toward interventions meant to improve appearance.

“We’re going to recruit interview persons via the Net. We’ll start a Facebook page and we’ll ‘mail’ on different forums, blogs and fan pages. In that way we’ll reach pretty many people who read and are active with this. We hope in the first step to get ideas about what the important things are to ask about.”

T h e s eco n d pa r t of the investigation will seek information about attitudes toward beauty interventions.

What characterizes people who do interventions? What is their life history? These are questions that Carolina Lunde hopes to get answers to.

What is it that makes young girls consider operating their breasts?

“Some of them want to feel better while others are motivated by external factors, such as being liked. Many young people believe that people like you better if you

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

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The ideals media wants young people to identify with are unrealistic, claims researcher Carolina Lunde.

»The body has become a project, and not only for rich people.« look better. The number of beauty interventions has strongly increased during recent years. The branch has become a billiondollar industry. There are indications that attitudes in society are becoming more liberal in terms of beauty interventions, that they have become more legitimate.”

The big boom for beauty interventions has come during the 2000s. There’s a somewhat different view of them now than there was before. During the 1990s, there were pictures in the media of women who had undergone interventions and gotten very large breasts. Now more women strive for a kind of “naturalness”. In other words,

that the interventions should improve but not been seen.

“The body has become a project – and not only for rich people,” says Carolina Lunde.

S h e says t h at ideals about beauty change in different times and that people get used to new ideals. Some young women make their lips large by spraying in an agent.

An ideal of this kind can become popular among certain subgroups.

“And if you have people around you who do beauty operations you become more positive toward them.”

According to Carolina Lunde, many studies show that more men than earlier can consider a beauty intervention.

“Men’s bodies are getting more and more objectified in the media. But it may not ever be the same for men as for women, that men build that identity and self-image so much on appearance. Men have different possibilities for asserting themselves in larger domains.

C a ro li n a Lu n d e h a s done research on appearance culture and children’s body awareness for a long time.

Her doctoral thesis at the University of Gothenburg was published in 2009. The thesis, Det människor sager fastnar (What people say sticks) was built on an investigation of 1000 children between 10 and 14 years.

She found that, when children and young people are bullied, this affects their

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Profile

body awareness and thus also their selfesteem.

Carolina Lunde confirms that there is often a strong duality in the media over these issues. A completely unrealistic ideal is held up but then they write “you should be satisfied with yourself the way you are”.

“We in the adult world all have to examine ourselves and how we act. Like not standing in front of the mirror and sighing.

I was recently at a conference and saw at the coffee break that not one woman took a piece of cake without commenting ‘I shouldn’t…’ Things like that signal something. We have to think about what we convey to children. Not always having appearance in such focus when it comes to girls’ hair or dresses. Girls play with dolls whose waists are 30 per cent narrower than an average anorectic’s.”

T h e r e a r e g a m e s and forums on the Internet for girls where gender roles are very stereotypical and where you can play supermodel and go shopping.

Magazines organise competitions where parents send in pictures of their children.

All this is an expression of greater individualisation and a commercialisation of childhood.

Carolina Lunde herself has come closer to this world thanks to her daughters, five and two years old.

“I’ve been inaugurated in it and it was more gender stereotypical than I thought.”

She says that she was so happy that her older daughter didn’t seem to enter any “princess age”.

“Then it hit suddenly with extreme force.

She wanted only to wear fluffy, shiny, horrible tulle dresses. And then it was just to let her be. But so much feedback she got from the people around her.”

Female researchers often have to fight much harder than men to achieve their goals. The famous glass ceiling is hard to get through. Investigations of equality at the Faculty of Education and Faculty of Natural Sciences in Gothenburg by researchers Anna-Karin Wyndhamn and Anna Peixoto (see GU Journalen no 7/11) show this.

Carolina Lunde doesn’t think that she as a young female research at the University of Gothenburg has felt these problems.

