| 1. |
- Westermark, Åsa
(författare)
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Informal livelihoods: Womens´biographies and reflections about everyday life : A time-geographic analysis in urban Colombia
- 2003
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis explores the everyday life conditions of low-income women who work mainly in the informal sector in Bogota, Colombia. The work has its point of departure in an analysis of the complex daily lives of two women over an extended time period and from the perspective of the individual. The detailed level of description and analysis will, as a hypothesis, help us to better understand how to improve development programs, allowing institutional and individual levels to meet exactly at the point that is desirable for those who are the target groups in the execution of their daily lives.The main aim of the study is to describe the conditions of livelihood of the two women from the perspective of the individual and to contribute to the making of institutions’ definitions of women’s needs, design and follow-up on development projects coincide better with women’s interests.A time-geographic methodology, based on structured time diaries describing patterns of time-use for daily activities, is explored and adapted to the local context of the study. The methodology is also complemented by reflective diaries describing the women’s perceptions of present and past experiences, hopes and plans for the future, the intentions and motives behind daily activities. Together, the diaries reveal how decisions in daily life come about in a particular physical environment with specific social and cultural characteristics.A time-geographic theoretical approach is applied to analyse the women’s life stories and biographies of livelihood projects. Theoretical contributions about the main areas of interest when studying women’s life courses and conditions in development studies are also referred to, for instance, women’s interests and needs, gender analysis, empowerment, livelihoods and local contexts.The findings of this study and the results of its methodology have demonstrated that to improve women’s opportunities for livelihood, it is necessary to understand women’s conditions in relation to women’s total life contexts. The research methodology applied here opened the way for an empowerment process with higher self- esteem and confidence as a result. This indicates that sector planning, project design, follow up and evaluations in development institutions may gain from using information about women’s multiple activities and perceptions from an individual and a gender perspective.
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| 2. |
- Borggren, Jonathan, 1979
(författare)
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Kreativa individers bostadsområden och arbetsställen – Belysta mot bakgrund av näringslivets omvandling och förändringar i bebyggelsestrukturen i Göteborg
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Creative individuals’ residential areas and places of work In light of economic transformation and changes in the urban structure in Göteborg (Gothenburg), Sweden. This thesis studies the residential areas and places of work of an age cohort of individuals defined by education as creative in Gothenburg, Sweden, during the latter stages of structural economic change. Postindustrial cities such as Gothenburg use waterfront redevelopment, a growing service industry and the intensification of place marketing as tools in a competitive urban arena. Creativity, through the use of terms such as “creative class”, “creative city” and amenities, is becoming an important ingredient on the same competitive urban level where planners and policymakers try to attract talented, educated and creative individuals in order to boost economic growth. However, the argument that creative individuals drive economic growth remains contested. Underlining this argument is the creative class thesis stating that creative individuals will move to cities that correspond with their lifestyle-preferences regardless of whether or not potential employers are located in the same area. The aim of this thesis is to shed light on whether the residential areas and places of work of creative individuals will change. A further aim is to investigate if globalisation and structural economic changes affect creative individuals’ choice of residential areas and places of work in urban areas, using a unique longitudinal micro database (GILDA) and interviews. In addition, by use of official statistics, this thesis studies the changes taking place in Gothenburg’s economy in relation to economic restructuring and their consequences on the location of residential areas and places of work in Gothenburg. Studies conducted on the creative class thesis depict concentrations of the creative class in suburbs characterised by expensive housing and lack of sufficient places of work in the local area. The creative class thesis clearly states that the location should be downtown, whereas observations point towards the peripheral parts of the city, i.e. houses in the suburbs. Hence, there