REVOLUTION OR DIVERSITY? AESTHETIC AND POLITICAL MANIFESTATIONS OF CLASS IN THREE SWEDISH RADICAL PICTUREBOOKS FROM THE 2000S AND 2010S

Kristina Hermansson

doi:10.7146/nja.v29i60.122843

Abstract

This article explores manifestations of class from a combined aesthetical and political point of view, focusing on a selection of Swedish children’s picture books from 2009 to 2018, in which class differences are made prominent. In this sense, they can be regarded as radical. This study examines how political aspects are intertwined with literary, visual, and multimodal means. The main purpose is to examine how the political and aesthetical merge in the manifestations of class. The publishing of radical picture books during the 2000s and 2010s coincided with a rise of norm-criti-cal discourse, including a strong emphasis on diversity rather than on social transformation. The books, I argue, do not depict radical change on a collective level, but uses various aesthetic means in their manifestations of class and inequality. Theoretically, the anal-ysis mainly draws on Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capital (1984), and Beverley Skeggs’s (1997) reasoning on class by adding the con-cept of respectability, as well as picturebook theory, and scholarly writing on radical picturebooks.

Highlights

Some children’s picturebooks that approach issues of class and class differences offer primarily a broader scope of representation, while others encompass or promote social transformation
The publishing of radical picture books during the 2000s and 2010s coincided with a rise of norm-critical discourse, including a strong emphasis on diversity rather than on social transformation
This article intends to contribute to the earlier research on politically radical picture books and to explore the political functions of aesthetic expressions in my primary material consisting of Swedish picturebooks from a ten year period

Summary

Introduction

Some children’s picturebooks that approach issues of class and class differences offer primarily a broader scope of representation, while others encompass or promote social transformation. The books, I argue, do not depict radical change on a collective level, but uses various aesthetic means in their manifestations of class and inequality.

Objectives

Results

Conclusion