Arbetare på scen : amatörteater som politiskt verktyg

Sammanfattning: This thesis focuses on the political dimensions of aesthetic expression during the Long Sixties. The thesis deals with amateur theatre ventures both within and linked to the social democratic labour movement. ’Spelet om Norbergsstrejken’ (The Play about the Norberg Strike) had its première in 1977 in a small industrial village in the industrial region of Bergslagen. Similar plays appeared in many regions of the country and a wave of workers’ plays emerged and made an impact on the internal investments of the educational association ABF in amateur theatre. The empiricism of the thesis concludes in 1982 when a social democratic amateur theatre association was founded and after a breakaway from the social democratic movement was establishing a residential study centre in another small village in Bergslagen. Sixties radicalisation provides the social context of the study and the perspective of sociological social movement research is used and developed. Based on the perspective of cognitive practice and the concepts of cosmology and movement ideology attention is directed towards the theatre assets of performance hosts, expectation horizons and patterns of behaviour. The thesis argues for a deeper understanding of sixties radicalisation partly meaning that the periodisation needs to be extended backwards as well as forwards in terms of time and partly that the political dimensions of aesthetic expression should be focused on. Based upon the results of the thesis the concept of culturactivism was formulated which defines the specific approach that appeared in the space between political and cultural activism. This highlights the need for a concept that covers the cognitive free space that arose between aesthetic expression and political activism and which has not previously attracted the attention of historical studies about sixties radicalisation to any great degree.