Employment plays a crucial role in the re-entry process and in reducing recidivism among offenders released from prison. But at the same time, imprisonment is generally regarded as harmful to post-release employment prospects. Little is known, however, about whether or not offenders’ employment trajectories before and after imprisonment are similar across countries. As a first step towards filling this gap in research, this paper provides evidence on employment trajectories before and after imprisonment in four Nordic welfare states: Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. Using data gathered from administrative records on incarcerated offenders, the analysis focuses on individuals imprisoned for the first time and who served a prison sentence less than one year in length. Results show that although employment trajectories develop in mostly similar ways before and after imprisonment across these countries, important differences exist.

This article discusses the use of video cameras in participant observation drawing on approximately 300 hours of video data from an ethnographic study of Swedish family life. Departing from Karen Barad’s post-humanistic perspective on scientific practices, the aim is to critically analyse how researchers, research participants and technology produce and negotiate children’s corporeal privacy. Ethnographic videotaping is understood as a material- discursive practice that creates and sustains boundaries between private and public, where videotaping is ideologically connected to a public sphere that may at times ‘intrude’ on children’s corporeal privacy. The limits of corporeal privacy are never fixed, but open for negotiation; ethnographers may therefore unintentionally transgress the boundary and thus be faced with ethical dilemmas. The fluidity of privacy calls for ethical reflexivity before, during and after fieldwork, and researchers must be sensitive to when ethical issues are at hand and how to deal with them.

Concerns about problematic gaming behaviors deserve our full attention. However, we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder. The empirical basis for a Gaming Disorder proposal, such as in the new ICD-11, suffers from fundamental issues. Our main concerns are the low quality of the research base, the fact that the current operationalization leans too heavily on substance use and gambling criteria, and the lack of consensus on symptomatology and assessment of problematic gaming. The act of formalizing this disorder, even as a proposal, has negative medical, scientific, public-health, societal, and human rights fallout that should be considered. Of particular concern are moral panics around the harm of video gaming. They might result in premature application of diagnosis in the medical community and the treatment of abundant false-positive cases, especially for children and adolescents. Second, research will be locked into a confirmatory approach, rather than an exploration of the boundaries of normal versus pathological. Third, the healthy majority of gamers will be affected negatively. We expect that the premature inclusion of Gaming Disorder as a diagnosis in ICD-11 will cause significant stigma to the millions of children who play video games as a part of a normal, healthy life. At this point, suggesting formal diagnoses and categories is premature: the ICD-11 proposal for Gaming Disorder should be removed to avoid a waste of public health resources as well as to avoid causing harm to healthy video gamers around the world.

This study aims at exploring the rhetorical processes underpinning condolences, as expressed by Saudi Arabian governmental authorities on social media, with a focus on Twitter. Taking its starting point in January of 2015, when the Charlie Hebdo shooting took place in Paris, this study looks comparatively at several acts of terror in order to answer whether these different attacks elicited different responses, and if so, what knowledge can be drawn from this conclusion. Furthermore, this study examines the role of social media in public diplomacy, and in the production and distribution of political discourse, especially as it relates to statements of condolences and expressions of solidarity mediated through twitter. In order to explore this, rhetorical criticism (Mral 2008; Foss 2004; Peirce 2003) is combined with pentadic criticism (Burke 1945) and performativity theory (Rosenberg 2018; Zivi 2016; Gregson and Rose 2014) to form the methodology. A key theoretical concept in this study is “grievability,” which aims at understanding why some deaths are grieved and others are not (Butler 2009; Butler 2004; Butler 2003). As this study shows, mourning itself can be understood as rhetoric, serving political and diplomatic functions rather than being an expression of actual, sincere solidarity or grief. This study also shows that tweets from official government sources can be seen as a performance of public diplomacy, and as performative of the official’s own position. Lastly, it is argued that offering condolences are a way to purchase “humanitarian capital,” which is becoming increasingly important in global politics.

This study utilizes ethnographic methods to inquire how ideas of masculinities are perceived by English-language media professionals and media audiences in Egypt. Using semi-structured interviews and a survey, the aim is to find common narratives on how masculinity is perceived on personal levels and what terms are used to describe men and masculinities, which in turn can be used as the basis for further analysis of Egyptian media content. The word “narrative” in itself is used to convey personal experience, and the telling of those experiences, rather than generalizable data applicable to the larger population. Found are several common themes, such as emphasized heterosexuality, and the expectation of men as providers and protectors, which is related, by the respondents, to the nation and the military. Protection and militarism relates to ideas of strength, honor, and courage. Men are almost exclusively seen as possessors of power. The ‘head of the household,’ and the head of state, both portrayed as iconized leaders, emerge as the quintessence of Egyptian masculine identity, whether that identity is contested or not.

