| 1. |
- Proitsaki, Maria, 1966-
(författare)
-
Empowering Strategies at Home in the Works of Nikki Giovanni and Rita Dove
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis focuses on the presence of Black women characters in domestic contexts in the early poetry of African American poets Nikki Giovanni and Rita Dove and examines the strategies these women employ, individually and in close relationships, in order to empower themselves and sustain those around them. It provides a joint exploration of the work of two major contemporary poets from a literary and interdisciplinary perspective, mapping instances of the poetic expression of Black feminist politics. The theoretical approach builds on a range of understandings of empowerment, strategy, and the central importance of home in an African American context, as conceptualized primarily in the work of Black feminists, in particular Patricia Hill Collins and bell hooks. Structurally, the study follows the cycle of a woman’s life from girlhood to old age. Thus, poems involving the empowerment strategies of girls at home are explored first. They are followed by poems where the domestic lives of adult women and then elderly women are addressed, with a focus on their respective empowering strategies. Discussed last are strategies of empowerment evident in the interactions of (largely) Black women of different generations in poems depicting intergenerational contacts and relationships.Homeplaces created by Black women have historically been experienced as sheltering African Americans from the perils of the dominant white society and thereby Black women’s domestic experiences have generally been linked to privilege rather than to confinement and victimization. In the poems, when at home, Black women utilize different strategies to assert themselves and each other, implicitly or explicitly, emerging strong and resilient, even though sometimes they may merely derive satisfaction from their poor circumstances. Strong connections to the past and a sense of belonging, partaking in legacies and storytelling, as well as memory, imagination, dreaming and hiding, are recurring elements of their empowerment processes. However, their enjoyment of loving bonds and their sharing of African-derived knowledges and ways of being emerge as the most significant aspects contributing to their empowerment.
|
|
| 2. |
- Wang, Airong, 1980-
(författare)
-
Learning English in a Multi-User Virtual Environment : Exploring Factors Affecting Participation
- 2017
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Online language learning and teaching is a field that has received a significant amount of research attention. What factors could affect student participation in simpler online learning environments has been investigated by researchers, but there has been limited study of factors affecting participation in complex Multi-User Virtual Environments.By using the typical Multi-User Virtual Environment Second Life, three English courses offered by Swedish universities were examined in this thesis. The courses were video-recorded, and selected parts of the recordings were transcribed. The transcribed recordings were complemented by author(s)’ observation, participants’ reflection, an online questionnaire and an online interview. Participation from the courses was measured both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitative methods were used to measure, for example, floor space, number of utterances, turn length, number of turns; the qualitative analysis centered on, for instance, utterance functions, discourse analysis, and Conversational Analysis.The results were published in five papers that focused on different central factors affecting participation in Second Life. In this thesis, the findings from those articles are synthesized. Furthermore, on the basis of the findings, a general model of factors affecting participation is presented and discussed to highlight that different factors interrelate and that some factors are particularly important in terms of affecting participation in Multi-User Virtual Environments. These are students’ technical skills, task design, course design, technical support, and Second Life technology. The complex technology also places critical demands on teachers’ technical skills, teaching strategies, and roles that teachers should play. Finally, this thesis argues that it is important to choose a suitable technology for an English course.