“But it’s actually hard for me to say since I’m at the beginning of my career.”

S h e h a d h e r second child in 2010 and was then on parental leave for a short period.

“I don’t think that parental leave has stopped me. But of course, when you’re the parent of small children, it’s hard to make all the pieces of the puzzle fit.”

The telephone rings as we speak. It’s the children’s father who is on his way to leave their daughters, who he’s been at home with during the day. He’s off to work and wonders whether the interview is over.

“Apropos staying at home with the children!” says Carolina Lunde and laughs.

She feels she’s lucky to have two research grants. And she thinks it’s important to have role models, to see that others in academia with similar conditions are successful in their research career.

»Our appearance says a lot about who we are.«

C arolina Lu nde News: Project called “Ska gå ner sju (i alla fall fem) kilo innan jag opereras” (I’m going to lose seven (five, anyway) kilos before I get operated”). Also runs a sports psychological project that has to do with appearance culture among girls in different sports. The first results of the investigation will be presented shortly.

Age: 33 years.

Born: In Gothenburg.

Lives: In Askim in Gothenburg.

Family: Husband and two daughters.

Occupation: University lecturer at the Department of Psychology.

Background: Defended her thesis in 2009 in psychology Det människor säger fastnar (What people say sticks).

Interests: Horses. “I have a background as a rider. It’s a large part of my identity.”

Most recently read book: Pojkarna (Boys) by Jessica Schiefauer. “A good book and an interesting contribution to the genus debate.”

Most recently seen film: “I usually plow through documentaries on SVT Play.”

Favourite food: Vegetarian. “Everything that’s as green as possible.”

Strength: “I’m pretty persistent. If I run into snags, I most often have an ability to transform it to something I can learn from.”

Weakness: “Impossibly optimistic about time.

Think that everything is going to take a much shorter time than it actually does. Always nervous and work at night to get in an application in time.”

Role model: “Many different ones. Here at the Department it’s absolutely Ann Frisén, my old advisor, who is a very good role model.”

Carolina Lunde points out that laying the pieces of the puzzle is probably equally as much a problem in all branches, wherever you work.

“At the University you can be quite flexible: I can stay at home and take care of the children and instead work in the evening, over the weekend or at night. It’s up to me how I solve it, and that suits me pretty well.”

S h e says t h at the job as a researcher is based to a strong extent on performance but that this is also a motivation.

Teaching takes a great deal of time but is an important part of the job, she says.

And for her, whose research has to do with young people, contact with students is extra rewarding.

“I get so much back from them.”

Carolina Lunde grew up in Gothenburg and studied different subjects connected with media and communication science.

She continued on to psychology and graduate studies.

I ask her about her strong interest in young people’s body awareness. Where does that come from?

“Our appearance is such a big part of who we are. It says so much about us, whether we want it to or not. And, in our individualistic culture, it’s a strong identity marker. We make immediate judgements on the basis of how someone looks.”

She points out that, at the same time, we often have an ability to actually see the person behind the appearance. We are, thank goodness, not always so hard to judge.

C a ro li n a Lu n d e says that she never gets tired of the subject. The response is so great every time she speaks with young people about it.

“It confirms for me that this is something important.”

She emphasises that she tries to have critical input to the questions. It has to do with not strengthening or maintaining ideas about physical ideals.

“And many young people are very good at relating to this, we must remember that.”

Questions about how media affect us have always fascinated her.

“I have truly landed in my dream position. What I do now is exactly what I worked for. I’m driven by a genuine interest in these important questions.”

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

Doctoral thesis

Can a girl be a prince?

T h e n u m b e r o f pearls in a kaleidoscope is limited, but they can be combined in an endless number of ways.