Mangroves represent an important source of livelihood for many poor people acrossthe world. However, insufficient policy responses relating to mangrove conservation,combined with the lack of clearly defined property rights contribute extensively to theconversion of mangroves to alternative uses, in particular shrimp aquaculture. On thebasis of relevant theoretical perspectives on property rights, this Master’s thesisanalyses various formal and informal institutions and existing governancemechanisms that determine natural resources management in the Mahakam delta, EastKalimantan, Indonesia. By employing a qualitative participatory research approachthe case study explores how different institutions in Indonesia shape the local propertyrights regime in mangroves. The results show that the interplay between formal andinformal institutions involved in defining property rights, along with the lack ofcoordination among responsible government agencies, has resulted in the clearing ofone of the largest Nypah forests in the world for shrimp pond construction withinthree decades. Moreover, the study suggests that the current problem of mangrovedestruction will not be solved merely by declaring the Mahakam delta as a protectedarea or by assigning full ownership rights to the local people. On the contrary, thestudy suggests that the coordination and enforcement mechanisms should be enhancedin such ways that they simultaneously address both local peoples’ needs as well asecosystem integrity.

The aim behind this study was to observe and understand barriers to access the eHealth system equally. The study was conducted in Stockholm based on qualitative data in which semi- structured interviews were conducted among 15 interviewees from different localities of Stockholm. The findings from the collected data revealed that language barriers, lack of knowledge about digital literacy, unawareness of Swedish healthcare services, psychological and social barriers, safety and privacy concerns, and the lack of an e-identification are all major barriers to accessing the eHealth system. From the data, it has also been observed that the main causes of the aforementioned hurdles are based on varied socioeconomic levels, literacy conditions of an individual, cultural background, and age. Another important observation shows that highly qualified people with limited language abilities have a difficult time using eHealth services. 

Keywords 

Ehealth, Covid-19, nudge approach, digital literacy, linguistic skills, Bank ID, 1177.se, Alltid öppet. 

During the 2010s, popular romance has emerged as a popular genre in Sweden. Popular romance is often criticized on account of its perceived gender conservatism. In Sweden – a country that prides itself on being at the forefront of progressive gender politics – the genre has however become promoted as feminist, and Sweden is represented as an especially beneficial context for the emergence of a (more) feminist popular romance. For this article I analyze a selection of Swedish contemporary romance novels, released between 2014-2019. Taking the feminist critique into account, I analyze how these novels negotiate genre conventions in an effort to produce (more) feminist love stories, and how these local variants of a global genre relate to the feminism of the Swedish context and the Swedish self-image. The novels, I argue, are permeated by a Swedish gender equality discourse; one that focuses on heterosexual couples who fulfill themselves equally in relation to both family and work life. The novels both challenge and uphold gendered inequalities and criticized romance tropes. They further produce different representations of Sweden, sometimes representing Sweden as only superficially equal and other times as a country where equality is already almost in place.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att dels förstå vilka faktorer som ger upphov till att

upplopp sker, samt att i en fallstudie analysera vilken relation den byggda omgivningen hade

under upploppens gång i Husby år 2013. Den förstnämnda frågan besvaras genom en

litteraturundersökning, där Parisupploppen år 2005 och Londonupploppen år 2011 har

närmare studerats. I fallstudie Husby studeras den byggda miljöns betydelse under upploppet,

där intervjuer gjorts med ungdomar boende i Husby, närpolisen i Kista-Husby samt

områdesplanerare för Husby. Studien visar att många komplexa faktorer samspelar inför ett

upplopp, där sociala och ekonomiska faktorer är centrala beståndsdelar. Fallstudie Husby

påvisar ett unikt perspektiv, där den fysiska omgivningen haft en stark påverkan på

upploppet.

Nyckelord: Upplopp, byggda omgivning, Husbyupploppen, Parisupploppen,

Londonupploppen, segregation, förort.

We report here trends in the usage of mood words, that is, words carrying emotional content, in 20th century English language books, using the data set provided by Google that includes word frequencies in roughly 4% of all books published up to the year 2008. We find evidence for distinct historical periods of positive and negative moods, underlain by a general decrease in the use of emotion-related words through time. Finally, we show that, in books, American English has become decidedly more emotional than British English in the last half-century, as a part of a more general increase of the stylistic divergence between the two variants of English language.

