This research in the field of transport sociology explores how workplaces in Stockholm can become actors in managing transport demand and through soft measures contribute to an increase of sustainable and active commuting to work and short-distance travel on work purposes. It uses a mixed-method approach consisting of a review of official documents, publications and initiatives, a web-survey and semi-structured interviews with representatives of Stockholm’s public and private workplaces. The study uncovers the current role of workplaces in mobility management policies of Stockholm, analyzes internal and external factors that influence the likelihood of workplaces to encourage sustainable and active commute and travel to meetings within the city among their employees and provides recommendations on how workplaces engagement can be increased. Being occasionally mentioned in the policy documents or invited to take part in climate or cycling-focused initiatives, workplaces in Stockholm are now at different stages in their willingness to have travel policies and participate in on-site mobility management. Internal and external factors influence the motivation of public and private, larger and smaller workplaces differently. With further research, comprehensive communication, questioning the status quo and establishing a constant dialogue between the city and workplaces there is a big potential to involve workplaces as new actors into various existing initiatives.

Syfte: Syftet med denna uppsats är att illustrera vilka effekter olika medietyper och medieteknologier har på biblioteksutformning samt på vilket sätt. Detta undersöks genom två grupper av frågeställningar där den ena fokuserar på medieteknologier som en aktör i ett nätverk och den andra hänvisar till medieteknologiers placering och effekten därav. Teori: För att besvara dessa frågeställningar används i uppsatsen tre huvudsakliga teorier som består av materiell media-teori, posthumanism samt aktör-nätverksteori (ANT). Metod: Den genomförda undersökningen är en fallstudie, och använder sig av en kombination av observationer, existerande dokument och semi-strukturerade intervjuer för att samla in ett empiriskt dataunderlag. Vidare används en kvalitativ innehållsanalys för att bearbeta det insamlade materialet. Slutsatser: Uppsatsen kommer fram till att processen att utforma ett fysiskt bibliotek kan karakteriseras som ett aktör-nätverk med ett stort antal aktörer som inverkar på bibliotekets design. Medier och medieteknologier är en av dessa aktörer som påverkar bibliotekets utformning genom deras kopplingar till andra aktörer, till värderingar och symbolism samt genom deras materiella förutsättningar.