is a gap in the field of knowledge regarding creative individuals’ residential areas and places of work. A possible explanation could be changing preferences depending on age. Results show that there was an overrepresentation of creative individuals in the centrally located city districts in the year 1990 compared to the rest of the population in the cohort. In the year 2006, the creative individuals had become part of the same suburbanisation as the rest of the population, i.e. both the creative individuals and the comparison group moved out of downtown Gothenburg. Only a small subgroup among the creative individuals remains in downtown Gothenburg, hence remaining loyal to the stated destination of the creative class. The fact that age and family composition can be argued more important than proximity to a downtown creative milieu constitutes the main conclusion of this thesis. Putting priority on, for example, more spacious housing in the suburbs highlights a difference between the Swedish and US creative context, where most notably Florida (2004) states that the same city district will remain the creative individuals’ home and place of work. The establishment of Norra Älvstranden has brought new places of work in mostly high-tech industries and waterfront residences close to downtown Gothenburg. However, following rapid growth between 1990 and 2006, the number of employed creative individuals at Norra Älvstranden declined between 2006 and 2008. A possible explanation could be sensitivity towards changing global demand. Keywords: Creative individuals, Gothenburg, residential areas, places of work, structural economic change, waterfront redevelopment, age cohort
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| 3. |
- Elldér, Erik
(författare)
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The changing role and importance of the built environment for daily travel in Sweden
- 2015
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Geography, in terms of the built environment and location patterns, was traditionally, and still is, emphasized by many scholars, policymakers, and planners as greatly influencing people’s daily travel behaviour. However, taking recent decades of rapidly increasing mobility capabilities (physical as well as virtual) into account, and the related increase in individual choice opportunities, others argue that the importance of geographic factors has gradually dissolved. Starting from this discussion, the overall aim of this thesis is to examine the current role and relative significance of the built environment for the geographical extension of individuals’ daily travel in Sweden. The thesis is based on three empirical studies in which particular attention is paid to detailing the impact of geographic factors on various daily travel activities (paper I); exploring possible changes over time in the importance of the built environment for home–work distances (paper II); and the potential relaxing of the relationships between locational structures and travel behaviour when people regularly use ICTs and telework (paper III). All three papers apply multivariate quantitative approaches to a unique combination of detailed, high spatially resolved micro-data, including the national travel surveys and register data of the total population. An overall conclusion of the thesis is that the proximity of various aspects of the built environment to home still plays an important role in how far people in Sweden travel daily. However, the analyses, informed by theory emphasizing everyday spatiotemporal constraints, reveal that these relationships have become relaxed in several important respects. First, the specific time–spatial constraints associated with different daily activities that motivate trips and travel are key and also differentiating factors. When considering trips taken during holidays and for everyday leisure purposes, the built environment is less important for the observed daily travelled distance. Whereas service trips to a greater extent is associated with the built environment surrounding home, and work trips even more. Second, important changes occur over time, here examined in the case of work trips. Workers living in the same neighbourhood increasingly travel divergent distances between home and work. This suggests a continued decrease in the influence of the built environment on work related travel. Third, in terms of time-spatial relaxation, a rapid increase of telework lately is an important case. The built environment influences teleworkers’ daily travel to a lesser extent than it does regular workers’ daily travel since telework allows for the freer scheduling of daily activities in time and space. Conclusively, the results confirm the importance of considering spatiotemporal constraints related to daily activities when exploring the role of the built environment and its importance for daily travel. More generally, the thesis also remind us that the importance of the built environment changes as an integral part of larger societal transformations connected with development of mobility technologies and profound socio-economic and demographic changes.