Mickiewicz, Adam (2012)

Demokratisk planering och medborgardeltagande - En komparativ fallstudie av olika planeringsmodeller i översiktsplaneringen av Väsby Sjöstad i Upplands Väsby [Democratic planning and citizen participation - A comparative case study of different planning models used in the comprehensive planning of Väsby Sjöstad in Upplands Väsby]

Samhällsplanering, avancerad nivå

Masteruppsats för masterexamen i samhällsplanering, 30 HP

Handledare: Peter Schmitt

Språk: Svenska

Uppsatsen syftar till att undersöka hur den demokratiska planeringsmodellen hanterar frågor gällande medborgerligt deltagande. Vem har makten att påverka och förändra de politiska beslut som planeringsmodellen vilar på? Uppsatsen undersöker utifrån denna övergripande fråga i fallstudieform planeringsprocessen för ett ambitiöst och kontroversiellt framtida bostadsområde i Upplands Väsby kallat Väsby Sjöstad. Den teoretiska ansatsen utgörs av maktbegreppet och dess kopplingar till rationalitet, starkt inspirerat av Michel Foucaults och Bent Flyvbjergs maktteorier. Den huvudsakliga metoden för undersökningen är en diskursanalys. Planeringsprocessen i fallet har genomgått distinkt olika faser och utmynnat i en charrette-inspirerad metod kallad community planning. Metoden medför att en konfliktfylld och låst planeringsprocess omvandlats till en inklusiv och kommunikativ sådan. Slutsatsen är att community planning med fördel kan användas för att ge medborgare en reell makt att påverka politiska beslut och planeringsresultat, men främst under tidiga planskeden.

What one decides fi t for appearance through writing and speech bears a political signifi cance that risk being distorted through both language, reception in the public, and through calls for gendered representations. How can work of female philosophers be interpreted as a concern for the world from that of having to respond to a male-dominated discourse through which speech becomes trapped into what one might represent as ‘other’? In this paper, I explore the public reception of two female thinkers who question, in diff erent ways, the domi-nant notion of the author or philosopher as a male subject; what kind of limitations does the relative notion of ‘female’ pose political action, and how can privilege constitute a hindrance to feminist solidarity?

This chapter explores the alliances and conflicts between different feminist and socialist fractions within the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women (CSW) and the international organizations with representatives at its third session in Beirut, Lebanon in 1949. In the meetings of the CSW, the early Cold War tensions both hindered and foregrounded not only the rights of working women in the West but the comparatively rights-less status of women workers in colonial territories. Among the human rights advanced by international welfare feminism in 1949 included the important notion of equal pay for women. The CSW heralded increased dissent between different position-holders on women’s right to equal pay in a time when millions of women had been laid off following the Second World War but these tensions should not be reduced to East-West ideological battles alone. This chapter situates the year that followed the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) relative to international welfare feminist history.

The article is based on a critical cosmopolitan outlook on dialogue as not aimed at reaching consensus, but rather keeping dialogue of difference open, with the ability to reach common understanding of human rights on conflicting grounds. Intersectional dialogue is used as a concept that opens up possibilities to study, in a pragmatic sense, the ‘cosmopolitan space’ in which different axles of power met in the historical drafting of human rights. By enacting analysis of United Nations (UN) documents from 1948 on the process of drafting the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) the conceptualization of intersectional dialogue is put to work. The utopian foundation for deliberative democracy as dialogue in the absence of power and interest does not acknowledge the reality in which the human rights were negotiated and debated. The paper questions the dominant narrative of a western philosophical ground for the universality of human rights.

This paper distinguishes Swedish feminist internationalists in the early Cold War years appointed to high positions at the United Nations (UN) whose political commitments were connected to pluralism, democracy, and a solidarity with the poor. Alva Myrdal, Agda Rössel, and Ulla Lindström were three Swedish women appointed some of the highest positions attained by women in the UN in the late 1940s and 1950s. Their stance on the interrelatedness of women’s political and economic rights is in this paper read as characteristic of the Swedish Middle Way. A special focus in the paper is on the parliamentarian debates regarding the Swedish Middle Way in which Ulla Lindström expounded on her experiences from her work as delegate to the UN. Human rights actualized by feminist internationalists included equal pay for women supported by working unions, preschool and day-care facilities for working mothers, as well as social security and social services for families in poverty, but the high-ranking positions of these women at the UN were questioned both domestically and within the UN.

Who were the non-Western women delegates who took part in the drafting of the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) from 1945-1948? Which member states did these women represent, and in what ways did they push for a more inclusive language than "the rights of Man" in the texts? This book provides a gendered historical narrative of human rights from the San Francisco Conference in 1945 to the final vote of the UDHR in the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948. It highlights the contributions by Latin American feminist delegates, and the prominent non-Western female representatives from new member states of the UN.

This book provides a critical history of influential women in the United Nations and seeks to inspire empowerment with role models from bygone eras.

The women whose voices this book presents helped shape UN conventions, declarations, and policies with relevance to the international human rights of women throughout the world today. From the founding of the UN up until the Latin American feminist movements that pushed for gender equality in the UN Charter, and the Security Council Resolutions on the role of women in peace and conflict, the volume reflects on how women delegates from different parts of the world have negotiated and disagreed on human rights issues related to gender within the UN throughout time. In doing so it sheds new light on how these hidden historical narratives enrich theoretical studies in international relations and global agency today. In view of contemporary feminist and postmodern critiques of the origin of human rights, uncovering women’s history of the United Nations from both Southern and Western perspectives allows us to consider questions of feminism and agency in international relations afresh.

