| 51. |
- Gorgis, Mirey, 1982-
(författare)
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Allt är våld! : En undersökning av det moderna våldsbegreppet
- 2022
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study critically examines the intense scholarly interest in violence of recent decades. Consequently, the thesis' main objective is to is to answer two questions in particular: why violence? and why now? First and foremost, this objective is pursued through three separate but interrelated studies. Prior to these, the thesis sets out to affirm the importance of Marquis de Sade and Michel Foucault in thinking violence. First, it is in the literary works of the Marquis de Sade, rather than in Machiavelli or Hobbes, that we find the first traces of a conceptual understanding of violence. Second, drawing on de Sade, it is Foucault who provides the fertile ground from which the field of contemporary violence studies basically springs – in spite of the fact that he himself never devoted any special studies to violence, nor actually developed a specific concept of violence. Part 1, “Literature”, provides a brief overview of the contemporary study of violence as well as a discussion of two thoroughly influential texts in the field: Hannah Arendt’s On Violence (1970) and Giorgio Agamben’s “On the Limits of Violence” (1970). This part surveys the questions of violence specifically posed within the field, with the further purpose of identifying and dissecting common tropes and recurring arguments important to its formation. I make the claim that two notions in particular are utilized to construct violence as a new field of knowledge: the notion of technology and the notion of history. Part 2, “Experience”, consists of a historical interlude in which one of the objectives is to put the hypothesis of the presumably transhistorical and immutable nature of human violence to the test. This is achieved by a close reading of the philosophical texts of Plato as well as the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides. In this part I argue that, in a strict sense, there is no true concept of violence as such in classical Greek antiquity. Instead, we find a multiplicity of embryonic “pre-concepts” that, unlike the various concepts of today, are thought entirely on the basis of relations, rather than on the basis of the objects of violence. The question of violence in classical Greece is, in short, approached in terms of who? rather than what? – pointing toward a promising possibility still open for exploration today. Part 3, “Concepts”, returns to the European discussions of the 1960s and 1970s investigated in part 1, but rather than examining the questions of immediate concern in the respective texts of the period, I approach today’s heightened interest in violence in light of a set of overarching problems, such as the risk of atomic annihilation, political unrest, the fear of propaganda, and brain washing. By way of these problems, I show that, running counter to the philosophical sources on which it draws, the contemporary concept of violence achieves a surreptitious re- institution of the substantial and autonomous subject otherwise believed to be dead. In conclusion, the paradoxical function of the contemporary concept of violence is thus to allow for the return of the kind of subject relentlessly attacked by the radical European thought of the 1960s and 1970s, the same thought which allowed for the invention of the concept in the first place. In this sense our age, in which, it would appear, “everything is violence”, is also an age where a kind of “bia-centrism” provides us, paradoxically, with the last conceptual stronghold for substantial subjects and stable identities.
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| 52. |
- Gradskova, Yulia, 1967-
(författare)
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Soviet People with Female Bodies : Performing Beauty and Maternity in Soviet Russia in the mid 1930-1960s
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The everyday practices of maternity and beauty are important for the enactment of femininity. This dissertation deals with femininities created in the context of changing ideas about “normality” in Soviet Russia during the mid 1930s-1960s and explores a diversity of norms, discourses and rituals. The main sources are women’s magazines, advice books, and interviews with women living now in three different cities of the Russian Federation – Moscow, Saratov (Volga region) and Ufa (capital of Bashkortostan Republic).The results of the research suggest that some parts of the Soviet discourses on maternity and beauty turn out to be similar to those that were characteristic for other European countries of the same historical period. At the same time the interviews show that the modern practices of medical and welfare institutions, the consumption of clothes as well as advice about appearance and childcare were situated in the context of shortages of goods, women’s work outside of home, rhetorics of the “naturalness” of maternity for every woman as well as that of a woman’s particular need to care about looking nice. Together with the home reproduction of many rural/patriarchal rituals of maternity and beauty it led to a contradictory everyday performance of femininity. Fluctuating categories of social status, ethnical belonging, geographical location and generation also contributed to a diversity of femininity constructions. Common sense normativities concerning practices of becoming a mother, caring for a baby and making oneself beautiful suggest that Soviet discourses on maternity and beauty were only partly accepted and reproduced by women. They were also partly rejected and subverted in everyday practices. The analysis of maternity and beauty practices shows that performative femininities were utterly complex.
