| 1. |
- Edfeldt, Chatarina, 1963-, et al.
(författare)
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Northern Crossings : Translation, Circulation and the Literary Semi-periphery
- 2022
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- This open access book uses Swedish literature and the Swedish publishing field as recurring examples to describe and analyse the role of the literary semi-peripheral position in world literature from various perspectives and on meso, micro and macro levels, using both quantitative and qualitative methods. This includes the role of translation in the semi-periphery and the conditions under which literature travels to and from that position. The focus is not on Sweden, as such, but rather on the semi-peripheral transitional space as exemplified by the Swedish case.Consisting of three co-written chapters, this study sheds light on what might be called the semi-peripheral condition or the semi-periphery as an area of transition. As part of the Cosmopolitan and Vernacular Dynamics in World Literatures series, it makes continuous use of the concepts of 'cosmopolitan' and 'vernacular' – or rather, the processual terms, cosmopolitanization and vernacularization – which provide an overall structure to the analysis of literature and literary phenomena. In this way, the authors show that the semi-periphery is an ideal point of departure to further the understanding of world literature, because it is a place where the cosmopolitan (the literary universal) and the vernacular (the rootedness in a particular culture or place) interact in ways that have not yet been thoroughly explored.
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| 2. |
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| 3. |
- Kaliff, Anders, et al.
(författare)
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Kremation och kosmologi : en komparativ arkeologisk introduktion
- 2013
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Cremation and Cosmology – A Comparative Archaeological Introduction aims to synthesise in an easily accessible style the current state of cremation research and some of the recent interpretations providing new understandings of the past. Since cremation is a highly complicated technological and cosmological process and ritual, part 1 emphasises what has shaped and restricted most of the Western perceptions of cremation. The Christian hell and its torturing fires, Hindu cremations along holy rivers in Nepal and India, and the ancient Vedic traditions have all to various degrees constructed images of what a cremation is, including our understanding of cremation in the past. This comparative part is stressed not only because it is important knowledge in itself, but also because it is a good point of departure for approaching the past and exploring new interpretations of funerals in general and cremations in particular, which have no ethnographic parallels. With mainly examples from Scandinavian Bronze- and Iron Age, in part 2 a wide range of cremation contexts are analysed from different perspectives highlighting new approaches to the materiality of death. A central theme throughout the book is that cremation is not one, but many funeral practices. By stressing this unique character of cremation compared to other burial practices, cremation as a ritual opens up a wide range of opportunities within the sphere of death, which can be studied archaeologically. As such, this book is intended to be an introductory and coarse book for archaeological students studying death and cremation, but hopefully it may also have interest and relevance beyond the archaeological circles.
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| 4. |
- Lindberg, Emy
(författare)
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War in Mali : background study and annotated bibliography : July 2012 - March 2013
- 2013
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Not long ago, Mali was considered a beacon of stability and a model of democratic evolution in West Africa. The country then experienced a military coup in the capital in March 2012, followed by the usual post-coup volatility and uncertainty. In the immediate aftermath of the coup, armed insurgents swiftly took over half the country. It did not take long to dismantle a country that on the paper appeared to be functioning, stable and democratic. French troops intervened in the conflict in the north. Yet even if this intervention put a stop to the outright threat of the insurgents taking over the south and significantly shifted the balance of forces in the north, it did not end the conflict. The insurgents have dispersed into remote areas in the sub-region, changing their tactics to terrorist-like activities. Different forms of political negotiation and reconciliation are certainly needed in the region. With the current global clash between radical Islam and the Western “War on Terror”, northern Mali will probably continue to be contested terrain for a long time. In the meantime, a transition to democratic rule is planned for the country, with elections scheduled for July this year. In all likelihood, this will prove to be only an illusory end to an intense power tussle over state control in Bamako.
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| 5. |
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| 6. |
- Oestigaard, Terje, 1973-, et al.
(författare)
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Cremation, Corpses and Cannibalism : Comparative Cosmologies and Centuries of Cosmic Consumption
- 2017
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- Death matters and the matters of death are initially, and to a large extent, the decaying flesh of the corpse. Cremation as a ritual practice is the fastest and most optimal way of dissolving the corpse’s flesh, either by annihilation or purification, or a combination. Still, cremation was not the final rite, and the archaeological record testifies that the dead represented a means to other ends – the flesh, and not the least the bones – have been incorporated in a wide range of other ritual contexts. While human sacrifices and cannibalism as ritual phenomena are much discussed in anthropology, archaeology has an advantage, since the actual bone material leaves traces of ritual practices that are unseen and unheard of in the contemporary world. As such, this book fleshes out a broader and more coherent understanding of prehistoric religions and funeral practices in Scandinavia by focusing on cremation, corpses and cannibalism.