The role of women in the history of the United Nations should be seen in the context of emerging and re-emerging debates in International History and International Relations. A cartoon of the problem characterizes international history as lacking in theoretical self-consciousness and fearful of the contamination of contemporary relevance to policy and social practice. International Relations on the other hand is beset by increasingly reified theories distant from empiricism. The role of international feminism during the early Cold War period has been simplified in earlier accounts as mired in dichotomies obscuring links between welfarism and feminism on the one hand and internationalism and feminism on the other. One of the important insights of the emerging literature on global governance and multilateralism is what Acharya has called the “pluralization of agency”. Agency should not be equated with states, or organized non-state actors, but also individual women and men.

This chapter presents three cases of language inaccessibility during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using the concepts of linguicism, ableism and audism we will examine and discuss: (1) how ideas about ability lead to (re)-oppression, (2) when and how changes reversing language inaccessibility can come about, and (3) how oppression, once it is known, still doesn’t change practices. Ethnographic and netnographic observations of and from within activist and non-governmental groups have been employed to collect data for three cases of how the deaf, the hard-of-hearing, and people with cognitive disabilities were affected by the pandemic. The results reveal (re)formation of obstacles to education when moved online, blocked access to vital healthcare information due to institutionalised language inaccessibility and how activist, non-governmental groups and stakeholders themselves, in coalition, overcame some of the barriers through activism which taught others about their own vulnerability.

Nyhetsmedier skapar och upprätthåller allmänhetens föreställningar och förståelser om de ämnen som de rapporterar om. De har möjlighet att bland annat påverka allmänhetens föreställningar om särskilda grupper i samhället – däribland muslimer och förmodade muslimer. Denna grupp stereotypiseras som terrorister som utgör ett okontrollerbart hot mot det västerländska samhället. Syftet med denna studie är därmed att undersöka hur medier upprätthåller dessa stereotypa skildringar av muslimer och förmodade muslimer.

Detta undersöks genom att studera hur den misstänkte gärningspersonen i det så kallade Boliden-fallet framställs av medier och vidare hur det kan förstås genom de teoretiska begreppen stigmatisering och andrafiering. Materialet till studien består av artiklar publicerade mellan den 18 november och 6 december 2015 i Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Expressen, Svenska Dagbladet, Norran och Västerbottens-Kuriren. Artiklarna undersöktes genom en tematisk analys där tre huvudteman identifierades (1) misstänkliggörandet av mannen och misstänkliggörandet av muslimer (2) hotet mot Sverige och (3) säkerhetspolisen och mediernas roll.

Resultaten av studien visar att mannen i Boliden-fallet initialt beskrivs av medierna genom etnicitet och som ett hot mot Sverige och utan bekräftade uppgifter stämplas han som en sympatisör till terrororganisationen IS. Studiens slutsats är att medierna har en betydande roll för rekonstruerandet av maktordningen i samhället då individer och grupper utanför normen stereotypiseras. Mediernas gestaltning av Boliden-fallet visar hur de skapar en falsk förståelse för terrorism och hur det kan leda till att muslimer och förmodade muslimer stereotypiseras av allmänheten.

The aim of this study has been to investigate why children spend time on Youtube. The study tries to answer the question why by taking part of childrens thoughts on Youtube as a digital room and what kind of feelings and emotions they experience while spending time there. The study shows that the informants spend time on Youtube to learn things they themselves think of as useful and interesting, in an enjoyful way and together with others with whom they have a shared interest. The study also shows that the informants spend time on Youtube in order to experience strong feelings, both ’negative’ and ’positive’, and that many of these ’negative’ feelings are experienced to have a positive effect. The informants also spend time on Youtube because it is experienced as a safe ’place of their own’ and as a world free from adult norms and values. On Youtube children get to experience feelings and take part of information and perspectives that normally aren´t available to them on platforms specifically aimed at children. In the digital room Youtube, children’s content flow is defined by children´s needs and interests, not their age. Spending time on Youtube therefore gives children a possibility, if only for a short moment of time, to experience how it feels to not first and foremost be a child. Finally the study shows that Youtube is an important part of many children´s daily lives and a shared platform for discussion topics between peers. It is also a place that encourages both activity and creativity instead of only passive media consumption.