“That’s how it is in manga too, where the black and white pictures can be put together in unexpected ways. Not least in the comics I’ve examined – sport and fantasy manga – do they experiment a lot with gender roles. Here are warrior princesses but also antiheroes. In Cross Game, for example, the girl Aoba is pictured as a pitcher in the male dominated sport baseball. And in Revolutionary Girl, the girl Utena is a prince who fights to protect the princess at the same time she also dreams about the prince that once upon a time saved her. I’ve coined the expression ‘kaleidoscope gender’ to describe these complicated relationships.”

It ’ s Y lva S o m m e r l a n d who’s explaining. On September 21, she’ll be the first in Sweden to defend a thesis on the pictures in manga.

Even though manga translated into Swedish hasn’t been around for much more than ten years, it’s quickly become popular among both young girls and boys.

“When the word manga is used in Sweden, it’s often synonymously with those comics that are supposed to be read from back to front with drawings of people with giant eyes.

But in Japan, all kinds of comics are called manga; the word actually means ‘different forms of drawings’.

Many people consider manga to have roots about a thousand years back in time; Hokusai, a woodcut artist who was active 200 years ago, is counted among well-known manga artists.

It wa s at the beginning of the 2000s that Ylva Sommerland first came into contact with manga.

“I worked at the children’s section of the city library and didn’t know anything about the manga comics that more and more young people were asking for. So I began to read some comics and got interested, not least because they took up subjects that there otherwise isn’t much of in literature for young people. There are

photogr aphy: Johan Wingborg

Yes, at least in the manga world, where gender roles are often turned upside down.

That’s the reason why the first doctoral thesis on manga pictures in Sweden has to do with tomboys.

Ylva Sommerl and News: Will defend her doctoral thesis Tecknad tomboy – kalejdoskopiskt kön i manga för tonåringar (Drawn tomboy – kaleidoscopic gender in manga for teenagers) on September 21 at the Department of Cultural Sciences.

Occupation: Librarian at the Gothenburg city library.

Age: 43 years.

Ylva’s manga tips: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Cross Game, Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Prince of Tennis and Crimson Hero.

of course lots of tomboys in children’s books but not as visually clear as in manga. There’s also the opposite, which I call hyper pictures: almost a parody of womanly girls and manly boys. Since I’m interested in both genus science and queer theory I decided to do research on the pictures in manga.”

N o r d ic n e t wo r k of Comics Research is the name of a network that has been important for Ylva Sommerland.

“Even invaluable! Comics researchers from all of Scandinavia gather here and discuss each other’s ongoing and planned research projects.”

Ylva Sommerland says that manga partly can be compared with reality shows. Since they’re published in weekly magazines, the artist has to quickly make new episodes that end preferably with a cliff-hanger that makes the reader want to buy the following week’s magazines.

“Comic books used to be hidden in a corner of the library. Now comics are completely accepted and even adults read many of them. In Japan,

about 40 per cent of all published material is manga and in Kyoto there is both an international manga museum and a university with a manga faculty.”

Y lva S o m m e r l a n d h a s been there twice, in 2009 and 2011. She’s also studies Japanese to be able to read the comics in their original language.

“Although I can’t really. The comics have a lot of slang that I don’t know.”

But it isn’t so unusual for young Swedes to study Japanese in order to be able to read manga. The comics also inspire many people to start drawing.”

What are you going to do after your dissertation?

“I’ll keep working as a librarian.

My goal in the future is to combine my library experience with what I’ve learned in my research.”

Text: Eva Lundgren

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Reportage

text Helena Svensson | Photography Johan Wingborg

Cultural heritage through Re-evaluate the official historical description of our cultural heritage!

The Indian film and literary theorist Vasanthi Mariadass wants groups that seldom express themselves to take a place in cultural history.

T

h e e a r ly s u m m e r day is mild and I meet Dr Vasanthi Mariadass from India outside the University library.

“It’s nice to come from the 35 degree heat in Bangalore to a cooler Sweden,” says Vasanthi with a smile.

She is a guest researcher from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology and is working on a coming EU application about cultural heritage, together with Johan Öberg, research secretary at the office of the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts. The cornerstones of the project are museums, memory and identity.

