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Pia Lundqvist

Professor

Department of Historical Studies
Telephone
+46 31-786 42 15
Mail
pia.lundqvist@history.gu.se
Visiting address
Renströmsgatan 6
41255 Göteborg
Postal address
Box 200
40530 Göteborg

About Pia Lundqvist

My main research interests lie in the areas of the history of consumption, retailing, and trade, with a particular focus on textiles and material culture as well as migration, minority studies and cultural encounters. Apart from the research projects presented below, I have taken part in an interdisciplinary project on technical innovations and fashion in the textile industry in the 19th century. In another project, I study how different aspects related to the consumption of goods are reflected in 19th century Swedish novels.

I am teaching at the history teacher training program and a cultural heritage program. In addition, I have developed and taught thematic courses including material culture, history of fashion and clothing, history of migration, and local history.

Place in the city – Gothenburg’s Jewish 19th century, 2023

This anthology presents research on Jewish immigration and integration in Gothenburg during the long 19th century. It contributes historical perspectives on issues that are relevant even in our own time. Pia Lundqvist is the editor and the other participating authors are Karin Brygger, Jens Carlesson Magalhães, Jan Christensen, Kenneth Hermele, Daniel Leviathan and Aviva Scheiman.

Equals or subordinates? Male and female Swedish missionaries in the Congo Free State, 1886–1908

The project examined the encounter between Swedish missionaries and the indigenous population in the Congo Free State when The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden (SMF) was established in the country in the 1880s. The study focuses the tension between the missionaries’ simple origins and universalist ideals and the position of power they occupied as whites in the Congo Free State. With a biographical approach, based on diaries and letters, the complexity of the missionary project is highlighted: the missionaries' relationships with the population, with the colonial authorities and with each other. A monography in Swedish, “A contradictory meeting: Swedish missionaries and Bakongo in the Congo Free State” was published in 2018. The project was financed by the Swedish Research Council and started in 2014.

A Jewish web of textiles and trade, Gothenburg 1782–1850

This research project, which was carried out together with economic historian Anna Brismark, took its starting point in the Jewish minority in Gothenburg during the first half of the 19th century. The role of Jewish traders and manufacturers in the spread of modern consumer goods was studied. Jewish textile entrepreneurs, not least calicoe printers, played an essential role during the development of Gothenburg’s textile industry in the 1820s and 30s. Jews were a group among several other minorities in Gothenburg. Legally and socially, their opportunities were limited, but at least an economic and cultural elite within the group eventually became increasingly involved in the city’s bourgeoisie. The project was financed by the Swedish Research Council.

PhD-project: Peddling in Sweden 1790–1864

My thesis from 2008 investigates peddlers and itinerant trade in Sweden from the late 18th century until 1864. The survey contributes to a reconsideration of the previous view of rural peddling, which has often been regarded as a marginal phenomenon. In fact, this trade played an important role for the distribution goods within the country, and in the long run to the rise of the consumer society and modernization of society.

https://gu-se.academia.edu/PiaLundqvist