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| 53. |
- Guyard, Carina
(författare)
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Kommunikationsarbete på distans
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This research thesis analyzes the characteristics of communication work in a call centre, by examining the communication work at a Swedish call centre which is outsourced to Latvia. The thesis studies the ways in which communication with the customers is organized, carried out and assigned meaning. Theoretically, the thesis draws on both critical and management-oriented perspectives of work. The empirical investigation combines participant observations at the call centre with individual interviews, mainly conducted with operators and management staff.The communication work is analyzed both as labour and as communicative activity. The concept of labour focuses upon the relation between employer and employee. Therefore, the analysis is placed within the framework of a capitalistic production system, through a survey of the economic and the organisational working conditions. The communicative activity deals with how the telephone conversations with the customers are enacted. In that part of the analyses, the working routines and the meaning making practices are illuminated.As examined in the current research, the communication work is indeed constructed in an alienated manner, through high levels of standardization, immobility, and estrangement from both customers and the customers’ culture. Nonetheless, merely being employed has meant significant economic security for the operators of the Latvian call centre. The operators are incumbents of a society affected by deep economic crises with high unemployment rates. In relation to their broader society, the employees have found meaning within their immediate social situation. This may explain why they endure the monotonous work with few opportunities for development.
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| 54. |
- Hallgren, Stefan, 1978-
(författare)
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Brain Aromatase in the guppy, Poecilia reticulata : Distribution, control and role in behaviour
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Oestrogens are produced by aromatisation of androgens by the aromatase enzyme. In the vertebrate brain this synthesis has vital functions in nerve protection, cell proliferation and nerve development during injury respectively brain development. Brain oestrogens are also crucial in activating certain reproductive and aggressive behaviours in mammals and birds. Teleosts have remarkably high activity of brain aromatase (bAA) compared to mammals and birds; 100-1000 times higher in brain regions like the hypothalamus, pre-optic area and optic tectum. The role of brain oestrogens in teleost behaviour is, however, less clear than in e.g. songbirds and rodents. This thesis studies the potential role of brain aromatase and brain oestrogens in the reproductive behaviour of the guppy male (Poecilia reticulata), how guppy brain aromatase responds to steroids and is distributed in the adult brain. The thesis shows that male behaviour can be affected by brain aromatase. Reduction of bAA by aromatase inhibitor treatment reduced the sexual behaviours sigmoid display and gonopodium swinging (I) and oestrogen receptor blocking with an oestrogen antagonist reduced the number of successful mating attempts (II). The anatomical study (IV) showed that brain aromatase is distributed in areas of the adult guppy brain that are connected to reproductive control and behaviour in vertebrates. Guppy bAA is stimulated by both androgens and oestrogens (III) but is more sensitive to oestrogens, especially in males, and could thus be used as an indicator of endocrine disruption at low concentrations found in the environment. The thesis can also conclude that females possess more brain aromatase than males, and that although it is expressed in the same pattern throughout the brain in both genders the enzymatic activity is differently distributed between the sexes.
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| 55. |
- Hedtjärn Wester, Anna
(författare)
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Män i kostym : prinsar, konstnärer och tegelbärare vid sekelskiftet 1900
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- At the turn of the nineteenth century, most men wore suits. One easily gets the impression that all these men look more or less identical; the suits seem to resemble uniforms. Furthermore, compared to the women’s clothing of the period, the suit seems restrained and even drab in its shape and colour. The dissertation takes up this point and examines the claim that all men look alike in a suit. The purpose of the dissertation is to study what was signalled when groups as disparate as princes, artists and hod-carriers dressed in similar pieces of clothing. If there were, in fact, differences, of what did they consist; how did the men invest the suit with new and different meanings? This dissertation does not, however, focus exclusively on suits. The three groups of men wore work-specific clothes, as well. How might one interpret the contrasts between their work clothes and civilian attire? The primary source material consists of portraits of men from the three above-mentioned groups. The pictures are supplemented by an examination of some of the clothing actually used by men who belonged to the groups in question. Research into how princes, artists and hod-carriers dressed showed that these groups moved in different tension fields. These tension fields were created by historic and social problems with which the men had been forced to cope. The princes’ tension field was that of tradition/modernity, the artists’ that of boundary-crossing/conformity and the hod-carriers’ that of body/intellect. The men’s way of dressing, their appearing in both civilian and in work-related clothing, embodied a struggle both for the right to be included in modern society, and for the freedom to remain alien – or rather, for the right to be included on their own terms. The suit was polyseme, capable of denoting several different manly ideals and masculinities. It was a question of who the suit-wearing man was – the collective to which he belonged, as well as his personal style and taste, that determined the suit’s connotation. For this reason, the men's suits came to signal different things, even when their surface appearance was fairly uniform. However, variations did occur. The men exploited the margins of freedom available within male fashion. When the artists expanded the frames determining how a suit could be worn, they showed that male dress could vary even beyond what the decrees of fashion might allow.