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| 4. |
- Essebo, Maja, 1980
(författare)
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Lock-in as make-believe – Exploring the role of myth in the lock-in of high mobility systems
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- All human practices are, ultimately, set and defined by limits; be they social, economic, physical, or environmental. Yet even in the face of such realities, practices which transgress the confines of possibility remain remarkably obdurate. This thesis addresses the issue of one such practice, i.e. the escalation of personal mobility across time and space which pushes above and beyond systemic boundaries. By so doing, the thesis revolves around the central concept of lock-in, akin to the concept of path-dependence of which the social sciences are more familiar. Lock-in, the process by which systems acquire momentum through the alignment of actors, materialities, and practices with vested interest in system preservation and growth, is deeply dependent on societal acceptance. Yet while widely recognised, social aspects of lock-in remain disfavoured to technological and material explanatory approaches. The aim of this thesis is therefore to explore a component of the lock-in process which has been, in spite of its overlapping features and explanatory potential, mostly or entirely overlooked: myth. Myth is an emplotted, depoliticised, and naturalised story which serves to justify beliefs and to guide practice. As such, its role lock-in processes is to legitimise path choices based on the taken-for-granted, i.e. unquestioned beliefs of ‘good’ and ‘bad’ – not true or false – path alternatives. Myth, in this sense, is therefore not synonymous to a lie or misconception, but to an unquestioned belief that is held in common by its adherents and that exerts influence over the way they chose to live their lives. The thesis addresses both the theoretical and empirical use of the concept of myth within geographical research, stating that defined as a naturalised story which guides everyday practices, and by extension the creation of place, it may be useful to a wide range of issues addressing place-perception interconnections. These include the importance of language, everyday and unreflected practices, and, as has been the topic of this thesis, the mystery of inertia. The empirical part explores how a myth promoting mobility as a necessary and endless path to economic growth helps to create and sustain lock-in into a high and ever expanding mobility system. Focus lies on the city of Malmö in the Öresund Region; a city which, following the industrial collapse of the 1980s, has undergone major transformations based on strategies of high regional mobility. The thesis concludes that the myth of prosperity through mobility helps to sustain and reinforce two mutually supporting types of lock-in: institutional – the administrative framework or ‘rule of thumb’ that guides mobility policy – and infrastructural – the material enactment of myth. By maintaining allegiance to the myth of prosperity through mobility, the only viable option for addressing mounting mobility side-effects is a mobility shift to ‘sustainable’ modes of transport. Alternative paths which would limit mobility can thus be rejected, assuring continued loyalty to the myth and to ever increasing levels of mobility.
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| 5. |
- K. Franck, Anja, 1973
(författare)
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From formal employment to street vending: Women’s room to maneuver and labor market decisions under conditions of export-orientation – the case of Penang, Malaysia
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study is a compilation thesis consisting of an introduction and four separate papers. It is an inquiry into women’s working lives in Penang, Malaysia. The export-oriented development model adopted in Malaysia stimulated women’s large-scale entry to the formal labor force. However, export-orientation has not been able to sustain women’s long terms participation in the formal labor market and female labor force participation rates in Malaysia have never exceeded 50 percent. This means that despite the expansion of the Malaysian economy, declining fertility rates and increased female educational attainment, over half of working aged women in Malaysia remain ‘outside the labor force’. This thesis aims to investigate women’s room to maneuver in the labor market by scrutinizing women’s move from the formal to the informal economy over the life course. It also aims to contribute further knowledge relating to women’s work in the informal economy – in particular its spatial aspects. The empirical study is based on field work conducted in Penang between 2009 and 2011. The 80 women interviewed in Penang share the common feature that they make their living in the informal economy – mostly as street vendors (hawkers). The majority used to work in the formal economy as machine operators or assembly workers in factories or in low-skilled jobs the tourism industry. An important reason for the low female labor force participation rates in Malaysia is that women’s engagement in the formal labor market has a strong one-peaked pattern with many permanently leaving the labor force at a relatively young age. However, although women who leave the formal labor market tend to go missing statistically – they continue to work in the informal economy. This study suggests that while women’s formal labor force participation has one peak, their full work participation over the life course can be more accurately described as two-peaked. This study has found that women’s decisions to leave formal employment were often made under the simultaneous influence of marriage, child-birth and unsustainable labor conditions. In a similar fashion their decisions to not (re)engage in formal employment but rather to opt for informal work were influenced by the lack of institutional support for working mothers, norms around gender, work and place and an unwillingness to (re)engage in exploitative work in the formal economy. Issues of distance (to formal employment opportunities) and proximity (to informal work) were key features in their room to maneuver and labor market decisions.
