The aim of this bachelor thesis was to examine how Saudi Arabia is portrayed in Swedish press. This includes the largest newspapers from the major cities of Sweden as well as the larger newspapers from the less populated areas. Since a significant amount of news in these newspapers, especially those from the less populated areas, are provided from news agencies these were included in the study as well.  The questions examined were: which portrayals of Saudi Arabia is used in the Swedish press and how frequently are they recurring? Does the historic relationship between Europe and Islam effect contemporary portrayals of Saudi Arabia in Swedish press and, in that case, how? Do differences in portrayals occur depending on the relationship between Sweden and Saudi Arabia in the news context? To approach this we conducted a quantitative framing analysis. Three frames were first identified in a qualitative study. How frequently these frames were used was then analyzed with a quantitative approach. The news articles examined were published during two news events. In 2012 information regarding the military cooperation between Sweden and Saudi Arabia surfaced causing criticism towards the Swedish regime. In 2015 the Swedish regime decided to cancel said military cooperation. The study showed that the historic relationship between Europe and Islam does indeed effect the portrayal of Saudi Arabia in Swedish press today. Attributes commonly associated with post colonialism and orientalism such as Muslims as barbaric and highly conservative was found. The study also found portrayals of Saudi Arabia as increasingly powerful and that this, due to the aforementioned attributes, was highly problematic. The “power frame”, as we chose to call it, was the most commonly used frame in both news events. The “barbaric frame” and the “conservative frame” was more commonly used in a news context were Sweden and Saudi Arabia stood in a diplomatic conflict.

This study is a postcolonial literary analysis of Miika Nousiainen’s novel Hallonbåtsflyktingen from 2007. The aim is to analyse how Sweden and Finland, along with the Swedish and Finnish characters, are portrayed in the novel. Through a close norm-critical reading and with postcolonial theory as a basis, the content and characters in the novel have been analysed. The result shows that the Finnish characters are portrayed in stereotyped patterns and described in general forms. A dichotomy of “us” and “the others” is created in the novel. The Finnish characters and Finnish culture are described negatively and constantly contrasted with positive descriptions of Sweden and Swedes. If literature teaching in school gives pupils knowledge and skills in postcolonial reading of literature, they may learn to identify and analyse negative portrayals. This might makes it possible to break down their assumptions and prejudices, and instead they become critical individuals who act in a global context. By comparing how different nationalities and cultures are presented, pupils can potentially begin to reflect on themselves and their picture of the Other.

Based on Prime Minister Harper’s 2008 Apology for the Indian Residential School (IRS) system, this thesis addresses the need to confront the intergenerational legacy of this system on non-Indigenous Canadians in order to challenge our ability to actually ‘journey together’ with Indigenous Survivors. Aiming to break the silence that has surrounded this legacy, the voices of non-Indigenous descendents of former staff, as well as my own as a non-Indigenous Canadian, expose personal experiences of the lived reality of the IRS legacy. Working from a narrative methodology from within a decolonizing framework, this research includes interviews with two descendents of former staff, as well as an auto-ethnography of myself, as researcher, to capture the lived experiences with relation to this legacy. Results from this introductory work illustrate a variety of themes needing to be acknowledged, and deals with notions of opening dialogue, violence, guilt and responsibility within the context of the IRS system. / Graduate / 0334 / 0626 / 0630 / khaiste@gmail.com

The purpose of this thesis is to examine Franklin D. Roosevelt's role as an anti-colonialist and his plan for a post-war world. Roosevelt believed that colonialism was the cause of hatred, discontent and war. With this in mind, he pursued an anti-colonial policy against the British and French empires, to him, the mainstay of colonial power.

This study is based on the relationship between the Kurds and the Left in Turkey between 1960s and 1990 in Turkey. The question of identity is discussed in terms of the continuities and ruptures in the discourse(s) of the Left in Turkey on the 'eastern question' and 'Kurdish (national) question' in this period. The main question of the research is how the Kurdish identity was constructed in the discourses of Yön, TKSP (Türkiye Kürdistanı Sosyalist Partisi - Turkish Kurdistan Socialist Party), and the PKK (Partiya Karkerên Kurdistanê - Kurdistan Workers' Party). Three sample publications/organizations representative of the leftist discourse in the period were selected to show the Left's treatment of the Kurdish question by using periodical publications, memoirs, clandestine organizational documents and through discourse analysis.