|
|
| 3. |
- Nydahl, Erik, 1983-
(författare)
-
I fyrkens tid : Politisk kultur i två ångermanländska landskommuner
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract Nydahl, Erik; I fyrkens tid. Politisk kultur i två ångermanländska landskommuner 1860-1930 [Voting by income: The political culture of two Swedish municipalities, 1860–1930] Department of Humanities, Mid Sweden University, SE-871 88 Härnösand, Sweden ISBN: 978-91-86694-05-0, ISSN 1652-893X, Doctoral thesis nr: 100 (2010). Swedish text with a summary in English This dissertation analyses the development of political culture in two Swedish municipalities between the 1860s and the 1930s – a period during which Swedish society underwent major changes. The purpose is to examine the direct and indirect consequences of an evolving industrial society's economic, social and political structures on political culture at local levels. The following factors are the base of the study. At the start of the 1860s, a long-standing Swedish tradition of local self-government was reinforced through a major reform, the Local Government Ordinance of 1862 (1862 års kommunalförfattningar). From this point, each parish formed its own municipality. The new municipalities were given the right to levy taxes and made responsible for welfare and schools, thereby becoming a prominent arena for the exercise of power at local levels. The municipal reform of 1862 was carried out at a time when Swedish society was transitioning as the industrialisation process accelerated during the latter part of the 1800s. Gradually, the old structure of an agricultural society was cast aside in favour of a new, modern industrial society. Naturally, also the municipalities changed – directly and indirectly. For some municipalities, adjustments were significant; for others, less so. Part of this process was the reformation of voting rights from plutocratic to public and equal. Another part was the reorganisation of municipal government from direct government via municipal meetings to representative government via municipal councils. Two main issues are formulated and answered in the dissertation. The one addresses who or which had the power over local politics and how the situation changed over time. The second addresses in what way municipal representation changed form with the modernisation of the municipalities. The empirical survey comprises a comparative case study between two municipalities in the northern part of Sweden. The one municipality, Ytterlännäs, was early the site for large-scale sawmill industry. The second municipality, Stigsjö, retained its agricultural structure throughout the entire period in question. The comparison makes it possible to analyse the impending industrial society from two different poles. In the 1800s, local politics was considered to be a completely different sort than politics at a national level. The difference was that local politics, referred to as “the municipal”, was seen as non-political and unaffiliated with those conflicts addressed at national levels, referred to as “the political”. The dissertation demonstrates two different models of how modern municipal politics evolved from the municipal meetings of the 1800s. While the starting point was the same in both municipalities, the paths diverged in the early 1870s. In the agricultural municipality of Stigsjö, it was “business as usual”. In the industrial municipality of Ytterlännäs, however, confrontation arose between enterprises and farmers and eventually, a labour movement emerged demanding the right of participation. The dissertation shows that the distinction between “municipal” and “political” was obliterated in the beginning of the 1900s, paving the way for a new concept – municipal politics. This process occurred in a very palpable way in Ytterlännäs but eventually, Stigsjö was forced to conform. The new municipal politics was, so to speak, the final station in both municipalities. In conjunction with party politicisation of local politics, the criteria and seats for the municipal representatives changed. When party affiliation became an important criterion, professional affiliation became less relevant. Party bloc seats replaced the independent seats, and representatives were eventually paid remuneration. Keywords: Political culture, politics, voting right, municipal politics, industrial society, industrialisation, elected representatives, representation, temperance movement, labour movement, popular movements, political parties, modernisation
|
|
| 4. |
|
|
| 5. |
- Fransson, Per
(författare)
-
Landskapet som lärobok : Regionalitet och medborgarfostran i Jämtland kring sekelskiftet 1900
- 2010
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis examines the relationship between regionality and societal integration at the turn of the 20th century from an historical and pedagogical perspective. The national identity project of the time that made national unity its overarching goal and that imagined the nation as a homogenous entity, also institutionalised regional distinctiveness. How did the agents of the time handle the conflict between the regionally particular and the nationally general? What is analysed here is the publicly constructed and mediated “regionality”, which is to say the production of meanings about a region and the projection onto it of expectations and ideas. A discourse on Jämtland has been demarcated, which is analysed alongside other contemporary discourses, including class and gender. All of these discourses were rooted in the concept of “societal”. The conception showed that the development of the societal whole was primary in relation to other interests. Defined as “societal”, formerly excluded identities could be made participants in the building of the nation. Empirical examination is given to how “Jämtland” and “the Jämtlandic” were defined in the regional press, in the framework of general education, and by the Swedish Tourist Association, regional societies, institutions and so forth. The study shows that at the turn of the 20th century, regionality very much functioned as a means to territorially anchor more general ideas and notions that inheredin the modernisation and democratisation of society. With the objective of attaining a higher degree of national integration, a regional distinctiveness was constructed that was nationally complementary and that served as a metaphorfor subordinated participation in society. From grand, majestic panoramas, historical myths, traditional local handicrafts and provincial flowers a symbolic distinctiveness was created, but with the aim of establishing genuine national unity. Society was to be described and understood from particular and individual viewpoints, so that the individual could develop a sense of the general and so that society’s fundamental values were not undermined by his liberation. Jämtlandic regionality that has been identified in the study can thus be regarded as a supra-ideological institution. What came to be regionalised was something more fundamental than the artefacts of cultural heritage that people and institutions believed themselves to be rescuing from modernisation: it was the nation’s territoriality. The concept of hembygd represented a “spatialisation” of the societally coded concept of citizenship, and helped to tie this concept to the individual’s own lifeworld. More than anything else, regionality indicateda perspective on reality. If it was possible to obtain an overview of a regional context from a local vantage point or an individual locally crafted artefact, it was also possible to conceive of the larger national framework of which this region formed a part. The regional denoted the link between the private and the public, between the individual and his abstract national affiliation.
