Grant to Kristina Tamm Hallström
Kristina Tamm Hallström at the Department of Management and Organization (DMO) and Stockholm Centre for Organizational Research (Score) has been awarded 1.8 MSEK by the Jan Wallander and Tom Hedelius foundation for the project ”The politics of testing. The changing role of the state in test laboratories and the dissemination of test results in Sweden, the UK and Germany 1940–2020”. The project also include Donal Casey (Kent University), Ingrid Gustafsson (Score), Martin Gustavsson (Score) and Katharina Rahnert (Karlstad University).
About the project:
Test laboratories, ensuring that consumer products are not dangerous, have been around for over one hundred years. Despite their long-standing presence as central gatekeepers to markets, they have received little scholarly attention. Decisions relating to which products to test, and how, as well as decisions whether test results should be displayed to the public or not, are both controversial and of high social relevance. Whether a laboratory is to be run by the State, by a private company or through the engagement of civil society (or even be dismantled) are examples of other debated issues. By comparing historical studies of test laboratories in Sweden, Germany and the UK, we expose test laboratories’ complex and dynamic relationships with the environment and the politics behind their neutral façade.