Master of Arts / Department of English / Gregory J. Eiselein / The presence and persistence of ethnicity in Sri Lanka has led scholars such as Jayadeva Uyangoda to describe Sri Lanka as an “ethnocracy” and is identified as one of the major challenges for attempts to reconcile communities after a 26-year-long civil war that ended in 2009. The emphasis on ethnicity, however, often makes it difficult for scholars to examine the discontinuities that have shaped the emergence of ethnicity as the most significant social category in the country. This thesis addresses this lacuna by providing a careful re-reading of the conditions under which ethnicity became the focus of both politics and epistemology at the turn of the 20th century in colonial Ceylon. Michel Foucault’s conceptualization of governmentality enables this examination by demonstrating how ethnicity became the terrain on which political rationalities and governmental technologies were deployed in order to shift how populations were constructed as the focus of colonial governance between 1901 and 1911. Colonial political rationalities are explored through an examination of the debate that emerged in the Census reports of P. Arunachalam (1902) and E.B. Denham (1912) over whether Ceylon is constituted by many nationalities or by one nationality—the Sinhalese—and many races. The emergence of this debate also coincided with the Crewe-McCallum Reforms of 1912 which aimed to reform the colonial state in response to the demands of the local population. Like the debate between Arunachalam and Denham, what is at stake in the reforms of 1912 is the question of whether the Island is constituted by many racial populations or a single population. The terms of these debates over ethnicity that took place over a century ago, continue to shape the tenor of Sri Lanka’s post-war political landscape and therefore provides a pathway for understanding how Sri Lanka’s post-war challenges are imbricated in the dilemmas of inhabiting its colonial present(s).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / Man has always created legends and myths for himself, and historians have only recently concerned themselves with the history of these legends. They can be a potent force. This thesis examines the mythology of imperialism: what the average literate Englishman at home thought imperialism was all about, and how he was led to think so. Webster defines "myth" as a story to explain some practice, belief, institution, or natural phenomenon. Imperial mythology is here used to mean a set of firmly- believed ideals and stories which explained, justified, and to a certain extent, qualified, the practice of imperialism. The mythology of imperialism consisted of three major elements--racial, religious, and heroic--and a host of minor ones. The racial concepts of the nineteenth century were confused and "unscientific," as we should call them. The word "race" was used interchangeably with--and usually in preference to--"nationality." People attributed to race a whole set of social and moral traits which were not demonstrably genetic in origin. Thus, it was assumed that the English were predominantly "Anglo-Saxon" with some "Celtic" strains. To the Anglo-Saxon was attributed a love of order and punctuality, and a skill with ships, justice, freedom, and parliamentary government. The Celt was supposed to be fiery, temperamental, unreliable, and poetic, but incompetent. The Englishman also had firm ideas about the rest of mankind. He constructed a graded hierarchy of color, and a linked hierarchy of moral and mental characteristics. The Indian was on a higher plane than the Zulu, but lower than the Boer. And seated at the peak, of course, was the Anglo-Saxon who, because of his eminence, was entitled to assume responsibility for the rest of the world. The religious myth, with roots in the evangelical movement, culminated in an elaborate cult of moral responsibility for the unfortunate. England's religious mission was to educate her subject peoples, and to teach them the arts of civilized life and self-government. The task involved work and self-sacrifice, but it was her Duty, and she should expect no reward but a heavenly one. Just as Britain often likened herself politically to Rome, she thought of herself as Israel's spiritual successor. Finally, there was the ideal of the hero. In a curious way, the Victorian cult of the hero was like a microcosm of nationalism. The characteristic individualism of the nineteenth century tended to glorify the adventurer, whose prowess, courage, and self-reliance had an undeniable appeal, particularly as the circumstances of modern industrial life removed the ideal from the grasp of the ordinary man. The hero was made to personify those qualities most cherished in the national self-image. The empire became a kind of stage for heroic action, and the heroes the representatives of the best of English culture. The thesis examines the role of these myths and their attendant symbols and slogans in the self-image of British imperialism. The sources used have been chiefly literary and journalistic ones. Other writers have searched political speeches and memoirs for evidence of imperial policy and attitudes, but novels, poetry, sermons, and newspapers have been curiously neglected. These sources were important myth-makers. The advent of "modern Journalism," with its techniques of mass media, meant that a greater public was exposed to the imperial ideal. Greater literacy and more leisure for reading meant a wider audience for novels and poetry, and a consequent inculcation of the imperial myth. / 2031-01-01