|
|
| 6. |
- Friberg, Anna, 1980-
(författare)
-
Demokrati bortom politiken : En begreppshistorisk analys av demokratibegreppet inom Sveriges socialdemokratiska arbetareparti 1919–1939
- 2013
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation analyzes the concept of democracy as it was used in the official rhetoric of the Swedish SocialDemocratic Party (SAP ) between 1919 and 1939. Theoretically, the dissertation relies on German Begriffsgeschichte, as put forward by Reinhart Koselleck, and Michael Freeden’s theory of ideologies. Together, by supplementing each other, these theories offer a perspective in which concepts are thought of as structures that are under contestation and change due to socio-political circumstances. However, the formulation of this change takes place in relation to the linguistic praxis of each time-period, and renegotiates the relative constraints of established relations between concepts in language.The analysis shows that the profound changes in society provided impetus for a continuous renegotiation of meanings, allowing concepts to retain their explanatory power under changing circumstances, at the same time the SAP needed new ways to express what kind of society the party strived to realize. The SAP had been one of the leading forces in the struggle for universal suffrage, and when the bill, giving universal suffrage to men andwomen, was passed in the Parliament 1919 this meant a temporary cessation to a long and intensive political debate. However, the SAP did not consider the introduction of suffrage reform as the end of full societal democratization. Rather than seeing the reform as a terminal point, the SAP saw it as the starting point for the struggle for full democracy. The SAP did not limit itself to only one concept of democracy but instead used a number of composite concepts, such as political democracy and economic democracy. The use of composite concepts can be understood as a changing temporalization of democracy. Since parliamentarism and suffrage were seen as central components in democracy, the realization of these institutions meant that the concept of democracy lost its future dimension. Thus, the usage of composite concepts should be seen as a re-temporalization of democracy. The composite concepts pointed forward in time, toward political goals that the SAP envisaged realizing in the future.Concepts should not be thought of as having cores but rather, as suggested by Freeden, ineliminable features. An ineliminable feature is not of logical nature but has a strong cultural adjacency. By analyzing the ineliminable components of the concepts of democracy that the SAP used, it is possible to discuss whether the composite concepts should be understood as subsets of a whole or as separate concepts. The analysis shows that the composite concepts that the SAP used during the first half of the 1920s shared a number of ineliminable features, but that the commonality of these features started to disintegrate during the latter half of the decade, leading to a rather diversive concept of democracy. During the 1930s the disintegration ceased as the party was faced with new circumstances, for example the growing threat of international war and national clashes between different social groups. There has always been a close relation between language and society. However, the relationship does not follow a simple and clear-cut logic but a complex mixture of various factors at different levels, both within language itself and of society. When society develops, language also has to change if the ongoing process is to be understood. As this study shows, new circumstances require new argumentsand thus revised concepts.