During the past decade policies and strategies for social sustainability have been developed in order to draw attention to the issue of redistribution of resources in the city and the creation of environments for everyone, and to “enhance social sustainability” is a common policy objective in contemporary Swedish urban planning. It is, however, not clear or predictable what social strategies actually deliver in terms of tangible results. On the one hand, the introduction of the concept has encouraged a debate around equality and democracy in urban areas. On the other hand, in a context of an entrepreneurially oriented urban development, the concept seems to legitimise actions “in the name of sustainability”, that do not necessarily have any redistributive effects. The aim of this project has been to explore how social sustainability as a policy objective is framed and realised in contemporary Swedish municipal urban planning, and what difficulties might occur in the implementation of social strategies. The purpose has been answered through the following research questions: How is the concept of social sustainability incorporated and operationalised within the sphere of urban planning and city administration? What kind of obstacles and goal conflicts that obstruct implementation do the actors involved experience? In order to carry out the aim and answer the research questions a case study has been realised in the municipality of Huddinge. Two different qualitative methods have been used. Analysis of policy documents has demonstrated how the concept of social sustainability is defined in the municipality and what goals and strategies are set up in order to reach there. Semi-structured interviews with planning actors in the municipal organisation have created an understanding of how the public servants handle the issue in their everyday practice and what kind of obstacles they encounter. The theoretical framework consists of two components. Theoretical reasoning around the concept of social sustainability sheds light on what possibilities as well as contradictive and conflictual aspects the concept entails. The approach of Actor Network Theory has allowed an understanding of the municipal organisation as an assemblage of different human and non-human actors involved in the task of making Huddinge socially sustainable. Furthermore, it has encouraged an open-ended inquiry emerging from the interviewees' own perspectives, preventing an understanding limited to explanations anticipated beforehand. The most important results show that the social sustainability work in Huddinge consists of ambitious objectives but that the efforts are performed in a loosely connected network of heterogeneous actors where the work is rather fragmented and many efforts are dependent on individuals. Artefacts in terms of, for example, check-lists play an important role in order to allow all planners to function as agents of change. Implementation difficulties has shown to be wider than usually indicated, and are mainly related to lack of political prioritisation among objectives, lack of routines and knowledge, preconceptions and lack of representation among planners, lack of possibilities to influence market conditions as well as the prioritisation of economic aspects over social issues. In order to facilitate implementation a number of suggestions are being made, including the promotion of a political debate around social objectives and the meaning of social sustainability, to increase resources for the development of routines and an increased knowledge base in order to stabilise the network, and to find means to limit the influence of private actors. It is also concluded that social sustainability has to be prioritised and that goal conflicts with the economic dimension has to be handled in order to produce substantial change. / Under det senaste decenniet har strategier för social hållbarhet utvecklats för att uppmärksamma frågan om urban resursfördelning och skapandet av miljöer för alla, och att ”stärka social hållbarhet” är ett vanligt policymål i dagens svenska stadsplanering. Det är dock inte varken självklart eller förutsägbart vad sociala strategier faktiskt leder till för konkreta resultat. Å ena sidan har introducerande av begreppet social hållbarhet uppmuntrat till debatt kring jämlikhets- och demokratifrågor. Å andra sidan, i en kontext av en entreprenöriellt orienterad stadsutveckling, verkar begreppet kunna legitimera åtgärder ”i hållbarhetens namn”, som inte har någon egentlig omfördelande effekt. Syftet med studien har varit att utforska hur social hållbarhet som ett policymål inramas och förverkligas i nutida svensk stadsplanering, samt vilka svårigheter som kan uppstå i implementeringen av sociala strategier. Syftet har besvarats genom följande forskningsfrågor: Hur är begreppet social hållbarhet införlivat och operationaliserat inom området stadsplanering och kommunal förvaltning? Vilka svårigheter och målkonflikter som försvårar implementering upplevs av involverade aktörer? En fallstudie i Huddinge kommun har utförts för att uppfylla syftet och svara på forskningsfrågorna. Två olika kvalitativa metoder har använts. Analys av policydokument har visat hur konceptet social hållbarhet definieras i kommunen samt vilka mål och strategier som har satts upp för att nå dit. Semistrukturerade intervjuer har skapat en förståelse för hur tjänstepersonerna i den kommunala organisationen hanterar frågan i deras vardagspraktik och vilka typer av svårigheter de upplever. Studiens teoretiska ramverk består av två delar. Ett teoretiskt resonemang kring begreppet social hållbarhet tydliggör vilka möjligheter samt vilka motsägelsefulla och konfliktuella aspekter begreppet bär på. Angreppssättet aktör-nätverksteori har möjliggjort en förståelse av den kommunala organisationen som en samling av olika mänskliga och icke-mänskliga aktörer involverade i uppgiften att göra Huddinge socialt hållbart. Dessutom har det uppmuntrat en förutsättningslös undersökning utifrån intervjupersonernas egna perspektiv, vilket har förhindrat en förståelse begränsad till på förhand antagna förklaringar. De viktigaste resultaten visar att arbetet för social hållbarhet i Huddinge består av ambitiösa målsättningar, men att ansträngningar utförs i ett löst sammansatt nätverk av heterogena aktörer där arbetet är relativt splittrat och många insatser är individberoende. Artefakter i form av exempelvis checklistor spelar en betydande roll i att tillåta alla planerare att fungera som förändringsagenter. Implementeringssvårigheter har visat sig vara bredare än vad som vanligtvis föreslås, och beror främst på brist på politisk prioritering bland målsättningar, brist på rutiner och kunskap, fördomar och brist på representation i planerarkåren, brist på verktyg att påverka marknadsvillkor samt prioritering av ekonomiska aspekter framför sociala frågor. Ett antal förslag för att underlätta implementering ges, vilka innefattar att stimulera en politisk debatt runt sociala målsättningar och betydelsen av begreppet social hållbarhet, att satsa ökade resurser på att utveckla rutiner och en utökad kunskapsbas med syftet att stabilisera nätverket, samt att hitta sätt att begränsa privata aktörers inflytande. Slutsatsen har även dragits att social hållbarhet måste prioriteras samt att målkonflikter med den ekonomiska dimensionen behöver hanteras för att någon betydande förändring ska kunna ske.