Although rarely included in environmental sociology, settler colonialism significantly structures eco-social relations within the United States. This work considers the range of environmental practices and epistemologies influenced by settler colonial impositions in law, culture and discourse. In this dissertation I also introduce the term colonial ecological violence as a framework for considering the outcomes of this structuring in terms of the disproportionate impacts on Indigenous peoples and communities. / 2020-09-06

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University / As the title of this thesis indicates, this work deals with the former Italian Colonies during the period of 1945-50. Economically speaking all three territories are of little value. Their importance lies in the strategic position they occupy. All three, Eritrea, Libya except for the Fezzan, and Italian Somaliland came under British Military Administration on or before 1943. In 1945 the Council of Foreign Ministers took up the problem, but due to disagreement among the Big Four (United Kingdom, United States of America, France and the Soviet Union), and due to the many and sometimes unfounded claims of some other nations, the problem of the Italian Colonies defied solution. Despite the initial failure, the Council of Foreign Ministers did not give up hope, but instead it kept on working on the problem till 1947 when the Big Four powers, in the Treaty of Peace with Italy, made the latter country renounce all rights and claims to its former possessions in Africa and at the same time agreed to hand over the problem to the United Nations General Assembly in case of failure to agree among themselves within one year of the coming into force of the Treaty of Peace with Italy. [TRUNCATED]

Depuis l’Antiquité, l’expérience politique assyrienne (XIVème - VIIème siècles av. J.-C.) a été définie comme un « Empire ». Les sources classiques et bibliques ont créé une image historiographique des Assyriens caractérisée par une violence militariste, par une sexualité excessive et par un urbanisme exagéré. En plus, la théorie de la translatio imperii identifiait dans l’Empire assyrien le premier Empire de l’histoire. À partir du milieu du XIXème siècle la découverte des vestiges des villes royales en Mésopotamie du Nord et surtout des bas-reliefs, qui ornaient les palais royaux, a donné accès à une quantité d’informations directes sur les Assyriens. L’interprétation historiographique de ces données a eu comme modèle l’Empire romain, déjà bien connu par les savants. Le déchiffrement du système cunéiforme et la lecture des sources écrites assyriennes qui en a suivi a certifié l’image impériale puissante et militariste suggérée par les sources anciennes. À partir de cette époque et jusqu’à nos jours, les informations concernant les Assyriens ont augmentées constamment. En même temps, le travail d’interprétation historiographique a été influencé tant par les différentes doctrines économiques et politiques, que par les intérêts des nations qui finançaient les recherches. Pour décrire l’expérience politique assyrienne ont été employées par les Assyriologues des catégories typiquement modernes, telles que l’impérialisme et le colonialisme, ou plus récemment, la globalisation. L’objectif de cette thèse de doctorat est de reconstruire le cheminement épistémologique du concept d’« Empire assyrien », avec une attention spécifique à l’apport de la recherche archéologique en Mésopotamie du Nord. / Since the Antiquity the political experience of the Assyrians has been defined as an “Empire”. Biblical and ancient sources have created a historiographical image of the Assyrians, which was characterized by military violence, an excessive sexuality and an exaggerated urbanism. Moreover, following the theory of the translatio imperii, the Assyrian Empire should have been the first empire of history. Starting from the middle of the XIX century the discovering of the vestiges of the royal cities in the north of Mesopotamia, and especially of the bas reliefs which adorned the royal palaces, gave access to an enormous quantity of direct information about the Assyrians. The historiographical model which was employed in order to interpret this data was the roman empire, which was already very well-known by scholars. The deciphering of the cuneiform system and the consequent possibility of accessing to Assyrian written sources certified the powerful and militaristic image suggested by the ancient sources. Since that period and during the next excavations up until today, the information about the Assyrians has constantly increased. At the same time the work of historical interpretation has been influenced not only by the different economic and political theories but also by the interests of the nations which financed the researches. In order to try to understand the Assyrian political experience, typically modern categories have been employed by Assyriologists, such as imperialism and colonialism, or more recently the globalization. The aim of this doctoral thesis consists in reconstructing the epistemological course of the concept of “Assyrian Empire”, with a specific attention to the contribution of archaeological researches in the Northern Mesopotamia.