In this essay i examine how five persons from the city of Piteå who have moved to big cities in Sweden identifies with different places. My aim is to show a more ​heterogeneous image of Norrland and its inhabitants. In the essay I examine how my informants imbue certain words and practises, such as dialects or the act of visiting their hometown, with meaning and how this affects their identification towards the places that they call home. In this essay I understand places not as merely physical and material but also as socially constructed. Therefore I see the construction of places as an important aspect of my informants identification.

Denna uppsats ämnar undersöka och synliggöra samband mellan bakgrundsegenskaper och elevmobilisering inom ramen för samverkansavtalet Fritt Sök i Skåne och västra Blekinge. Fritt Sök innebär att elever inom samverkansområdet har möjlighet att söka sig till gymnasiala utbildningar inom samtliga kommuner som ingår i avtalet, och samtidigt prioriteras i första hand oberoende av var de befinner sig innanför samverkansområdets gränser. Enligt Skånes Kommuner syftar avtalet till att möjliggöra för elever att i särdeles stor utsträckning få sitt gymnasieval tillgodosett och därmed bidra till en effektiviserad och kvalitativ process för gymnasievalet. Baserat på tre årskohorter, 1998, 1992 respektive 1987, synliggörs förflyttningen i samband med gymnasievalet utifrån urvalets geografiska rörelsemönster baserat på elevernas bakgrundsegenskaper och bakgrundskaraktäristik. Detta genomförs genom att digitalt kartlägga förflyttningen hos urvalen från de respektive kohorterna i samband med gymnasievalet, samt genom en regressionsanalys för att utvärdera vilka samband de olika bakgrundsvariablerna kan antas ha med elevmobiliteten. Resultatet av denna analys indikerar att förflyttningen innan och efter implementeringen av Fritt Sök är kraftigt centrerad kring de större kommunerna Malmö, Helsingborg och Lund. Detta återspeglas både av elevupptaget från de kommuner som befinner sig i nära anslutning till dessa, och med att elever förflyttar sig över långa avstånd i syfte att påbörja sin gymnasieutbildning i anslutning till dessa kommuner. Vidare indikerar resultaten att elevmobiliseringen, efter implementeringen av Fritt Sök, tenderar att vara mer tilltagande hos elever födda i Sverige. För perioden innan Fritt Sök uppvisas detta samband igen, men även att skolprestationer i form av ett högre meritvärde leder till en ökad tendens att flytta mellan skolkommuner i samband med gymnasievalet. Slutligen indikerar denna uppsats att det finns en vidare anledning att studera de faktiska effekterna av Fritt Sök utifrån elevernas möjlighet till mobilisering och baserat på hur rörelserna till och från olika kommuner inom samverkansområdet realiseras i praktiken.

With this essay I aim to illustrate the simultaneous tension between and entanglement of narratives of mire and modernity in Sara Lidman’s novel Hjortronlandet. Both mire and modernity are understood wide concepts; as temporal as well as spatial markers relating to nature. Through the theoretical frame of Kate Soper’s What is Nature?, Yi-Fu Tuan’s Space and Place and Doreen Massey’s Space, Place and Gender I explore how concepts of nature, time and place are conceptualized, discussed and rewritten in the novel. The analysis shows that nature, time and place are simultaneously understood through narratives and through the intimate experience of material surroundings. Narratives are thus discussed and rewritten when applied to new material surroundings, and the natural surroundings are experienced through already established narratives. Hjortronlandet explores the lives of poor settlers in northern Sweden during the first half of the 20th century in their attempt to convert their allotted wetland to farmland. Throughout the novel the propaganda narratives of the Swedish state clash with the settlers’ intimate experience of place and natural surroundings. All the while, the settler project is undertaken on behalf of the state and plays a part in the creation of a unified modern state. I argue that though an exploration of the perceived dichotomy of mire and modernity presented by the state the entanglement of the two concepts is made visible in the novel. By examining ostensibly contrasting positions I conclude that the novel exposes the untenable approach of the modern state to material surroundings.

This thesis explores social relations in Ottessa Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation (2018) through Doreen Massey’s conceptualisation of space. With the assumption that social relations are formed through and by space, the thesis analyses the protagonist’s interactions with space in the novel. It is explored how the protagonist navigates space through unconscious actions, blurring imagined public/private distinctions, as well as how occupying space may be an alienating experience, pointedly sensed as a growing distance between body and mind. Continuing, the thesis examines the protagonist’s attempts to negotiate space and problematises the effectiveness of these attempts against the ubiquity of space. Following this is a reflection on the limitations of Massey’s theory, along with concluding remarks concerning potential shortcomings and opportunities for further research.

Originating from a disenfranchisement with the contemporary definition and realisation of Westernised architecture as a commodity and product, this thesis seeks to explore alternative examples of positive socio-spatial practice and agency. These alternative spatial practices and methodologies are drawn from participatory and grass-roots development agency in informal settlements and contexts of economic absence, most notably in the global South. This thesis explores whether such examples can be interpreted as practical realisations of key theoretical advocacies for positive social space that have emerged in the context of post-Second World-War capitalism. The principal methodological framework utilises two differing trajectories of spatial discourse. Firstly, Henri Lefebvre and Doreen Massey as formative protagonists of Western spatial critique, and secondly, John F. C. Turner and Nabeel Hamdi as key advocates of participatory development practice in informal settlements. These two research trajectories are notably separated by geographical, economic and political differentiations, as well as conventional disciplinary boundaries. However by undertaking a close textual reading of these discourses this thesis critically re-contextualises the socio-spatial methodologies of participatory development practice, observing multiple theoretical convergences and provocative commonalities. This research proposes that by critically comparing these previously unconnected disciplinary trajectories certain similarities, resonances and equivalences become apparent. These resonances reveal comparable critiques of choice, value, and identity which transcend the gap between such differing theoretical and practical engagements with space. Subsequently, these thematic resonances allow this research to critically engage with further appropriate surrounding discourses, including Marxist theory, orientalism, post- structural pluralism, development anthropology, post-colonial theory and subaltern theory. 5 In summary, this thesis explores aspects of Henri Lefebvre's and Doreen Massey's urban and spatial theory through a close textual reading of key texts from their respective discourses. This methodology provides a layered analysis of post-Marxist urban space, and an exploration of an explicit connection between Lefebvre and Massey in terms of the social production and multiplicity of space. Subsequently, this examination provides a theoretical framework from which to reinterpret and revalue the approaches to participatory development practice found in the writings and projects of John Turner and Nabeel Hamdi. The resulting comparative framework generates interconnected thematic trajectories of enquiry that facilitate the re-reading and critical reflection of Turner and Hamdi's development practices. Thus, selected Western spatial discourse acts as a critical lens through which to re-value the social, political and economical achievements of participatory development. Reciprocally, development practice methodologies are recognised as invaluable and provocative realisations of the socio-spatial qualities that Western spatial discourse has long advocated for, and yet have remained predominantly unrealised in the global North.