“Museums all over the world have come to a dead end when it comes to administering and presenting cultural heritage, and it’s important to question their ways of working,” says Vasanthi.

S h e e m p h a s i s e s t h at questions such as whose history is told and why certain things have been conserved while others have disappeared are important to bring up to the surface.

“We interview cultural practitioners such as musicians, designers and artists and get answers about what traditions they take with them and why they leave out certain ideas about form, style and content in what they create. When ‘rethinking’ has taken place, ‘re-rethinking’ comes as another space, and I call that ‘Elsewhere’; it becomes something else, something new.”

‘The past with the present or the present with the past,’ shedding light on and criticising then and now at the same time, interests Vasanthi, and she can see the concepts be used in different areas, in a political process or on the personal level.

The cooperation between the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing, the Faculty of Arts and the Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology started about two years ago. University and government actors visited Bangalore to establish contacts. Early this year, a three-day conference, “Identities and Resistance: Heritage”, was held in India with participants from the University

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GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

Indian eyes of Gothenburg through Cultural Heritage, the Västra Götalands region, GO: India and Srishti. It was then possible to identify those who were interested in cooperation in the cultural heritage project and a three-year cooperative agreement was written, with an annual possibility to extend it.

“Right now we’re charting and developing a framework. We present and discuss the application with researchers that are and can be interested. Each person formulates his or her project in writing,” Vasanthi explains. The proposals are then developed individually and the Swedish and Indian projects are linked together. It’s possible

of London is a part, puts much effort into art, visual communication, and fashion and product design. Vasanthi is involved in graduate education in art and in teaching and is also an internal consultant. Her research deals with the German filmmaker Harun Farocki and she’s currently writing a book.

“It’s hard to find the time to write, both here in Sweden and at home, and for the moment the book is on the back burner,” says Vasanthi.

I g e t a co m pr e s s e d glance into her research, how Farocki is approached from filmed archive material, analysed and reinterpreted. Both stills and moving pictures interest Vasanthi.

“I like going to film festivals and art galleries. With my background as a film and literary theorist, I read pictures. I start from the aspect of “pause the image”, with which I mean that, by pausing, delaying,

»Museums all over the world have come to a dead end when it comes to administering cultural heritage.« that other cooperative partners will enter the project, such as Reykjavik University, and a common research course will be established.

“We plan to hold seven smaller seminars in Bangalore, at the University of Gothenburg and perhaps also with researchers in London,” she says.

It i s t h e s eco n d time that Vasanthi is in Sweden. Last year, she was here for a short conference to get an introduction to the GO: India project. The current visit is longer and she’s had time to walk around Gothenburg, and has seen pleasant parts of the city such as the Botanical Garden, and has also gone to Tjörn, which she liked very much.

“I visited an art gallery with paintings of beautiful wild violets,” she says and dreams herself away for a moment.

Before she returns to India she will also take the time to visit Gotland, she says, and adds that she thinks it’s wonderful to be by the sea.

Vasanthi looks out over the green Näckrosdamm through the cafeteria windows of Humanisten. She’s a nature lover and takes pleasure in sitting by a lake or a river. It’s relaxing. Vasanthi buys herself coffee. She’s not actually a coffee person and prefers tea, but she likes Swedish coffee. Home in Bangalore, Vasanthi thinks it’s stimulating to sit at cafés, meet her friends and spend time with her family. Reading books and going to the theatre are also among the things she enjoys, but as her work takes a great amount of time she can’t go as often as she would like.

Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, where the University College

slowing up and stopping pictures, I can see something new with the help of analysis.

Most of what I do in life is characterized by ‘elsewhere’,” says Vasanthi and laughs in her charming way. .