Museums are increasingly reckoning with their roles in the colonization of Indigenous peoples as they seek to engage diverse forms of participation and justify their social relevance. Many are turning to digital solutions to aid with these endeavors, including digital repatriation/return platforms. How users interact with these platforms to create knowledge and how these platforms contribute to a larger decolonial aspiration is not well understood. In this study, I explore these issues, drawing on postcolonial/decolonial theories and affordance theory, using the Reciprocal Research Network (RRN). The RRN was co-designed by the Museum of Anthropology, U’mista Cultural Society, Musqueam Indian Band, and Stó:lō Nation/Tribal Council to meet the need for museums to involve Indigenous communities in heritage work. With an actor-network theory approach, I interviewed nine stakeholders (users, developers, and steering group members) of the RRN and explored the platform and documents to identify RRN actors’ specific enactments of decolonial aspirations as affordances. My exploration revealed that the RRN is bound as a network by the Item Search, which allowed for multiple entry points into a vast collection of heritage objects. These multiple entryways broke down technical and cultural barriers to and allowed for plurality in interaction with heritage. The RRN also allowed a direct contestation of museums’ data ownership by allowing users to dictate how shared knowledge is used. The RRN also was deeply embedded in Vancouver, BC, and its surrounding area, where multiple points of offline/online interaction allowed for deep explorations of the histories of First Nations peoples and aided in projects aimed at their revival. However, platform logics and museums’ lack of participation in relationship-building threatened the decolonial aspirations of the RRN. Broadly, my findings indicate that the RRN, as a communal heritage platform, is a necessary step towards building relations with Indigenous communities that requires further participation on museums’ part to develop.

My diploma thesis, How to recognize an apple "farm"?, examine the way of creating farmers market at Holešovice. I come from Actor-network theory which sees as actor not only people but the objects and organizations too. This theory does not distinguish human and non-human actors. The data required for analysis, I obtained mainly through participant observation, interviews and analysis of material culture. My work is focused on the discovery of meanings which visitors attribute to "farmers". Further, the ways of communication of this meanings. Finally I reveal the actors who construct the ideas about farmers and the real market. On the creating of market participate not only organizers, vendors and visitors. I show that the time and context of the market, holding the tradition of vegetable markets, the place of performance, the size of hall, weather, seasonality and the possibility of electronic communication play the important role too.

The increasingly ubiquitous role of smartphones in our everyday lives causes concerns regarding our relationship with the devices. While some raise the question whether smartphones are addictive (Alter 2017; Lopez-Fernandez 2019), others regard this concern as the most recent manifestation of moral panics (Cashmore, Cleland & Dixon 2018; Leick 2019). Meanwhile advocates of the attention economy argument claim that the problem is the design of technology occupying users’ attention (CHT 2019a-d). Somewhere in between, media and communication studies search for empirical evidence. From this vantage point of ideas this study explores the role of Screen Time, shaping and being shaped by this discourse. As a feature of Apple’s iOS software it is supposed to support users in regulating their smartphone use. Applying the walkthrough method as proposed by Light, Burgess & Duguay (2018) combined with an analysis of user experiences, shows how the technology company shapes a concept of self-regulation for users to adopt to. A concept, which first and foremost follows corporate and not the users’ best interest. This thesis poses the the question whether we are slaves to our screens, but arrives at the conclusion that we carry chains of self-regulation. The question remains, how we can create more sustainable and meaningful environments for protecting our attention.

The motivation for this research comes from the belief that an over reliance on a social constructivist perspective has caused development studies in general, and post-development in particular, to under-theorize the role of discourse in development. A key issue in post-development studies concerns whether or not development organizations depoliticize their interventions. The notion of depoliticization provides a perfect occasion for examining more deeply the role of discourse in development. This research uses the actor-network theory constructivist framework to analyze a USAID funded development program in Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan): Mercy Corps' Peaceful Communities Initiative (PCI). The research approach used in this study involved both traditional ethnographic methods and document analysis. The ethnographic case material comes from multiple field visits to PCI offices in Central Asia and multiple visits to a variety of PCI community sites. The documentary evidence comes from a variety of organization and project specific documents. The embedded case studies demonstrate that materiality cannot be easily separated from sociality and that indeed the two are inseparable. Thus development discourse cannot be solely understood as a social phenomenon but could instead be understood as an assemblage of material elements through which both power and sociality flow.