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| 8. |
- Palmberg, Mai, 1943-, et al.
(författare)
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Sydafrika : en regnbågsnation föds
- 1995
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Bok (populärvet., debatt m.m.)abstract
- De senaste åren har inneburit omvälvande förändringar i Sydafrika. Denna bok skildrar den tid och de händelser som ledde fram till att Sydafrika förvandlades från en minoritetsstyrd rasistisk diktatur till en demokrati. Författarna diskuterar också de frågor, risker och möjligheter som kan uppstå under övergångstiden mellan det första valet i april 1994 och nästa val 1999. Arvet efter apartheid inom snart sagt alla samhällssektorer diskuteras och ANC:s och den nuvarande samlingsregeringens politik för det nya Sydafrika analyseras.Tillräcklig historisk bakgrund ges för att boken ska kunna läsas utan annan introduktion till landet. Boken kan användas både för enskild läsning och för gruppstudier eller projektstudier i skolan.
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| 9. |
- Sjögren, Anders
(författare)
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Between Militarism and Technocratic Governance : State Formation in Contemporary Uganda
- 2013
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Bok (refereegranskat)abstract
- Anders Sjögren is a researcher at the Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala and in the Department of Political Science, Stockholm University. He has researched and published extensively on Ugandan and Kenyan politics over the last decade. This book is a revised version of his doctoral thesis. State-civil society relations in Africa have during recent decades been transformed in the context of economic liberalisation and state reform. This study explores state-civil society relations in contemporary Uganda, from 1986 to the present, in order to illustrate and explain the scope for and capacity of different social forces to create access to and democratise the state. The study interrogates state-civil society relations under the incumbent National Resistance Movement government as these are expressed through forms of interest representation and conflict regulation in different political arenas. It analyses this problem through an empirical study of the health sector at both national and local levels. Changes in the health regime – the rules and practices that regulate health politics – are analysed by a historical reconstruction of how different health regimes evolved from demands from social forces on the colonial and postcolonial state, in relation to broader patterns of political change. The ruling political coalition from 1986 has promoted a model for capitalist development based on donor-driven economic growth, institutional reform and political monopoly – what is referred to in the study as technocratic governance. Throughout, however, the technocratic tendency has been shaped in relation to the political economy of militarism as a more openly repressive form of authoritarian rule. The study argues that limits to democratisation of state society relations within the health sector and of Ugandan politics at large are best explained by relations of domination in society, within the state and among external political forces. The main conclusion is that democratisation of the state has been resisted by ruling groups, and therefore restricted.
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| 10. |
- Themnér, Anders, 1976-, et al.
(författare)
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Climate Change and the Risk of Violent Conflicts in Southern Africa
- 2011
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Bok (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This study aims to identify regions in the Zambezi River Basin in Southern Africa that are prone to risk of violent conflicts (collective violence, popular unrest) induced by climatic changes/variability. The Zambezi River is 575 kilometres long and the basin covers eight countries: Zambia, Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Tanzania, Botswana, Mozambique and Namibia. Besides the ecological impact, the study argues that socio-economic and political problems are disproportionately multiplied by climate change/variability. Climate change/variability amplifies stresses on the socio-political fabric because it affects the governance of resources, and hence, is linked to the weakened mitigation and adaptation capacity of societies, that are already facing economic challenges (rising food prices, etc.). Society becomes highly vulnerable to climate induced conflicts when it suffers from poor central leadership, weak institutions and polarized social identities. Taking all these factors into consideration, this study identifies Bulawayo/Matableleland-North in Zimbabwe and the Zambezia Province in Mozambique as the most likely regions to experience climate induced conflicts in the near future. The reasons for arriving at this conclusion are: a) Climate change/variability will have a significant impact on these two regions; due to increasing water scarcity in Bulawayo/Matabeleland-North; and intensified flooding, sea-level rise, and costal erosion in the Zambezia Province. b) Due to climate change/variability, agricultural production in these two regions will become highly volatile, leading to severe food insecurity. c) Both regions are suffering from low quality political governance, having unscrupulous elites, weak institutions, and polarized social identities.
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