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| 56. |
- Hemby Elmfeldt, Elisabeth, 1960-
(författare)
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Historiemåleri och bilder av vardag : Tatjana Nazarenkos konstnärskap i 1970-talets Sovjet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on the Soviet painter Tatyana Nazarenko and her position as an influential artist in the Soviet Union of the 1970’s, a decade when Nazarenko depicted everyday life and events from Russian history. The main purpose of this thesis is to shed light upon the importance of especially these motifs in their historical, political and aesthetic context. In this way, the thesis is a study of the artist’s work in a contextual perspective. In order to understand the general conditions for Soviet Art in the 1970´s, and Tatyana Nazarenko´s picture world, the official State-regulated Art is given attention, as Socialist Realism came to be the normative frame of reference for artistic life and the individual artists. Artistic life in the Soviet Union was well regulated and official Art dominated from the early 1930´s until the collapse of the Soviet Union, while especially during the 1970´s, became subjected to so-called unofficial Art, also known as underground. The unofficial, as well as the official Art, became important for Tatyana Nazarenko, for, while not belonging to either side, she came to have a constant relationship with them. She belonged, however, to a small art circle, balancing between the official direction and criticism of the system, later known as permitted. This thesis clarifies the relationship between what is defined as official, permitted and unofficial Art. In exposing her aesthetic strategies, it is shown in what way she deviates from the official and how far the artist could extend the permitted limitations. On the question of her aesthetic strategies a further question arises of how an awareness of history is expressed in motif and form. Finally, the importance of women’s experience in her picture world is discussed. Picture material in this thesis is composed partly of some thirty works from Tatyana Nazarenko´s own production and partly of works with a contextualized and comparative function, encompassing some fifty works taken from Soviet Art History. A few examples from Western Art History constitute further comparative material. The motifs consist mainly of depictions of historical events and pictures of everyday life i.e. genre pictures.
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| 57. |
- Henriksson, Oskar, 1979-
(författare)
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Genetic connectivity of fish in the Western Indian Ocean
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- An almost unbroken fringing reef runs along the east coast of Africa, the lagoon inside the reef is the foundation of almost all artisanal fisheries. It is a low-tech fishery conducted by many people. Some areas can have up to 19 fishermen per square kilometer. High fishing pressures, coupled with declining fish stocks has led to changes in mean size and reproductive age of many exploited species. There is a vital and urgent need for scientifically based management systems, including the utilization of genetic information to guide management practices.This thesis aims to investigate the presence of genetic structures in the western Indian Ocean. In order to do that we first investigated the historical patterns of connectivity throughout the region (paper I). In papers II and III we focused on local scale connectivity in Kenya and Tanzania and finally in paper IV we investigate the large-scale contemporary gene flow throughout the Western Indian Ocean. In paper III we also investigate the temporal genetic variation at one site and compare it to the small-scale genetic variation along a stretch of the Kenyan coastline. Some overall conclusions that can be drawn from my body of work are: there are genetic structures present in the western Indian Ocean even though the apparent lack of physical barriers. Major oceanic currents aid evolutionary dispersal patterns. A single geographic site need not be genetically homogenous or temporally stable. Island sites are genetically more homogenous than mainland sites.In conclusion, there are clear and distinct genetic structures present especially in Siganus sutor, the most targeted fish for the artisanal fishery in East Africa.
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| 58. |
- Hillerdal, Charlotta, 1976-
(författare)
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People in Between : Ethncity and Material Identity, a New Approach to Deconstructed Concepts
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In questions concerning ethnicity and cultural identity in prehistory, there is a great divide between the conclusions maintained on a theoretical level of discussion and the interpretations given to material remains, when these theories are practiced on the archaeological material. Inherited scientific and political structures, usage and ideas contribute to our understanding of ethnicity and the everyday use of the concept, and influence archaeological interpretations. By illuminating these inherited preconceptions, they can be deconstructed, and a workable definition of the concepts found. A categorical approach to material culture needs to be abandoned, along with the hope of identifying ethnic groups in an archaeological material. Analyses should instead concentrate on the concept of ethnicity, as a relational, situational social identity created in the prehistoric present. The discussion is here approached through case studies set in different contextual situations, displaying great chronological, geographical and political variation, but also revealing some obvious points of contact. Scientific, materialistic, colonial and national perceptions of ethnic groups and ethnicity are penetrated in the case studies of the Varangians in 8th to 10th century Russia, the history of the Métis in Canada from the 18th century till today, and the Swedish speaking population on the island of Ruhnu outside Estonia at the turn of the 20th century. The Varangians are part of the Russian national myth of origin, and have been understood as a Scandinavian people, especially by Scandinavian researchers. Archaeological material of Scandinavian character dating to between the 8th and 11th centuries confirms intense interaction between Russia and Scandinavia in this time period. The Métis trace their roots back to the fur trade era and the encounter between Indian and European traders. Since 1982, they have been recognised as an indigenous people of Canada. The population of Runö was documented as Swedish speaking in the Middle Ages. They were discovered by Swedish ethnography in the 19th century, and interpreted as archaic Swedish. As a consequence of this narrative, the population was evacuated to Sweden in almost its entirety during the Second World War. In these cases, scientific, political and ideological aspects of social practice interface with the everyday practices in communities and influence the outward perception of that group’s identity, as well as the self-perception within the community. It can be concluded that the ideological setting is equally important to a historical development as are economic or geographical circumstances. The final chapter introduces an alternative interpretation to the early Scandinavian towns as a disappearing phenomenon towards the end of the 10th century, deduced from the conclusions made in the previous case studies.