|
|
| 7. |
- Frisk, Irina, 1979-
(författare)
-
A Linguistic Analysis of Peer-review Critique in Four Modes of Computer-mediated Communication
- 2016
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Abstract The present work is a quantitative and qualitative analysis of pragmatic strategies for delivering critique, and types of politeness, used by undergraduate L2 students of English at different stages of peer-review discussion. The material examined consists of four corpora of authentic conversations between students, the main purpose of which was to give feedback on each other’s contributions during an English A-level course, at Mid-Sweden University. The conversations explored were carried out electronically, and represent four different online environments, or modes of computer-mediated communication (CMC). The material from the two asynchronous modes of CMC is comprised of L2 students’ written discussion board messages and spoken posts recorded using online software. The two synchronous environments under investigation are text-based and voice-based chat. Taking Brown and Levinson’s (1987) framework of politeness as a point of departure, the present study uses a combination of corpus and conversation analytical methods. The basic unit of analysis has been defined as the shortest message of peer-review critique that constitutes a thematic unit: these have been examined in terms of their content and politeness features associated with them, and analyzed in terms of the pragmatic strategy and type of politeness adopted. The types of pragmatic strategies or message organization patterns at different stages, i.e. initial versus subsequent feedback, of the peer-review discussion have also been analyzed. The results of the study show that the pragmatic strategies aimed at praise and agreement prevail in the corpus data produced by predominantly native speakers of Swedish. Even though the pragmatic strategies used for disagreement and negative evaluation are rich in propositional content, their occurrences and distribution vary across the four modes of CMC examined. These results seem to have wider implications in the context of online L2 learning activities, providing insights about the language of peer-review critique in a Swedish academic setting. Keywords: computer-mediated communication (CMC), Conversation Analysis (CA), conversation management, discussion boards, feedback category, mode of CMC, peer-review discussion, politeness theory, pragmatic strategy, speech act of critique, text-based chat, type of politeness, voice-based chat, VoiceThread
|
|
| 8. |
- Stjernström, Anna, 1978-
(författare)
-
Timmeravverkningstiden : Skapande förstörelse i en jämtländsk socken ca 1850-1906
- 2024
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Den här avhandlingen genomlyser hur ett nytt sätt att använda, hantera och omsätta skogen i Norrland ingick i den allomfattande förändring som under 1800-talets senare hälft transformerade Sverige från jordbruksland till industrination. Det var ångan och stålets era, men också timmeravverkningstiden; en period av storskalig dimensionsavverkning av de gamla skogarnas timmerdepåer med följdverkningar för det fysiska landskapet, tänkandets terränger och samhällets strukturer. Med avstamp i Joseph A. Schumpeters teori om skapande förstörelse behandlar studien ur ett endogent och diakroniskt perspektiv hur nya kombinationer av befintliga resurser och praktiker över tid skapar nya strukturer i en aldrig upphörande process av samhällelig ombildning. Föreliggande djupstudie av handeln med sågtimmer, avverkningsrätter och fastigheter i en jämtländsk socken ca 1850-1906 klarlägger hur ett industriellt resursbruk av skog, jord och vatten realiserades i exemplet Hammerdal och vilka implikationer det hade för liv och försörjning i lokalsamhället. Ur perspektivet av den norrländska landsbygdens omvandling låter arbetet samtidigt åskådliggöra den multiplicerande process av skapande förstörelse som i kraft av den moderna epokens tidsrumsliga betingelser låg bakom framväxten av en ny samhällsstruktur.