Dr Va santhi Mariadass Work: Researcher, teacher and internal consult at Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, Bangalore, India Education: PhD in film science at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Research: The works of the German documentary filmmaker Harun Farocki Focus: Film and literature theory Most recent concert: Gothenburg Symphony Orchestra with conductor Gustavo Dudamel Most recently read book: Frames of War, by Judith Butler Most recently seen film: Melancholia, by Lars von Trier Favourite food: Thai Most recently seen T V shows: The Big Bang Theory and Criminal Minds

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Various

text Allan Eriksson

How to be more creative How can you get started again after vacation?

Three researchers from the University of Gothenburg give their best tips!

Sven Hemlin

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PHotogr aphy: Johan Wingborg

It all started 15 years ago during a jogging lap. Back at work, he began to develop the ideas about creative knowledge environments and leadership that he later worked further on together with Lisa Olsson and Leif Denti. Sven Hemlin recently came home from the Academy of Management in Boston, where some creativity studies were presented.

Unexpected moments “Creative researchers read a lot of new research, talk with the best researchers in the area and expose themselves in general to a great deal of information. But it’s also important to be able to screen and find a little time for thought (a little time can be several days in solitude). The more expertise – not only deep but broad as well – the easier it is to screen. And sometimes surprising connections come up and new contexts in unexpected moments. That’s when the big ‘C’ can be woken (C=big creativity), even though most of us have to be satisfied with the little ‘c’ (c=a little creativity). Seminars with graduate students and guest researchers are a proven and good way to test research ideas, exciting research designs and new areas that should perhaps be examined. At international conferences, you can also, with a little luck and a certain initiative, get into creative conversations with researcher acquaintances. Graduate students should be encouraged to meet the best researchers in the area and present their ideas in international contexts. A visit abroad with prominent researchers can give a creative lift!”

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3

Read good authors “But it also has to do with cultivating one’s creative basic environment oneself. Read authors like Graham Greene, J.M. Coetzee or Alice Munro and listen to the music on P2 between 7 and 8 o’clock in the morning to get into a good mood for better thoughts! Take a walk or jog – the body and creative thoughts belong to one another. Descartes had it a little wrong here, but the psychophysicist Gustav Fechner came a little closer (but that may have been because of his fruit and wine diet).”

Eight points about creative environments: • Creative group and organisation climate • Creative leadership (a book by Sven and colleagues on this theme will be published in 2013) • Group composition (the size of the group isn’t important) • Supply of top knowledge • Motivation and initiative • Basic resources, premises, equipment • Contacts, communication, networks • Trips and visits outside the country

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GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

Photogr aphy: Ander s Bryngel

Palle Dahlstedt On his business card it reads: “Associate Professor in applied information technology with a focus on computer supported creativity”. Palle Dahlstedt is both an improviser and composer. He does research in artistic creative processes’ inner mechanisms and was chosen this year as a member of Sweden’s Young Academy.

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Be a little crazy “It doesn’t hurt to be a little crazy and not to care what people think. But you shouldn’t either care too much about what you think yourself, anyway not too often.

Find a good time interval for changing between creating and criticism. Dream up things wildly for a while without evaluating them and then later evaluate and structure. See how they work and try to put them together into bigger units. It can have to do with everything from minutes to weeks or months, depending on the nature of the project.”

Let new ideas sprout “Read and take in new knowledge. New ideas have to have soil to sprout and grow in and a ground to stand on. At the same time, others’ thoughts in the text you’re reading can inspire through associations and lead you to something new, that maybe didn’t at all have to do with what you were reading. I often get many and strong ideas during other people’s (half boring) lectures or concerts.”

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Mindmap “Finally – write down everything you come upon. One idea is a start but it often has to be developed several times, over a long time. Texts in different forms let us handle accumulating thought structures and allow forgetting without injury. Technology can help us here. There are fantastic tools today for handling large amounts of information in a structured way. I myself have used Freemind for several years, which is a free mindmap program where I’ve in principle collected all my research, all notes, references and everything I’ve written in one single document that grows out in different directions. As soon as I come upon something new I write it in a suitable place, and each time I look through what I’ve written I come upon new things that can be added simply. It’s important to me to be able to get at this document quickly, wherever I am. So I have it in a dropbox, so that I can reach it from any computer.”