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| 6. |
- Lindström, Kristina, 1972
(författare)
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Den massmediala (re)produktionen av turismens platser – geografiska perspektiv på journalistikens uttryck och produktionsförhållanden
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- ABSTRACT Lindström N., Kristina, 2011, (Re)producing Tourist Destinations in the Mass Media. Geographical Perspectives on Journalistic Representations and the Conditions of their Production. Publications edited by the Departments of Geography, University of Gothenburg, Series B, no. 119. 174 pages. Department of Human and Economic Geography, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg. ISBN 91-86472-65-8, http://hdl.handle.net/2077/26637 This thesis project deals with the connections between the media and the tourism industries from a geographical perspective. It addresses the growing interdependence between tourism and media actors, specifically focusing on the mass media’s production processes, which include choosing, cultivating and presenting images of tourist destinations, i.e. media images in the form of newspaper articles, travelogues, etc. Two fundamental research issues are analyzed (in two separate studies): How are tourist destinations represented and under what conditions are these representations produced? In the first study the mass media representations applied to the tourist destination Mallorca in a selection of Swedish newspapers 1950-2000 are analyzed in terms of dedicated size, content and, evolution. The second study scrutinises the conditions, motivations, values, interaction and influence among travel journalists and their main sources. The theoretical approach draws on literature in the fields of tourism and media, specifically focusing on journalism and human geography. The basic assumption about the media image is that it is a social construction of reality. Tourist destinations tend to be portrayed as spectacular, exotic and extraordinary, focusing the tourist paradise and the well-being of the tourists, neglecting the local society. Here travel journalism has a crucial position in the intersection between journalism and advertising. Furthermore, as the mass media has become more commercial and market-driven, the issue of influence has become even more complex. The first study is a quantitative and qualitative content-analysis of 564 newspaper texts about Mallorca published in three daily Swedish newspapers 1950-2000. The text is analysed from a tourism-geographic perspective, focusing on how media images portray the tourism destination. The quantitative work involves analyzing the space allocated to the newspaper texts and comprehensively categorizing the places, people, events and conditions noted in relation to Mallorca. The qualitative work involves an in-depth analysis of the newspaper texts, in order to give a refined picture of the content and rhetoric used in the presentation of Mallorca. The second study is based on semi-structured expert interviews with Swedish travel journalists at a number of important Swedish newspapers and their main sources, i.e. representatives of the three biggest tour operators on the Swedish market and local actors representing one important foreign tourist destination (Mallorca). The findings suggest that the news media images of Mallorca are homogenous, stereotyped and, relatively static, (re)producing a Swedish tourist paradise, however not solely from a positive angle. Possibly, a trend towards more investigating news media images of Mallorca is anticipated. The media production process consists of actors sharing the same main idea of travel journalism as a way to entertain and inform the media audience about tourist destinations. The professional backgrounds of the travel journalists and the lack of serious journalism dealing with tourism are two explanatory factors. Furthermore, close informal relationships between the travel journalists and their sources are important for the understanding of the situation.