This study addresses the issue of consumers’ wish to shop more sustainable fashion butinstead turning to fast fashion (Islam et al., 2021; Silva et al. 2020; Wang et al., 2022). With that said, this study discusses and examines how marketing benefits the second-hand clothes market in Sweden. Entrenched in market studies of market-shaping, market devices and actor network theory (ANT) (Nenonen et al., 2019; Muniesa et al., 2007; Sayes, 2013), this study depicts the use of market devices in the process of shaping the second-hand clothes market in Sweden. The methodology of the thesis consists of online and offline observations throughout Arkivet’s four market devices: in-store, digital media, website and e-commerce. The results show that Arkivet’s market devices reframe the market, the products within it and the interactions between buyers and sellers, which ties in with the factors necessary for market-shaping (discovering value potential and mobilizing resources) (Nenonen et al. 2019). Based on previous market studies and the observations conducted, this study assembles a newly created model representing the role market devices assume in the process of shaping an existing market.

No description available.

Syftet med föreliggande studie är att med utgångspunkt i aktör-nätverksteori undersöka relationerna genom vilka de forskningstexter (som används i kompetensutvecklingsinsatsen Läslyftet) tillsammans med andra aktörer producerar översättningsprocesser med förmågan att förändra och påverka pedagogernas sätt att tänka och prata om det vardagliga arbetet med läsning i förskolan. Tidigare studier om hur forskning och vetenskaplig kunskap används i utbildningspraktiker efterfrågar ytterligare kunskap som begreppsliggör forskningsanvändning i praktiken. Med utgångspunkt i aktör-nätverksteori undersöks i föreliggande studie i vilka relationer som forskningstexter och forskningsbaserade begrepp tillsammans med andra aktörer producerar en skillnad för pedagogers tankar och utsagor om det praktiska förskolearbetet. Genom observationer av planerings- och utvärderingsmöten samt en fokusgruppsintervju av och med deltagande pedagoger undersöks de relationer som upprättas mellan olika aktörer i praktiker inom Läslyftet. En spårande analys genomförs för att undersöka vilka relationer som upprättas och förändrar och påverkar varandra. Genom att följa fyra olika spår i det empiriska materialet synliggör studien att forskningstexterna deltar i relationer med andra aktörer så som specifika begrepp, barnböcker och dokumentationer som producerar översättningsprocesser som förändrar hur pedagogerna pratar om sin praktik. De huvudsakliga resultaten av studien visar att texternas (i egenskap av forskning) aktörskap uppstår och är beroende av de idéer, tankar och ord som pedagogerna uttrycker och som också förändras i sina sammankopplingar med varandra och andra aktörer. Resultatet synliggör ett nätverk som uppstår i och genom dessa relationer med förmågan att producera kraft och ge effekter för pedagogernas förändrade tal om förskolans praktik / The aim of this study is to examine the relations through which the research texts (used in Läslyftet) together with other actors produce translation processes with the ability to change and affect the educator’s way to think and talk about the everyday work of reading in preschool. Previous studies on how research and scientific knowledge is applied in educational practices inquire for additional knowledge that conceptualizes research used in practice. Based on actor-network theory this study examines the relations that research texts and research-based concept together with other actors produce a difference for educator’s thoughts and statements about the practical preschool work. Through observations of planning and evaluation meetings along with a focus group interview of participating educators, the study examines the relations established between different actors in practices within Läslyftet. A tracking analysis was performed to examine the relations established and transform and affect each other. By following four different traces in the empirical material, the study makes visible that the research texts participate in relations with other actors such as specific concepts, children books and documentations which produces translation processes that changes how the educators talks about their practice. The main results of the study show that the texts (in the capacity of research) ability to act occurs and is dependent on the ideas, thoughts and words that the educators express and that also changes in their interconnections with each other and other actors. The result highlights a network that is emerging in and through these relations with the ability to produce a force and give effects for the educators´ changed talk about preschool practice