Evelina Wahlqvist

Photogr aphy: Andre a s sundgren

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Evelina Wahlqvist became known as the “creativity researcher” at the School of Economics. She travels all around the country and lectures to politicians and company management about how we create fertile soil for creating. She supports her own creativity via dance, yoga and good conversations.

Create intervals “Keep on taking vacation even during the seasons you work. A half hour a day. Or one day a week. The best creativity is intervals in time.

It is moments that don’t require performance that pieces of the puzzle fall into place and our best ideas come to us. Suitably in moving during a walk or a bicycle ride. Meditation or a warm bath can also be beneficial.”

Trust the process “Start the work season by formulating your intentions. Frameworks, focus and goals are good means. However, expecting specific results is inhibitive to creativity. Creativity requires curiosity, happiness in one’s work and trust in the process. Be prepared to indulge and be surprised by both results and your own ability. Believe in synergies in cooperation. We are an endless potential.”

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Inspire more “Let your good attitude rub off on the colleagues. Take time during each work week for inspiration – from expected and unexpected places. Then dare to open yourself and be this inspiration for other people. Ask, listen and take time for colleagues’ challenges. The history of creativity shows that many good ideas come out over a cup of coffee. Just remember to replace it with a cup of green tea sometimes.”

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Leisure

text Helena svensson | Photography Johan Wingborg

The techniques and experience of freediving are a euphoric adventure for Peter that gives him an awareness of his body, quietude and closeness to nature. “ It ’ s a p le a s u r e , a wonderful feeling to

go down, you fill your mouth with air and pressurize. But when you come down in a thermocline your throat opens because of the shock and the air disappears down in the lungs. It’s something you have to learn to master.”

swim under water,” says Peter Johnsen.

“The combination of another element and a slight oxygen deficiency gives an endorphin kick that’s fantastic.”

Gullmarsfjorden is calm, the grey clouds are small puffs in the sky. Seagulls screech and the smell of the sea reaches your nose.

About 20 people in black diving suits with masks, snorkels and one-meter long fins move about on the beach. It’s the freediving club Juniordykarna (Junior Divers) that are meeting for the year’s first club dive.

Peter tells us that he’s very fond of Swedish waters.

“If you go close like in a “vegetable dive” here in Gullmarn, and you swim along the edge and go down a maximum of ten meters, you can see the soft coral dead man’s hand, crabs, shells and fish like pipefish and cod. Night dives at Smögen are nice. We dive in pairs and follow each other by seeing the bioluminescence glittering in the water.”

Le a d w e i g h t s are fitted on a rubber belt and they put on neck weights filled with lead. “We make them from double bicycle tubes that we thread through each other and fill with lead shots. The weight is adjusted to the depth you want to go to. If you have enough lead weights you can glide over the bottom. It’s wonderful and strange.”

The yellow buoy with the diving line is put into place at a depth of about 26 meters.

Some of them lung pack, take a deep breath and dive. They keep an eye on each other to make sure that no one has a lack of oxygen.

Diving has become Peter’s passion.

“I’ve snorkled since I was small and gone down a few meters but nothing more advanced.” In the spring of 2010 he and his son Walter started in the club at the same time.

“My father lives in Costa Rica and we thought we’d train ourselves carefully before we go there and can dive in the nice places there,” says Peter.

Freediving is Peter Johnsen’s greatest passion.

Seaweed and seagrass wave slowly in the light current. The austere rocks of Bohuslän frame the group that is preparing for the dive. “The water temperature is 15–16 degrees, but it’s colder farther down,” explains Peter. in Gullmarsfjorden is the thermocline, where the temperature changes very quickly when you go down below 15 meters. It’s a brutal experience.

