This thesis presents an anthropological study of ordinary people's views about the body in general and the reproductive system in particular, based on two case studies carried out in Britain and in Brazil. I discuss the meanings of lay and biomedical images of the body and identify the ways the researched groups reinterpret the biomedical view of the body anatomy and physiology. Through the analysis of ethnographic material on time, space and domestic organisation in four shantytown groups in Porto Alegre, Brazil and in three different groups in London, UK, I point out the dwelling peculiarities of the different groups and suggest there is a relationship between embodied experiences of time/space and knowledge of the reproductive system. These arguments lead to a more general phenomenologically theorised view of gendered and status-framed bodies, consequently situating this work in the interface of Medical Anthropology and a more general socio-cultural Anthropology.

This thesis examines the ritual worship within a monastery from the Dzogchen lineage of Tibetan Buddhism situated in Karnataka, South India. During the Cultural Revolution in Tibet, many monasteries were destroyed and the monks fled to re-establish their religious practices in exile in India. As a result, Tibetan Buddhism now has a much wider international participation group. My research looks specifically at the Dzogchen Buddhist doctrinal understanding of purity and its embodiment in the trikaya; the three pure bodies. I consider the rituals practised in the pursuit of the trikaya, and the associated social processes that are thought to enable the embodiment of purity. I explore folk notions of purity and how they shape bodily experience for the multi-national community that congregate together at the monastery. Practitioners of Dzogchen Buddhism believe that the embodiment of purity results in a dissolution of the body and leads to an “immaterial body”. The achievement of the immaterial, however, is wholly dependent on a very physical, material set of rituals. Drawing upon doctrinal and folk notions of purity, I propose a four-part analytical understanding of purity; that purity exits on a continuum, that the Dzogchen lama is both a symbolic and literally pure, that purity is able to be transmitted, and that purity is situational but dependent on the presence of the lama. I support my argument with ethnographic data from the rituals of the khatag exchange [offering of ceremonial scarves], rabnye [the sanctification of statues], and two types of embodied worship: prostrations [full length bows] and kora [circumambulation of sacred sites].

<p>This essay deals with the individual collecting of four individuals with different backgrounds and lives. The essay investigates what, how and why people collect. It provides a stepping-stone in moving closer to understanding one, in human nature, deeply rooted phenomenon - collecting.</p><p>The essay is based on a list of questions made by the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. It also includes in-depth examinations of four person’s passion of collecting, in which four individuals were interviewed: a pig collector, a collector of Mickey Mouse items, a multi-collector of objects from other cultures and one collector of items related to the artist Madonna. All of the collectors were driven by different factors, of which some were rooted far back in their childhood, and for some the urge to collect had increased because of difficulties in adult life.</p><p>The investigation is based on the thesis that the market and the personal emotional feelings are the two main driving factors when it comes to collecting. This study and the people who participated in it, makes it clear that no market is strong enough to overcome the human mind and its will to decide what and how to collect. Although the market to some extent affect, for example by creating the availability or not, it is ultimately the emotional sense that decides how the collection would look like.</p><p>This essay is meant to fill a gap of knowledge in the area of the individual collecting, and provide a better understanding of the driving forces that are deeply embedded in the soul of a collector.</p>

This essay deals with the individual collecting of four individuals with different backgrounds and lives. The essay investigates what, how and why people collect. It provides a stepping-stone in moving closer to understanding one, in human nature, deeply rooted phenomenon - collecting. The essay is based on a list of questions made by the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. It also includes in-depth examinations of four person’s passion of collecting, in which four individuals were interviewed: a pig collector, a collector of Mickey Mouse items, a multi-collector of objects from other cultures and one collector of items related to the artist Madonna. All of the collectors were driven by different factors, of which some were rooted far back in their childhood, and for some the urge to collect had increased because of difficulties in adult life. The investigation is based on the thesis that the market and the personal emotional feelings are the two main driving factors when it comes to collecting. This study and the people who participated in it, makes it clear that no market is strong enough to overcome the human mind and its will to decide what and how to collect. Although the market to some extent affect, for example by creating the availability or not, it is ultimately the emotional sense that decides how the collection would look like. This essay is meant to fill a gap of knowledge in the area of the individual collecting, and provide a better understanding of the driving forces that are deeply embedded in the soul of a collector.

