| 1. |
- Farahani, Fataneh, 1966-
(författare)
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Diasporic Narratives of Sexuality : Identity Formation among Iranian- Swedish Women
- 2007
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis deals with the sexuality of Iranian women living in Sweden. Considering sexuality as gendered and socio-culturally constructed, I examine the impact of Iranian Islamic discourses, contemporary socialization and migration on women’s narrations of sexuality. The theoretical platform arises from a Foucauldian discursive analysis of sexuality, including Iranian and/or Islamic discourses on sexuality, and diasporic and feminist postcolonial theories. The empirical basis of the thesis consists of ten in-depth interviews with first generation Iranian immigrant women in Sweden. The narratives are the textual field for exploring the divergent and contingent intersections of discourses that constitute the women’s sexuality. Themes that surface in the narratives are the importance of virginity, veiling practices, requirements for modest dress codes, lack of sexual education, first sexual experience, marriage, divorce and diasporic experiences.With sexuality as the main subject of analysis, my focus draws on articulations involving gender, otherness, agency and marginality. Being alert to different (at times contradictory) discourses, I study the tension that develops between the process of (self)disciplining the body and the women’s coping tactics. The study examines the ways women take part in existing institutions while exhibiting agency and creating new ways to negotiate across discourses. This thesis shows how moral values regarding sexual behavior undergo various and sometimes contradictory transformations. The women report being torn between two different cultures. Yet, while consistently facing a crossroads of racist and sexist discourses filled with stereotypes of so-called natives and outsiders, I argue that the women are not caught between two cultures. Rather, they live a hybrid experience of ‘Swedishness,’ ‘Iranianness’ and other social relations. Complexity defines their tactics; the women exist in the interstices of culture(s) and discourses.
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| 2. |
- Feldmann Eellend, Beate, 1971-
(författare)
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Visionära planer och vardagliga praktiker : Postmilitära landskap i Östersjöområdet
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the years after WWII the Baltic Sea Area developed into an area strongly divided between East and West. Because of the tensions between the blocs, the coastal areas where strongly militarized and prepared for war.The new political situation after 1989 propelled an international military disarmament and closing down of bases, training areas around Europe. Since the Baltic Sea Area was one of the heaviest militarized part of Europe the question of disarmament here is of particularly great economic, social and cultural importance.This study is about the post-military landscape in the Baltic Sea Area with examples from Dejevo on the Estonian island Saaremaa, Dranske on the (East)German island Rügen and Fårösund on the Swedish island Gotland.The aim of this thesis is to shed light on the process where the military landscape of the Cold War is transformed in order to be incorporated in the macro-regional endeavors for unity in the new Europe. I want to analyze the implications that planning visions have on the everyday life of people. A following aim is to shed light on the challenges that urban planning has to face in this transformation. Three research questions frame the study. The first question analyzes the process where the coastal areas of the Baltic Sea after the end of the Cold War are disarmed and transformed, from a landscape of production of military services and objects into a landscape of consumption for recreation and tourism. The second question takes its point of departure in the relation between planning visions and everyday life. The third question concerns the matter of the past and analyzes what aspects of the military landscape are emphasized respectively pushed aside in the transformation into post-military landscape.The study is based on interviews with inhabitants and local planners as well as macro-regional and local planning documents, articles and photographs.
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| 3. |
- Fröhlig, Florence, 1971-
(författare)
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Painful legacy of World War II: Nazi forced enlistment : Alsatian/Mosellan Prisoners of War and the Soviet Prison Camp of Tambov
- 2013
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation concerns the legacy of the Nazi forced enlistment during World War II and focuses more precisely on the case of Alsace/Moselle. Many of these French men, enlisted by force from 1942 in the German army, were sent to the Eastern Front and experienced Soviet prison camps.The aim of this thesis is to examine how knowledge and memories about forced enlistment and Soviet captivity have been remembered, commemorated, communicated and passed on since the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs (Prisoners of War) carried the tokens of enemies or traitors when reintegrating their motherland, France.Four strategies dealing with the experiences of forced enlistment and of internment in Soviet prison camps are examined. I present how the first and most common strategy, i.e. avoidance, is contributing to an individual and collective construction of silence. Then I argue that a second strategy, the constitution of families of remembrance, is helping them to articulate and narrate their experiences (third strategy). The fourth strategy is the organisation of pilgrimages (emic term) to the former prison camp of Tambov, where the majority of the Alsatian/Mosellan POWs were gathered during the war. This last strategy actualises the issue of the transmission of the war experiences given that pilgrimages bring together three to four generations. Through fieldwork observations of the journeys I show how the pilgrims engage with a sense of the past. They remember and reassess the meaning of the past in terms of the social, cultural and political needs of the present. The importance of place and the aspect of self-in-place are thoughtfully analysed in order to highlight the process of passing on the memory of Tambov.I conclude by arguing that the agents of remembrance interviewed for the purpose of this thesis are engaged in turning the tangible and intangible legacies of World War II into heritage. This is done by releasing the legacy of forced enlistment and internment in Soviet prison camp from the private/familial sphere and inscribing it in the public sphere. Yet, the agency of the former POWs and their descendants shows how to let pass a past “that does not want to pass” in a contemporary European context.