Background: There are concerns and diverse experiences related to infertility and childlessness. The lived experience of infertile people from various cultures needs to be explored. Objective: The aim of this qualitative study was to explore Iranian women experiences of their infertility. Materials and Methods: The data comprised interviews about fertility issues in the Persian language with eighteen women, aged 17-45 yr old, who agreed to be interviewed at the Mottahari Infertility Treatment Clinic, affiliated to the Urmia University of Medical Sciences about their fertility problems. They were approached by the researchers at the time of their first visit. The verbatim transcribed interviews were analyzed using deductive conventional content analysis. Results: The experiences of the informants were conceptualized into four major themes: 1) Shock (subthemes: Disbelief and Denial); 2) Reaction (subthemes: Distress, Guilt, Loss of self-esteem and Sexual reluctance); 3) Processing (subthemes: Internal processing, Avoidance, Marriage at risk, External processing, Stigma caused by the family and Stigma caused by the community) and 4) Reorientation (subthemes: Forgetting, Marriage to saving marriage and Sexual consent). Conclusion: Infertility can be a challenging condition. Considering that infertility-related issues affect Iranian women more contextual factors is necessary. So, culturally sensitive and gender specific protocols are suggested to provide suitable and about culturally sensitive and gender-specific protocols is a necessity in order to provide suitable care to infertile women.

Den här uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka vad ett feministiskt poststrukturalistiskt subjektsteoretiskt angreppssätt kan ge för kunskap om barns subjekt- och könsskapande i förskolan. Detta teoretiskt/metodologiska perspektiv innebär i den här uppsatsen att kön ses som något som görs inom språk och diskurser i vardagliga lokala pedagogiska processer och att jag, både som pedagog och forskare, deltar som medskapande i dessa. I undersökningen analyseras samtalet mellan mig och fem barn under en aktivitet som jag leder och som handlar om bokstavssymboler och bokstavsljud. Barnen var i åldrarna fem till sex år och samtalet är inspelat med mp3-spelare. Genom diskursanalys och dekonstruktion gör jag olika läsningar av tre sekvenser från ljudinspelningen. Jag skriver fram ett antal verksamma diskurser: Vuxen/barn-diskursen, rolig pojke-diskursen, fina flickan-diskursen, bokstavs-diskursen, utvecklings-diskursen, tävlings- och samarbetsdiskurserna samt den kompensatoriska genus-diskursen. Dessa diskurser som jag identifierar/skapar bildar sammantaget diskursiva kedjor som sätter gränser för vad som är möjligt att göra och bli, som kön och subjekt, i den här situationen. I mina läsningar blir alla vi som deltar, både barnen och jag, aktiva i att skapa könad subjektivitet. Särskilt intressant ur mitt perspektiv som blivande förskollärare är hur jag, i egenskap av pedagog och vuxen, omedvetet och trots mina ambitioner att göra annorlunda, deltar i att skapa stereotypa könssubjekt. Den roliga och tävlingsinriktade pojken och den fina samarbetande flickan positioneras via den makt jag ges i samtalet.

Ineffective hill management policy at the national level and weak enforcement by thelocal authorities has created space for developing many informal settlements alonglandslide prone hillslopes in Chittagong city, Bangladesh. These settlements areconsidered illegal by the formal authorities, the settlers perceive their presence inthose areas as legal occupants, which have caused land tenure conflicts with formalauthorities over the last decades. The continual land tenure conflict has weakenedinstitutional arrangement for reducing vulnerability to landslides in the informalsettlements. The thesis paper is prepared based on the findings of a case study on thelandslides which occurred in 2007 in Chittagong city. The fieldwork of the study wascarried out using qualitative tools such as individual interviewing of organisationalrespondents and a focus group interview in Matijarna informal settlement to examinewhat institutional changes have occurred for reducing social vulnerability of informalsettlers to landslides in Chittagong city. The study finds that the institutional changeshave occurred as short-term mitigation policies like establishing structural measuresalong hillslopes for adjustment and relocation of the most vulnerable informal settlers.Anchoring on institutional change theory, the study suggests that new policies mayreduce social vulnerability of informal settlers to landslides through addressing thefollowing issues. First, previous institutional arrangements and how those shapedpresent vulnerability of informal settlers to landslides must be understood. Second,land tenure security of the informal settlers must be well incorporated in currentmitigation policies. Third, organisational coordination should be strengthened fromnational to local level, as well as, between government agencies and otherorganisations like NGOs and civil society to facilitate policy implementation process.

This book traces the history of how evolutionary biology transformed its understanding of females from being coy, reserved and sexually passive, to having active sexual strategies and often mating with multiple males. Why did it take so long to discover female active sexual strategies? What prevented some researchers from engaging in sexually active females, and what prompted others to develop this new knowledge?

The Female Turn provides a global overview of shifting perceptions about females in sexual selection research on a wide range of animals, from invertebrates to primates. Evolutionary biologist and feminist science scholar Malin Ah-King explores this history from a unique interdisciplinary vantage point. Based on extensive knowledge of the scientific literature on sexual selection and in-depth interviews with leading researchers, pioneers and feminist scientists in the field, her analysis engages with key theoretical approaches in gender studies of science. Analyzing the researchers’ scientific interests, theoretical frameworks, specific study animals, technological innovations, methodologies and sometimes feminist insights, reveals how these have shaped conclusions drawn about sex. Thereby, The Female Turn shows how certain researchers gained knowledge about active females whereas others missed, ignored or delayed it – that is, how ignorance was produced.