A diferença suscita curiosidade, para dizer o mínimo. Desde a formalização do conhecimento universitário, a sistematização da investigação do humano veio acompanhada de um pertinente inconveniente: trata-se da alteridade entre homens, entre homens e mulheres, entre adultos e crianças, entre civilizados e primitivos, entre os homens e os animais. O endereçamento dessa diferença se deu por diversos ângulos. Escolheu-se ignorá-la, achatá-la, excluí-la e até mesmo demonizá-la. O presente estudo se endereça a esse tema e se dispõe a investigar como antropologia e psicanálise lidaram com o estudo da alteridade. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi o de comparar o movimento psicanalítico e antropológico no seu uso do ontológico como operador para manejar a questão da investigação da alteridade no fazer etnográfico. A justificativa se deu pela ideia, cunhada por George Devereux, de que antropologia e psicanálise, por sua não-redutibilidade uma a outra, aparelham a etnopsicanálise de maneira complementar. Entretando, à diferença da proposta de Devereux, esse texto se guia não pelo desígnio de esquarinhamento de uma cientificidade para o método etnopsicanalítico. Tratou-se, antes, de mostrar como as duas disciplinas manejam a alteridade sem recair no problema do realismo naturalista e da crise da representação dos pós-modernos. Para tanto, escolhemos como recorte o par ontologia-alteridade, que tem aparecido com frequência no contexto acadêmico psicanalítico e antropológico. O método escolhido foi o da leitura psicanalítica. Os resultados são compostos pela análise de quatro etnografias da virada ontológica. Do lado psicanalítico os conceitos de Lacan sobre escuta psicanalítica e o ser sujeito foram analisados. Na discussão mostramos a relação tímida, porém importante, que pode ser traçada entre os métodos etnográficos e o método de escuta psicanalítica. / Difference arouses at least curiosity. Since the formalization of knowledge, the systematization of the investigation of man was followed by a pertinent inconvenient: otherness between men; men and women; adults and children; civilized people and primitives; men and animals. This issue was addressed by different angles. Otherness was ignored, flattened, excluded and even demonized. The present studys objective is to compare the psychoanalytical and anthropological movements usage of the ontological as a tool to deal with the investigation of otherness in the context of the ethnographic method. The justification was found in Deveureuxs work. In his etnpsychoanalysis, the author proposes a non-reducibility of one field of knowledge to the other. They are complementary. Nonetheless we do not seek an ideal of scientificity, as Deveureux did, for etnpsychoanalysis method. We seek to show how both disciplines deal, in different ways, with alterity without reducing it to natural realism or representation. The angle we chose revolves around the pair alterity-ontology. The results are composed by the analysis of four ethnographies of the ontological turn. In the side of psychoanalysis, we chose to analyze the lacanian notion of subject and listening. In the discussion we show that there are possibilities of relation between the psychoanalitycal listening and entographic method.

This thesis focuses on the development of a malaria vaccine as an avenue to explore global health partnerships. In the last twenty years, public-private partnerships have become a prominent organizational form in global health. Hundreds of large transnational collaborations and countless smaller collaborations between the public, private and non-profit sectors have been established. Partnerships have been supported by the large increase of donor funding for research and control of infectious diseases in impoverished countries and many aim to develop or provide vaccines, medicines or interventions. Analysts generally agree that partnerships are saving many lives and revolutionizing drug and vaccine development for infectious diseases. However, while partnership is a notion that connotes equity and mutuality, often global health partnerships operate in contexts that involve vast disparities in power and resources and there is little known about the impacts of partnerships on the places where they operate. This raises the questions: How do global health partnerships operate in practice? What are their impacts in the places where they operate? Addressing these questions, this thesis examines a partnership established to develop the most advanced malaria vaccine, named RTS,S. Based on 17 months of ethnographic research in Tanzania and interviews with representatives of partnering organizations in Belgium and the United States, I trace the development of the RTS,S vaccine from laboratories to its clinical trials across Africa. I explore the social relationships formed between private companies, philanthropic institutions and non-profit organizations in the North, and research institutions and communities in north-eastern Tanzania, where a malaria vaccine clinical trial was conducted. Analyzing the impacts of the malaria vaccine partnership, I focus on community development, construction of infrastructure, the building of human capacity, provision of health care and extraction of data. The focus on partnerships is intended to improve understanding about this ever-increasing social, political and economic formation in global health, and contributes to discussions and debates about how partnerships operate and their role in international development, global health governance and transnational medical research.

Med utgångspunkt i FN:s Millenniemål om att stärka kvinnors position och öka jämställdheten har jag undersökt hur detta kan appliceras på det svenska samhället. Denna uppsatsen handlar om fyra kvinnor på universitetet. Fokus ligger på dessa kvinnors syn på utbildning, stereotyper, val av partner och yrkeslivet, detta diskuteras sedan utifrån olika genus- och jämställdhetsteorier.

This study is an exploration of the lesbian subculture in Russia focusing in particular on the subculture as a unique heterogeneous space of social interaction and cultural production that is not self contained or isolated from mainstream society, but incorporates a variety of cultural flows and traditions that are a part of Russian mainstream culture, other Russian subcultures, or global cultural flows. Some of these cultural flows and traditions are more compatible than other ones. The increasingly globalized images and ideas of what a gay and lesbian community is, or perhaps should be like, are only partially compatible with contemporary reality in Russia. The high value placed on visibility and explicitly political, even radical activism, in gay and lesbian subcultures in the West, must in Russia be reconciled not only with the totalitarian past, and the increasingly authoritarian present, but also with the traditions and practices that developed as a response to the repressive regime and enabled people to live and even thrive within it. Using private spaces as public space, and public space as private space established a practice of multilayered spaces that are continuously maintained through social inclusion and exclusion, visibility and invisibility. However, the subculture is not only an intersection of external cultural flows and traditions, it also has it’s own unique traditions, knowledges and practices. Poetry, music, literature and art form the backbone of the flow of activities within the subculture. Visual and grammatical cues, styles, jokes and lesbian genders are integral aspects of the subculture as it is continuously renegotiated by its participants also on an individual level.. The study is based on fieldwork, participant observation and interviews, mainly in Moscow, and to some extent in St Petersburg, during 2005 with recurring visits during 2006 and 2007.