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| 7. |
- Sandberg, Mattias, 1982
(författare)
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“De är inte ute så mycket” Den bostadsnära naturkontaktens betydelse och utrymme i storstadsbarns vardagsliv
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- ABSTRACT Sandberg, Mattias, 2012, ’They are not outdoors that much’. Nature close to home – its meaning and place in the everyday lives of urban children. Publications edited by the Departments of Geography, University of Gothenburg, Series B, no. 122. Department of Human and Economic Geography, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg. ISBN 91-86472-69-0. The aim of this thesis is to study children’s contact with nature near to their homes, and to examine its meaning in an urban context. With a growing range of leisure activities indoors, lack of green space and with an increasing residential segregation, larger cities stand out as an especially challenging context for children to experience nature. Possible barriers to the direct experiencing of nature are one important focus in this thesis. The second important focus is the experiences and impressions that children have of nature near to their homes, and how it differs among children with various backgrounds and in different urban settings. A time-geographical approach provides the overarching theoretical perspective providing a focus on time and space as fundamental resources for individuals in their performance of various projects. As a complement to time-geography, theoretical approaches of affordance, place attachment and phenomenology of the body are used to analyse children’s experiences and impressions of nature close to home. The empirical data is drawn from two studies each of which incorporates study areas with contrasting socioeconomic profiles, ethnic mixes and access to nature. A study of about forty ten-year-old children was conducted in two areas, one relatively affluent in Gothenburg and one poorer area in Stockholm with more residents with immigrant backgrounds. The main method for this study was semi-structured group interviews complemented by participant observation during a number of excursions. In a second study parents of sixty children were interviewed, half living in inner city apartments in Gothenburg and half in houses on the outskirts of the city. The two groups were similar with respect to ethnic background and level of education, but differed in terms of proximity to nature. The study found that children with wealthier backgrounds, and especially where a majority have a Swedish background, gain more experience of nature, both close to home and further away, than the children from studied areas where a large proportion of the population are from immigrant backgrounds. Schools have a key role in enabling children to have encounters with nature when these would otherwise be limited. Children building dens in areas under pressure of being ‘developed’ defended these strongly, demonstrating how direct relations with nature can spur a moral response. Overall, children with a more frequent nature contact are seen as an exception and parents reported being outdoors more during their own upbringing than children today generally are. They regret this development although they become reconciled to this in the light of their children’s engagements with other commitments, for example sport training. Patches of nature are particularly valued by the inner-city parents who also, however, stress the importance of second homes in the countryside for providing experiences of nature lacking in children’s everyday life.
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| 8. |
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| 9. |
- Ernstson, Ulf, 1958
(författare)
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Kontrakt med naturen. Om spridning och implementering av miljöledningssystem
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract Ernstson, U. (2006) Contract with Nature: On Diffusion and Implementation of Environmental Management Systems. Publication edited by the Department of Human and Economic Geography, Göteborg University. Series B, no 109, 275 pages. The aim of this study is to explore and analyse the diffusion, implementation and reach of environmental management systems, with special focus on local conditions and activities resulting in environmental improvement. The study covers development of environmental management systems in Sweden, focusing on the environmental work of companies and organisations, in particular, with respect to the environmental management system (ISO 14001). As an introduction, an extensive study will explore and analyse the spread of environmental certificates in a comprehensive geographical and business sector perspective during 1995-2000. Then follows (The second part of the study is) a process-oriented case study which examines and analyses how an environmental management system is introduced to a company within the manufacturing industry in Västra Götaland and how it is gradually implemented at one of its factories in Falköping during 1999-2005. Beginning with employment rate, initially, it is the larger companies that are the most prominent in certifying parts of, or the whole of, the enterprise. A noticeable diffusion and growth of the number of certificates takes place while the development concentrates more on certain branches. Thus, the production industry dominates the statistics, with manufacturing particularly distinguishing itself. In other sectors, retailing and other business related services stand out. The case study shows that implementation of an environmental management system in a company stimulates a prolonged process where local operators play significant roles. The company renders energy and material flows more efficiently and decreases its emission rates. The environmental management system proves to be a very successful concept for the company, but the achievements seem to be so satisfying that continued progression risks to tail off. After an initial focus on local and internal activity processes, and visible and relatively simple environmental problems, the focus turns towards other parts of the production system which may be more difficult to deal with – for instance transports and input goods. The environmental management system clearly creates a spirit of environmental thinking that goes beyond the frameworks of the ISO 14001-standard. It leads to activities and actions within areas that, from the start, were not expected to be affected by the environmental management system. Keywords: environmental management systems, iso 14001, eco-management and audit scheme (emas), environmental certification, certificate, environmental tool, administrative steering tool, processes, material flows, communicative actions, time geography. ISBN 91-86472-53-4 ISSN 0346-6663 Ulf ErnstsonDistributed by: Department of Human and Economic Geography School of Business, Economics and Law Göteborg University Printed by KompendietBox 630 Göteborg, August 2006 S-405 30 GÖTEBORG, SWEDEN
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| 10. |
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