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| 4. |
- Gerber, Sofi, 1973-
(författare)
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Öst är Väst men Väst är bäst : Östtysk identitetsformering i det förenade Tyskland
- 2011
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- In the German Democratic Republic (GDR) the overthrow of the socialist regime did not only bring about both an economic and political shift, it resulted also in the inclusion of the GDR into the Federal Republic of Germany. The fall of the Wall brought with it transformations in everyday life as well as changes in social identities.This study examines how people who grew up in the GDR define the East and the West in unified Germany, as well as identifying which concepts play a role in the self-interpretations given by former GDR citizens. Through applying discourse theory, I investigate how identities are partially fixed and change over time, relating this always to historically situated discourses. In the analysis, East and West are considered as floating signifiers, which, through articulations made with other categories such as class, nation, place and gender, come to be filled with meaning. The study is based on twenty-five life story interviews conducted in Eastern Germany. The group of interviewees consisted of fifteen women and ten men born in the GDR between the years of 1970 and 1979, all of whom had different levels of education.The demise of the socialist state and the transition to a capitalist society is central in the interviewees’ life stories. Their narratives about the past are formed in a discursive order other than the one in which the events themselves took place. Conversely, the past is used as a foil against which the present is compared. With the dislocation, the interviewees have developed a reflexive stance to both themselves and the world. The study reveals both how East and West are still used to make the world intelligible in a number of fields and, at the same time, how these same concepts are transcended. It shows in what ways the interviewees employ different strategies to adapt to the new circumstances and to handle a potentially marked position in unified Germany.
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| 5. |
- Högström, Karin, 1964-
(författare)
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Orientalisk dans i Stockholm : Femininiteter, möjligheter och begränsningar
- 2010
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the dissertation is to describe and analyze the practice and meaning of Middle Eastern dance through the study of a number of performers in Stockholm. In particular, this study emphasises the ways in which the performers seek, create and defend values such as femininity, authenticity, empowerment and respectability in and through their dancing.Data for this study consists of field notes from participant observation in dance classes, festivals and gatherings; in-depth interviews and written material, such as leaflets and Internet material. Field notes from a trip to Lebanon with a group of Swedish dancers are also included.The performance of Middle Eastern dance in Stockholm may be seen as a way for Swedish women to find new femininities. They strive to combine a glamorous hyper-femininity with strength and respectability. This is a difficult task. The dancers constantly have to maintain a balance. While enjoying the hyper-femininity of oriental dance they must avoid being too sexy and thereby running the risk of being reduced to the position of sexual objects. To avoid losing control of the situation performing in public the dancers use different tactics. Many try to make the performance a clearly bounded event and make distinctions between themselves as individuals and the personas they embody on stage. This gives the performers a chance to playfully embody hyper-femininity. Other dancers have changed the dance itself, removing all movements and costumes that could be perceived as sexually inviting or aiming to please.
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| 6. |
- Kanematsu, Makiko, 1968-
(författare)
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Saga och verklighet : Barnboksproduktion i det postsovjetiska Lettland
- 2009
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- The aim of the dissertation is to examine the production of children’s books for the Latvian-speaking population in Latvia and attempt to illustrate how the post-Soviet transformation has affected the conditions surrounding its development. To this end, the study investigates how the economic, political, and cultural aspects of the transformation are perceived and dealt with by actors active in children’s book production. The concept of the field of the production of children’s books as a subset of the broader field of cultural production is based on the term “literary system” as defined in the sociology of literature and the term “field” as defined in Pierre Bourdieu’s sociology of cultural production. The fundamental theoretical standpoint of the study is based on social constructivist theory. The study also investigates the phenomena in the field from the aspect of sociopsychologist Michael Billig’s concept of “banal nationalism” and sociologist Daina Stukuls Eglitis’ model of “narratives of normality.” The material is based primarily on interviews conducted between 2003 and 2005 in Riga with the actors involved with the production of children’s books in Latvia, but also on data gathered from other sources. The results indicate that the role of the state and the commercial market are perceived and dealt with differently amongst the actors in the studied field, where opposing attitudes towards mass-market products indicate that children’s books can be seen as cultural products by some and as commercial products by others. The material further implies that the opinions of the interviewees about the role of children’s books in post-Soviet Latvia are closely related to their personal visions for the future of this newly-reborn independent nation. It is the various survival strategies adopted by the key actors in the field as a response to the changing conditions in the new era that ultimately constitute the transformation of the field.