A diferença suscita curiosidade, para dizer o mínimo. Desde a formalização do conhecimento universitário, a sistematização da investigação do humano veio acompanhada de um pertinente inconveniente: trata-se da alteridade entre homens, entre homens e mulheres, entre adultos e crianças, entre civilizados e primitivos, entre os homens e os animais. O endereçamento dessa diferença se deu por diversos ângulos. Escolheu-se ignorá-la, achatá-la, excluí-la e até mesmo demonizá-la. O presente estudo se endereça a esse tema e se dispõe a investigar como antropologia e psicanálise lidaram com o estudo da alteridade. O objetivo do presente trabalho foi o de comparar o movimento psicanalítico e antropológico no seu uso do ontológico como operador para manejar a questão da investigação da alteridade no fazer etnográfico. A justificativa se deu pela ideia, cunhada por George Devereux, de que antropologia e psicanálise, por sua não-redutibilidade uma a outra, aparelham a etnopsicanálise de maneira complementar. Entretando, à diferença da proposta de Devereux, esse texto se guia não pelo desígnio de esquarinhamento de uma cientificidade para o método etnopsicanalítico. Tratou-se, antes, de mostrar como as duas disciplinas manejam a alteridade sem recair no problema do realismo naturalista e da crise da representação dos pós-modernos. Para tanto, escolhemos como recorte o par ontologia-alteridade, que tem aparecido com frequência no contexto acadêmico psicanalítico e antropológico. O método escolhido foi o da leitura psicanalítica. Os resultados são compostos pela análise de quatro etnografias da virada ontológica. Do lado psicanalítico os conceitos de Lacan sobre escuta psicanalítica e o ser sujeito foram analisados. Na discussão mostramos a relação tímida, porém importante, que pode ser traçada entre os métodos etnográficos e o método de escuta psicanalítica. / Difference arouses at least curiosity. Since the formalization of knowledge, the systematization of the investigation of man was followed by a pertinent inconvenient: otherness between men; men and women; adults and children; civilized people and primitives; men and animals. This issue was addressed by different angles. Otherness was ignored, flattened, excluded and even demonized. The present studys objective is to compare the psychoanalytical and anthropological movements usage of the ontological as a tool to deal with the investigation of otherness in the context of the ethnographic method. The justification was found in Deveureuxs work. In his etnpsychoanalysis, the author proposes a non-reducibility of one field of knowledge to the other. They are complementary. Nonetheless we do not seek an ideal of scientificity, as Deveureux did, for etnpsychoanalysis method. We seek to show how both disciplines deal, in different ways, with alterity without reducing it to natural realism or representation. The angle we chose revolves around the pair alterity-ontology. The results are composed by the analysis of four ethnographies of the ontological turn. In the side of psychoanalysis, we chose to analyze the lacanian notion of subject and listening. In the discussion we show that there are possibilities of relation between the psychoanalitycal listening and entographic method.

This thesis examines the role emotions play in the practice and sociality of Palestinian solidarity activism in Israel and Palestine. It finds that emotion is a subtle and sophisticated, and often ambiguous, form of knowledge and perception which is implicit in forming, appraising and adjusting the relationships participants have with intimates, fellow dissenters and public discourses on identity and the regional conflict. Fieldwork was based in and around Jerusalem and carried out over twelve months in 2011-12. This is a highly diverse transnational field where Palestinians, Israelis and Internationalists come together at specific times and places to practice various forms of dissent, largely but not exclusively against the socio-political conditions of the Palestinians vis-à-vis Israeli State policy. I present three separate propositions on Weirdness, Wrongness and Love, which relate to three different affective dimensions; perception, morality and loyalty. Each proposition also develops upon what Hannah Arendt defined the innate political faculties or activities of the human condition; thinking, action and judging. The perceptive quality of finding something Weird is found to produce doubt in the subjective mind, the purpose for which Arendt believed thinking to be a political act. The moral appraisal that something is Wrong, underwrites concerted political action in the public realm. Finally judging, as the attempt to understand the world from the perspective of another, is facilitated by the discourse of Love in the long-term loving relations activists have with friend and family, who are antagonistic to the aims of solidarity activism. Taken together these feelings are found to flow through and inform one another, constituting a nuanced affective understanding and appraisal of our world, one that is producing and maintaining a politically engaged transnational community of dissent. This community has been fostered to a large degree by the insistence and perseverance of a small number of Palestinians in villages across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, who call upon peoples of all creeds, colours and places to witness and experience the repression of non-violent resistance. If as researchers we are to understand the complexities of human life and practices, I believe we must carefully attend to this sophisticated form of emotional reasoning and begin to think not just about feelings, but also with feelings.