|
|
| 9. |
- Svedin, Glenn
(författare)
-
"En ohyra på samhällskroppen" : Kriminalitet, kontroll och modernisering i Sverige och Sundsvallsdistriktet under 1800- och det tidiga 1900-talet
- 2015
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis presents an analysis of crime trends and social control during the dramatic transformation of Sweden's social landscape in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, set against the background of the modernization process in the country as a whole and the city of Sundsvall and environs in particular. What assumptions about crime were evident in public debate? How did crime levels vary from region to region, and what were the changes over time? What strategies did government and local authorities try for combating crime? Did the joint efforts by government, local communities, and the voluntary sector actually solve the problems that social change was believed to have caused?When it comes to theory, the interpretative framework is based on Anthony Giddens's argument about modernity and modernization, making particular use of a few central points about what the changes meant for the structuration of society. Giddens's ideas about changes in social control are refined with Michel Foucault's and David Garland's work on the increasingly disciplinary trend seen in the exercise of the law and public control. The analysis of modernity's ramifications for the transformation of both social structures and crime alike has also benefitted from Robert Putnam's and Travis Hirschi's insights into the importance of social capital and social bonds for a well-functioning, low-crime society.The process by which Sweden was transformed from an overwhelmingly agrarian country to an urban, industrial society left its mark on crime patterns. To the contemporary mind, industrialization, migration, and urbanization were the underlying causes of the high levels of serious crime in the society. The start of the nineteenth century had seen a rise in criminality, with both petty crime and lethal violence becoming more common. At the same time, there was a heated debate about the socio-economic problems that were such a strain on the structure of society. The analysis finds that there were large differences in prosecutions in the country and between cities. The Sundsvall area was among those that saw a dramatic change in crime in the course of becoming a major industrial region. At the same time, the thesis shows that there were plenty of cities in Sweden, however rapidly they grew, that had low crime rates. However, the widespread fear of industrialization, migration, and urbanization was often unfounded. For example, both lethal violence and public order offences reached their lowest recorded levels in the interwar period. By then, new cures were sought for the social and moral ills of society. The state's sphere of influence had expanded. New social reforms, including a modified crime policy, were launched. The state became even more assertive, and the same was true of civil society. Society would attend to the moral education of a number of different groups. Moral virtues were to be instilled in the workshy, alcoholic, or criminal, in order to produce disciplined and cultured citizens. The attention of social activists, the scientific community, civil servants, and local and national politicians shifted from crime per se to the far broader issue of asociality. Modernization gave the voluntary sector a significant role in the social organization of the day, shaping new forums for interpersonal relationships and strengthening social ties. The thesis makes the case that two distinct periods, each with its specific social structures and crime patterns, can be observed; one belonging to the nineteenth century, the other to the first four decades of the twentieth century.Finally, the similarities between the history of crime in Sweden and, for example, the US or the UK are highlighted. As in Britain and North America, the early industrialization period saw weakened social bonds, and a time of greater violence and disorder ensued. After a while however, the situation stabilized, and crime rates began to drop again. When industrial societies ceased to be 'frontier communities' at the forefront of modernization, and instead became more mature communities, crime levels fell as people's commitment to their communities was renewed.
|
|
| 10. |
- Theland, Tord, 1962-
(författare)
-
Mildhet och saktmod : Den svenska konglomeratstaten och Jämtland efter freden i Brömsebro 1645
- 2020
-
Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The focus of this book is the cession of the province of Jämtland from Denmark-Norway to Sweden after the Peace of Brömsebro in 1645. My purpose is to examine what bearing the steps taken to incorporate the newly conquered territory into Sweden had on the state formation already underway. In addition, I consider the significance of spatiality and collectivity in conjunction with the change of sovereignty.What took place when territory changed hands in the early modern period was generally described by the older literature in terms of modern nationalism. In recent decades, doubt has been cast on the existence of nationalist ideas that early, which has left historians to interpret changes of sovereignty using other approaches. To explain what happened to provinces and their inhabitants when they were transferred from one state to another, theories of the conglomerate state and state formation have been used instead, and it is these perspectives which have been central to this study.The results show that two processes ran in parallel in territories that became Swedish in the early modern period: there was an attempt to incorporate newly conquered territories into Sweden; and there was an on-going state formation in all regions ruled by the Swedish government. In the case of Jämtland, cession to Sweden meant that the province was expected to align — rapidly and conclusively — with the conditions in existing Swedish possessions. However, this was mainly true of the central and regional levels, while Jämtland’s inhabitants had a say in local conditions essential for their survival. As soon as it was ceded to Sweden, Jämtland thus became part of the kingdom, but locally many of the structures from the Danish-Norwegian period survived, however. In time this was to change under the steady pressure which state formation exerted on the local level in Jämtland, in much the same way as in other areas ruled by the Swedish Crown.The inhabitants sense of collectivity was rooted in their province or region. By terms such as Swedish or Danish, they usually meant a political affiliation with central government, confirmed by an oath of allegiance. At times, these terms also took on temporal overtones, as when referring to Swedish rule after 1645 or Danish-Norwegian rule before the Peace of Brömsebro.
|
|
