This research project explores the consequences of the citizenship provision of Nepal, as reflected in Nepal's most recent constitution promulgated in 2015, for the Nepalese citizens as well as the Nepalese society and culture in general. This project employs two methods of data collection: close reading of the citizenship provision and ethnographic interviews of those Nepalese who are directly affected by the provision. Results are drawn through rhetorical and textual analysis of the collected data. The results show that the current citizenship provision disempowers women of Nepal by stopping them from passing on their citizenship to their children. The citizenship provision is also a source of humiliation for such women and the reason behind the condition of stateless-ness of millions of people living in Nepal. On a cultural level, this citizenship provision both reflects and re-enforces patriarchy in Nepal. / Master of Arts / This research project explores the consequences of the citizenship provision of Nepal as reflected in Nepal's most recent constitution promulgated in 2015 for the Nepalese citizens as well as the Nepalese society and culture in general. This project employs two methods of data collection: close reading of the citizenship provision and ethnographic interviews of those Nepalese who are directly affected by the provision. Results are drawn through rhetorical and textual analysis of the collected data. The results show that the current citizenship provision disempowers women of Nepal by stopping them from passing on their citizenship to their children. The citizenship provision is also a source of humiliation for these women and the cause of stateless-ness of millions of people in Nepal. On a cultural level, this citizenship provision both reflects and reenforces patriarchy in Nepal.

There is a current wave of interest in pornography as a vehicle for queer, feminist and lesbian activism. Examples include Dirty Diaries: Twelve Shorts of Feminist Porn (Engberg, Sweden, 2009), the Pornfilmfestival Berlin (2006-) and the members-only Club LASH in Stockholm (1995-). Based on ethnographic fieldwork designed around these cases, the purpose of the thesis is to account for, historicize and understand this transnational film culture and its politics and ethics. The fieldwork consists of interviews, questionnaires and participant observation, including participation as one of the filmmakers in Dirty Diaries. The thesis studies queer, feminist and lesbian pornography as an interpretive community. Meanings produced in this interpretive community are discussed as involving embodied spectatorial processes, different practices of participation in the film culture and their location in specific situations and contexts of production, distribution and reception. The thesis highlights a collective political fantasy about a safe space for sexual empowerment as the defining feature of this interpretive community. The figure of safe space is central in the fieldwork material, as well as throughout the film culture’s political and aesthetic legacies, which include second wave feminist insistence on sexual consciousness-raising, as well as the heated debates referred to as the Sex Wars. The political and aesthetic heterogeneity of the film culture is discussed in terms of a tension between affirmation and critique (de Lauretis, 1985). It is argued that the film culture functions both as an intimate public (Berlant, 2008) and as a counter public (Warner, 2002). Analyzing research subjects’ accounts in terms of embodied spectatorship (Sobchack, 2004, Williams, 2008), the thesis examines how queer, feminist and lesbian pornography shapes the embodied subjectivities of participants in this interpretive community and potentially forms part of processes of sexual empowerment.

This thesis is a monograph on The Play about the Norberg Strike 1891–92, a pioneering project and performance relating to working-class cultural expressions. The project was initiated in the summer of 1975, and the first successful performances were held in June and July 1977. The democracy of cultural life was very positively manifested in The Play and in Swedish media, it was described as the first working-class play. It served as a model for other similar productions, set in many places in Sweden. The investigation began with field studies, which facilitated the choice of a suitable theory. A starting-point was that a specific working-class culture exists, subordinated to the dominant middle class culture. Social class distinction is an underlying concept for hegemony, and also for the spanning theoretical framework used in my investigation. It comprises a public sphere theory, formulated by Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge in their book Öffentlichkeit und Erfahrung (1972). Their concept counter-public sphere is applied to The Play. The main purpose was to describe the characteristic features of The Play, by delineating and analysing the production phase, particularly the aesthetically elaborated parts, i.e. the script production, the staging, the performance, and the reception, all consistent with the working-class culture and the local conditions in Norberg. A more subordinated purpose was to complete the common definition of the term working-class play. The Play about the Norberg Strike succeeded in putting the negative influences of the bourgeois public sphere aside, replacing it with positive categories. The work processes were of vital importance, as was the forming of new platforms and communication channels based on the local working-class experiences and lives. Consequently, The Play became a genuine expression and a solid breakthrough for working-class experiences.