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| 7. |
- Lundell, Erika, 1975-
(författare)
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Förkroppsligad fiktion och fiktionaliserade kroppar : Levande rollspel i Östersjöregionen
- 2014
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This dissertation concerns live action role-playing (larp). Larp may be described as improvised theater without an audience, as participants simultaneously embody both audience and actor in their constant interaction with one another. Hence, larp can be seen as a participatory culture. The study is based on participant observation, interviews and online ethnography in Denmark, Latvia, Sweden and Norway.The aim of the thesis is to analyze how bodies materialize, take and are given space in larps. At the heart of the study lie questions on how processes of embodiment are enacted before, during and after the game.Two central concepts - larp chronotope and matrix of interpretation – shape the analysis. The first denotes the specific timespace in which a larp takes place, e.g a Soviet military camp or a fantasy world. The second concept stands for a general matrix of norms that informs participants on how to enact their characters in the larp chronotope.The thesis shows that participants strive to act in ways that are intelligible according to the matrix of interpretation that reigns during the game days. In addition, although game and everyday matrixes of interpretations are always inseparable, while attending a larp the participant’s ordinary lives are temporarily allowed to fade into the background. Thus, larps are complex combinations of objects, spaces and bodies that are given new relations and new meanings.Furthermore, the thesis shows that larp embodiment is conditioned by normative ideas of what it means to be an intelligible live action role player. White male bodies are more likely to access the sphere of larp intelligibility than others, which is evident in many of the stories and made up worlds portrayed in the study. Yet, the collaborative narration of game worlds that take place before larps can include all sorts of bodies. Consequently, larps provide an opportunity for alternative forms of embodiment and experiences.
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| 8. |
- Nagel, Erik, 1954-
(författare)
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I dialog med muntliga och skriftliga berättartraditioner : En undersökning av svenska sjömäns levnadsberättelser
- 2012
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This is a study of autobiographical letters written in the early 1950s by seven Swedish sailors. The letters were contributions to a project at the Nordiska Museet in Stockholm aiming to collect and publicize workers' autobiographical narratives. The aim of this thesis is to analyze how the sailors composed their narratives in dialogue not only with heroic epics and other oral and written literary traditions but also with folklore studies and with contemporary public conversations about Sweden. According to Bachtin, any given text must be understood as a dialogue with the entire history of literature and the analysis in this study shows that the sailors' narratives are composed according to the pattern of the returning Homeric hero: the hero by destiny, the hero by action, and the hero by tradition. In terms of contents the letters are centered on two major themes: the two world wars and the transformation of Sweden from a poor rural society into a modern well-fare state. These themes are dramatized in plots, test-conflicts, motifs, and motif-complexes (functions, motiphemes), well-known from oral traditions and classical drama. An experiment in which two of the letters are subjected to “ethnopoetic transcription” shows the nature and extent of the oral idiom used by the writers. Two other writers display their literary ambitions through an abundance of paraphrases and hidden quotations. For the museum staff, the sailors' contributions were problematic. The verbal artistry of the writers challenged assumptions that workers' life narratives should be “simple and ingenious descriptions” and transparent sources of ethnological data. Furthermore, the sailors' frankness about Sweden's and their own part in the world wars challenged the myth of the neutrality and peacefulness of the Swedish folkhem.
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| 9. |
- Turtinen, Jan, 1965-
(författare)
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Världsarvets villkor : Intressen, förhandlingar och bruk i internationell politik
- 2006
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Doktorsavhandling (övrigt vetenskapligt/konstnärligt)abstract
- This thesis depicts the UNESCO World Heritage Convention (1972), an international law for the protection of natural and cultural heritage sites, as an example of the multiple practices within international policy making. By analysing its transnational constitution, I show how the Convention is constructed in and between locales through bureaucratic and diplomatic procedures characterised by intersecting political and economic interests. Using neo-institutional theory, I argue that organisations such as UNESCO frame problems as global, provide solutions, and organise the actions of states, organizations, and individuals; furthermore, my research not only illustrates how this occurs but also explores the preconditions of international policy making. While adhering to its officially proclaimed aspirations, states, organisations, and individuals also use the Convention for other purposes such as international prestige, career advancement, publicity, identity, development, tourism – even war. Such contending interests raise the question of explaining the success of the Convention and thereby the preconditions of policy making at the international level. A conclusion reached by this study shows that growing interest in the Convention can be regarded to result only partially from the general acceptance of its global rhetoric and morally vested perspective or the need for states to gain legitimacy by engaging in international relations. My thesis proposes that rather than by its official aims and formal procedures, the Convention is constituted primarily through complex informal relations, concurring contexts, and external structures. Data for this ethnographic study consists of field notes from participant observations during UNESCO meetings in France, Morocco, Australia, and at the Convention’s secretariat. A case study of the Agricultural Landscape of Southern Öland, a Swedish World Heritage site, is also included, along with interviews, documents, and media.
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