While it is widely acknowledged that Darwin’s descriptions of females were gender-biased, gender bias in current sexual selection research is less recognized. An examination of the history of sexual selection research shows prevalent male precedence—that research starts with male-centered investigations or explanations and thereafter includes female-centered equivalents. In comparison, the incidence of female precedence is low. Furthermore, a comparison between the volume of publications focusing on sexual selection in males versus in females shows that the former far outnumber the latter. This bias is not only a historical pattern; sexual selection theory and research are still male-centered—due to conspicuous traits, practical obstacles, and continued gender bias. Even the way sexual selection is commonly defined contributes to this bias. This history provides an illustrative example by which we can learn to recognize biases and identify gaps in knowledge. I conclude with a call for the scientific community to interrogate its own biases and suggest strategies for alleviating biases in this field and beyond.

What cultural nerves are triggered by the mutations of sexed biologies associated with artificially produced hormones? Evolutionary biologist and gender studies scholar Malin Ah-King and gender studies scholar Eva Hayward question the essentialist and heteronormative assumptions that frame contemporary discourses on the toxicity of endocrine disruptors.

Purpose - Policy for women's entrepreneurship is designed to promote economic growth, not least in depleted rural areas, but very little is known about the contributions of rural women entrepreneurs, their needs or how the existing policy is received by them. Using a theoretical framework developed by Korsgaard et al. (2015), the authors analyse how rural women entrepreneurs contribute to rural development and discuss the implications for entrepreneurship policy. This paper aims to focus on the aforementioned objectives.

Design/methodology/approach - The authors interviewed 32 women entrepreneurs in rural Sweden representing the variety of businesses in which rural Swedish women are engaged. The authors analysed their contributions to rural development by analysing their motives, strategies and outcomes using Korsgaard et al.’s framework of “entrepreneurship in the rural” and “rural entrepreneurship” as a heuristic, interpretative device.

Findings - Irrespective of industry, the respondents were deeply embedded in family and local social structures. Their contributions were substantial, multidimensional and indispensable for rural viability, but the policy tended to bypass most women-owned businesses. Support in terms of business training, counselling and financing are important, but programmes especially for women tend to miss the mark, and so does rural development policy. More important for rural women entrepreneurs in Sweden is the provision of good public services, including for example, schools and social care, that make rural life possible.

Research limitations/implications - Theoretically, the findings question the individualist and a-contextual focus of much entrepreneurship research, as well as the taken-for-granted work–family divide. How gender and how the public and the private are configured varies greatly between contexts and needs contextual assessment. Moreover, the results call for theorising place as an entrepreneurial actor.

Practical implications - Based on the findings, the authors advise future policymakers to gender mainstream entrepreneurship policy and to integrate entrepreneurship and rural development policy with family and welfare state policy.

Originality/value - The paper highlights how rural women respond to policy, and the results are contextualised, making it possible to compare them to other contexts. The authors widen the discussion on contributions beyond economic growth, and the authors show that policy for public and commercial services and infrastructure is indeed also policy for entrepreneurship.

This study aims to contribute to the debate on the influence of Europarties in the European Union decision-making process, and more precisely in the European Council. As a starting point the theory on Europarty influence in the European Council, by Jonas Tallberg and Karl Magnus Johansson, will be tested in order to assess its validity. There is a need to further research the role of the Europarties in the decision-making processes of the European Union, since the contributions to the field are scarce. The theory suggests that Europarties can be expected to be influential when 1) there is ideological polarisation surrounding the question of concern, 2) one party is dominating the European Council, and 3) when a Europarty is successful in mobilising and creating cohesion among its leaders. In addition, the Europarties have to be able to compete with domestic constraints that the members of the Council are bound by. The theory is empirically tested by a comparative case study on the outcomes of the Spitzenkandidaten-processes in the European elections in 2014 and 2019. It seems that the Europarties were influential and managed to get a Spitzenkandidat elected as Commission President in 2014, but less successful in 2019. However, the findings of the empirical study suggest that the Europarties were successful in mobilising support also in 2019, but a chain of events led to the fall of the Spitzenkandidaten-process in its current shape and the Europarties have most likely lost a part of their long-term influence.

I kapitlet analyseras det komplicerade samspelet mellan nationell nivå och EU-nivå och mellan olika industrial relations-traditioner, under försöken att skapa en europeisk reglering av anställningsvillkoren för arbetstagare som hyrs ut av bemanningsföretag.

