Kittel, hjärta eller nav: en kritisk diskursanalys av ett folkbiblioteks stadsdelsutvecklingsuppdrag

Sammanfattning: This Master’s thesis is based on a field study conducted at the IdéA, a public library and meeting place in Drottninghög, Helsingborg, chosen because of its urban development mission. This mission should be understood in relation to the redevelopment plan of the Million Program area Drottninghög, where IdéA is located. In this thesis formulations and interpretations of the urban development mission of IdéA are investigated and discussed in relation to the democratic role of public libraries. The methods utilized are semi-structured interviews and text analysis. I analyze the material through the use of a critical discourse analysis. Furthermore, I conceptualize the public library institution as embedded in, yet reconstituting its environment. I discuss how discursive practices (re)produce logics of appropriateness which influence the role of the public library in urban transformation-processes, as well as, how these logics stand in a dialectical relationship with social practices. Thus, in relation to the identified logics of appropriateness I discuss the exclusionary social practices of present urban development and how the democratic role of the public library could open up for agonistic pluralism. In conclusion several logics of appropriateness are identified which relate to different discourses. The formulations and interpretations of the urban development mission is both formulated through inclusive, democratic, and user-oriented logics as well as exclusionary, market-oriented and neoliberal logics. This interdiscursivity signals that the role of the library and the formulations and interpretations of the urban development mission are uncertain thus leaving it open for hegemonic struggles.