In a second you’re down in something very different, dark and cold. Your reaction is to flee. To have air the whole time when you

“ T h e c h a lle n g e h e r e

GUJOURNAL 5 | 2012

In the Gullmarsfjord the temperature changes very quickly when you go down below 15 meters.

» In a second you’re down in something very ­different, dark and cold. Your reaction ­is to flee.« Peter John sen

Occupation: counsellor, information person and director of studis in philosophy and scientific theory. Doctoral student of theoretical philosophy at the Department of Philosophy, Linguistics and Scientific Theory.

Age: 48 years.

Most recently seen film: This Must Be the Place.

Most recently read book: Eunoia by Christian Bök.

Most recent dive: Klaretjern in Aremark, Norway.

Most recently seen TV series: Game of Thrones.

Likes to do at work: Meet students, plan education, teach and make posters for conferences.

the carbon dioxide level increases in the lungs, it requires effort. One thing that is trained is to breathe out and swim under water with empty lungs or go down to the bottom of the pool and train pressurizing.

That simulates the feeling of being down at a depth of 25–30 meters.

“I’ve never fainted since I don’t force myself, but one time it was unpleasant. I turned at 25 meters with empty lungs and at 35 meters it got black. It tingled all over my body and I was a little dizzy,” Peter tells us.

On Sundays he’s an instructor for an adult group and two or three times a week trains his own advanced diving. There’s a lot of low pulse training and oxygen saving techniques in a swimming pool. He trains minimising the number of strokes to one or two on a stretch of 25 meters.

“You have to use as little oxygen as possible. Your pulse has to be low and breathing as calm and careful as possible,” Peter explains.

When the oxygen level goes down and

Fr e e d ivi n g d o e s n ’ t actually have anything to do with Peter’s work. But the club is starting to organise a new course for Swedish freediving and has included him in the education group where he works as a counsellor.

Peter assures us that he doesn’t want to compete, that he doesn’t like the pressure.

He instead likes to enjoy it but, he says with a twinkle in his eye, if there’s an outdoor Swedish Mastership in Egypt next time ...

“Then maybe I’d try!”

Peter has an important function at competitions when he is a safety diver.

“In Valhalla last spring the club organised the first Swedish Mastership in freediving and I was one of the safety divers. I picked up four or five who had fainted.”

A diving location that is a dream for Peter is Blue Hole in Egypt, a stalactite cave

whose roof has collapsed. He also wants to dive in arctic waters.

“Ice and lots of animals, penguins and seals – that would be exciting. The water is so clear but I don’t know whether I could manage it because of the cold.” Peter tells us about an extraordinary dive in the Red Sea at Port Sudan in the middle of the 1980s. “In warm and pleasant water at a shallow reef with a steep down to 30 meters that went into an abyss, there was a wall that was fantastic with coral and colourful schools of fish. Visibility was good within 30 meters.

Then a ray-fish came toward me that was 1.5 meters from wing to wing. I was very scared but the boat driver calmed me down and said that it wasn’t dangerous. We swam toward one another and then turned away and then he swam under and over me. Both of us stopped when we got too close. I felt that we had some kind of contact, that the fish was simply a little curious. Fascinating.”

Today’s dive is coming to an end. Peter is satisfied. Taking photographs with his son’s new camera has gone pretty well, although a new camera body would be good. Peter’s lyrical about the blue gilts he saw.

“I’ve never seen them so blue! They were fantastically beautiful and they look tropical with their blue and orange colour.”

One breath has again taken Peter to new experiences.

T e r m i n olo g y Dive response: The body adapts to oxygen deficiency by for example decreasing the pulse in order to increase diving times and concentrate the oxygen to oxygen sensitive organs.

Lung packing: Technique for increasing lung volume where, after maximal breath intake, you “swallow” air by pressing down with the mouth and cheeks.

Surface protocol: When you come up to the surface in a competition, you take your mask off, give an ok sign and say “I’m ok.” If you don’t do this correctly, you get a red card and are disqualified.

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