Gender historical research today breaks up the borderlines between stereotypical notions of femininity and masculinity in relation to war and peace. It demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of the gendered divisions between home and front, civilian and military spheres, peacetime and wartime. Such perspectives on gender, war and peace have vitalized Nordic history research in the 21st century.

In this report of the 28th Congress of Nordic Historians in Joensuu, Finland, gender relations surrounding the organization of military power, warfare, and peace activism in the Nordic countries are discussed and problematized.

The chapters span from the Early Modern period to the Cold War. Posing new questions to old subject matters, the authors question previously takenfor- granted understandings of the gender relations informing women’s and men’s activities in relation to war and peace.

The Discounted Cumulated Impact (DCI) index has recently been proposed for research evaluation. In the present work an earlier dataset by Cronin and Meho (2007) is reanalyzed, with the aim of exemplifying the salient features of the DCI index. We apply the index on, and compare our results to, the outcomes of the Cronin-Meho (2007) study. Both authors and their top publications are used as units of analysis, which suggests that, by adjusting the parameters of evaluation according to the needs of research evaluation, the DCI index delivers data on an author's (or publication's) "lifetime" impact or current impact at the time of evaluation on an author's (or publication's) capability of inviting citations from highly cited later publications as an indication of impact, and on the relative impact across a set of authors (or publications) over their "lifetime" or currently.

In this study we tested the fruitfulness of advanced bibliometric methods for mapping subdomains in philosophy. The development of the number of publications on free will and sorites, the two subdomains treated in the study, over time was studied. We applied the cocitation approach to map the most cited publications, authors and journals, and we mapped frequently occurring terms, using a term co-occurrence approach. Both subdomains show a strong increase of publications in Web of Science. When we decomposed the publications by faculty, we could see an increase of free will publications also in social sciences, medicine and natural sciences. The multidisciplinary character of free will research was reflected in the cocitation analysis and in the term co-occurrence analysis: we found clusters/groups of cocited publications, authors and journals, and of co-occurring terms, representing philosophy as well as non-philosophical fields, such as neuroscience and physics. The corresponding analyses of sorites publications displayed a structure consisting of research themes rather than fields. All in all, both philosophers involved in this study acknowledge the validity of the various networks presented. Bibliometric mapping appears to provide an interesting tool for describing the cognitive orientation of a research field, not only in the natural and life sciences but also in philosophy, which this study shows.

This Bachelor thesis is a case study that explores the possibilities and complications to use social media in marketing purposes. The case involves a company that sells garments for men. The company, named Mouli, has decided to use social media as their marketing platform. The company makes an interesting case, since they are still quite new on the market and have all the possibilities to succeed.

The purpose for the thesis is to examine Mouli’s use of marketing in social media and to evaluate what could be done to amend the communication. The purpose is also to discuss and reflect certain effects that the company is exposed to when using these media channels. These questions has been subject throughout the thesis:

1. Description of Mouli’s communication, what is said and how is it presented?
2. How well is Mouli’s brand with its core values presented in their communication?
3. What kind of expectations is there and what significance does the communication in the social media have for the company?

The thesis is based on theories from marketing communication, such as the concepts brand, core values, superior value, brand image, brand identity and storytelling. These theories have been applied to the theories about communication on the web and social media.

This case study was accomplished with qualitative analysis and interviews. The method being used was Kozinets´ nethnography, together with Roman Jakobson’s communication model and picture analysis based on Barthes theories.

The results showed that Mouli’s communication functioned and it was well connected to the brand with its core values. The setback is that Mouli does not use the social media channels to their full potential and therefore there are measures that have to be executed.

Syftet med denna uppsats har varit att undersöka vilka argument som presenteras i debatten om straffreduktionen i svensk media samt hur dessa perspektiv kan förstås i förhållande till kriminalpolitiska begrepp. Argumenten som har identifierats i mediaartiklarna har sedan presenterats och jämfört hur de förhållit sig till Statens offentliga utredning 2018:85 (SOU 2018:85). Uppsatsen genomfördes med straffrättsteorierna och straffrättspolitiken som teoretisk grund. Materialet bestod av argumenterande artiklar från dags- och kvällstidningar samt begränsades till de som publicerats efter SOU 2018:85 (18 december 2018). Vi utgick från en positivistisk vetenskapsteori och använde oss av en tematisk analysmetod.

Resultatet visar att bland argumenten för straffreduktionens slopande återfanns förtroende för både individualprevention, allmänprevention och vedergällning. Återkommande ansåg dessa straffrättsteorier ha goda förutsättningar för att hantera och minska brottsnivåerna i samhället och flera skribenter ansåg att dessa var ett måste för att motverka grov kriminalitet. De som argumenterade emot slopandet förkastade dock de ovannämnda teorierna, där kunde i stället proportionalitetsprincipen och humanitetsprincipen identifieras.