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| 59. |
- Hägglund, Josefin
(författare)
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Demokratins stridslinjer : Carl Lindhagen och politikens omvandling, 1896–1923
- 2023
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Carl Lindhagen was one of Sweden’s most well-known politicians at the beginning ofthe 20th century. He entered parliament as a Liberal in 1897 but joined the Social Democrats in 1909. In 1917 he became a key figure in forming the Left Socialist party,which became the Swedish Communist Party in 1921 – although it expelled him in that moment. He returned to the Social Democrats in 1923. During those years, Sweden gradually moved towards universal suffrage, including most men in 1909 and women in 1921. As an MP, Lindhagen was a central actor in debates concerning democracy, combining the roles of the visionary political thinker and the hands-on political practitioner, and doing so in ways that would spark both enthusiasm and controversy among his contemporaries. This dissertation examines how Lindhagen interpreted the transformation of politics 1896–1923, how he envisioned a future of “true” democracy and the steps he took to realize his ideals. In his perspective, the constitutional reforms of the 1910s and the 1920s only achieved “formal” democracy. From the early 1910s he preferred to label himself as a ”humanist”, seeing Liberalism and Socialism as temporary forces, contributing elements to a historical process approaching the universal values of “humanism”. In 1919 he also created a party transcending organization for “humanist politics”, gathering like-minded people among Left Socialists, Social Democrats, and Liberal leftists.This study concentrates on Lindhagen’s most active and influential years, finding its central sources in texts which he wrote, modified, used and reused, for many purposes within the parliament and in his party organizations, as well as in addressing a general public. Three chronological parts follow Lindhagen through his political affiliations, 1896–1909,1909–1917, and 1917–1923. The study shows a remarkable amount of continuity in Lindhagen’s attitudes and positions, although he elaborated them, as well as the language he used to express them, due to new experiences, situations, and political environments. This makes him a tellingly complex case in the historiography of Liberalism, Social Democracy, and Communism in Sweden. Adding to this telling complexity is also the way in which Lindhagen gradually focused more and more on political parties as a central political problem, stressing that a condition for “true democracy” was practical measures of democracy at alllevels in the political process, especially within the political parties which took theirmodern form during the era studied in the dissertation.
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| 60. |
- Höglund, Patrik, 1965-
(författare)
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Skeppssamhället : Rang, roller och status på örlogsskepp under 1600-talet
- 2021
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In this dissertation, all the categories of people that were on board fully manned warships are studied. The purpose of the study has been to describe life on board the large warships and to show how hierarchical power structures and social status were expressed and manifested in 17th century society. This has been achieved through an interdisciplinary method where historical and archaeological material, as well as imagery and ship models have been used. The roles of those on board at work, at rest and in battle have been analysed. In parallel, various hierarchical orders such as rank, estate, position and age, have been studied. Social status on board could be expressed through spaces, belongings, norms and practices. In the theoretical apparatus mainly used in this study, the concept of capital is central. Capital, i.e. various forms of assets, exist in several forms where symbolic capital is fundamental. This capital varies depending on the characteristics and abilities that are considered valuable in a specific social environment. Seamanship was a very important factor in obtaining status in the ship society. It formed the basis of the symbolic capital sought within the navy. However, there were differences between what seamanship meant and what the symbolic capital included for the different groups on board. Social status on warships was often expressed through rank and position, but this study also shows the number of other circumstances that could influence the social position of the people on the ships. Factors such as birth, age and experience played a major role.The ship society, with the many groups and individuals from different social strata on board, was characterized by the norms and practices that existed in its day. It was thus in many parts a 17th century society in concentrated form.
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