De som argumenterar emot straffreduktionens slopande förhåller sig i större utsträckning till SOU 2018:85 då de menar att slopandet inte kommer verka brottspreventivt och potentiellt kan leda till höjda brottsnivåer i framtiden. De som argumenterar för slopandet hänvisar i större utsträckning till det allmänna rättsmedvetandet då fokus ligger kring rättvisa och upprättelse. Vilket indikerar att debatten har en linje av offensiv straffrättspolitik.

Latent driver sleepiness may in some cases be masked by for example social interaction, stress and physical activity. This short-term modulation of sleepiness may also result from environmental factors, such as when driving in stimulating environments. The aim of this study is to compare two road environments and investigate how they affect driver sleepiness. Thirty young male drivers participated in a driving simulator experiment where they drove two scenarios: a rural environment with winding roads and low traffic density, and a suburban road with higher traffic density and a more built-up roadside environment. The driving task was essentially the same in both scenarios, i.e. to stay on the road, without much interaction with other road users. A 2 x 2 design, with the conditions rural versus suburban, and daytime (full sleep) versus night-time (sleep deprived), was used. The results show that there were only minor effects of the road environment on subjective and physiological indicators of sleepiness. In contrast, there was an increase in subjective sleepiness, longer blink durations and increased EEG alpha content, both due to time on task and to night-time driving. The two road environments differed both in terms of the demand on driver action and of visual load, and the results indicate that action demand is the more important of the two factors. The notion that driver fatigue should be countered in a more stimulating visual environment such as in the city is thus more likely due to increased task demand rather than to a richer visual scenery. This should be investigated in further studies.

The global hydrological cycle is characterized by complex interdependencies and self-regulating feedbacks that keep water in an ever-evolving state of flux at local, regional, and global levels. Increasingly, the scale of human impacts in the Anthropocene is altering the dynamics of this cycle, which presents additional challenges for water governance. Earth system law provides an important approach for addressing gaps in governance that arise from the mismatch between the global hydrological cycle and dispersed regulatory architecture across institutions and geographic regions. In this article, we articulate the potential for Earth system law to account for core hydrological problems that complicate water governance, including delay, redistribution, intertwinements, permanence, and scale. Through merging concepts from Earth system law with existing policy and legal principles, we frame an approach for addressing hydrological problems in the Anthropocene and strengthening institutional fit between established governance systems and the global hydrological cycle. We discuss how such an approach can be applied, and the challenges and implications for governing water as a cycle and complex social-hydrological system, both in research and practice.

Purpose - Immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees living in Europe face a number of challenges in accessing or using health information and healthcare services available in their host countries. To resolve these issues and deliver the necessary services, providers must take a comprehensive approach to better understand the types of health information and healthcare services that these individuals need, seek and use. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to develop that comprehensive approach.

Design/methodology/approach - In this paper, a systematic literature review of peer-reviewed publications was performed, with 3.013 articles collected from various databases. A total of 57 qualifying papers on studies conducted in Europe were included in the review after applying the predefined inclusion and exclusion requirements, screening processes and eliminating duplicates. The information seeking and communication model (ISCM) was used in the analysis.

Findings - The findings revealed that while many health information and healthcare services are accessible in Europe for immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees, many of these individuals are unaware of their existence or how to access them. While our findings do not specify what health-related information these groups need, use or seek, they do suggest the importance and value of providing mental health, sexual health and HIV, as well as pregnancy and childbirth information and services. Furthermore, according to our results, health information services should be fact-based, easy to understand and raise awareness about healthcare structure and services available in Europe for this vulnerable population.

Practical implications - This study has a range of practical implications, including (1) highlighting the need for mental health and behavioural health services and (2) stressing the value of addressing cultural context and religious values while investigating (health) information seeking of people with foreign background.

Originality/value - This is one of the first studies to systematically review and examine the behaviour of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees in relation to health information and healthcare services in the European context.

Fishing for prawn (Macrobrachium rosenbergii) postlarvae is a major contributor to the livelihoods of the coastal poor in Bangladesh, including women. A study of coastal livelihoods along the lower Pasur River in southwest Bangladesh indicates that on average 40% of total annual income comes from postlarvae fishing during the few months involved. However, indiscriminate fishing of wild postlarvae, with high levels of by-catch, has an impact on biodiversity in coastal ecosystems. This has provoked imposition of restrictions on postlarvae collection. The ban has, however, not been firmly enforced because of the lack of alternative livelihoods for coastal poor. A conceptual framework, drawn from an approach to poverty reduction known as the sustainable livelihoods approach, is applied to understanding the role of prawn postlarvae fishing. Evidence from this study suggests that postlarvae fishers faced a number of livelihood constraints, including poor livelihood assets. This paper concludes that wider livelihood options need to be found for postlarvae fishers to support their livelihoods.