Purpose – The aim of this paper is to create an understanding of what types of initial contacts exist within the service encounter and their functions for the interaction. Design/methodology/approach – To study the initial contact between the employee and the customer, we have used a qualitative approach where observations were the data collecting method. The observations have been conducted in Karlstad at 22 different locations, which generated a total of 83 observations. These observations were analyzed and generated concepts and categories, that were incorporated into themes. Findings – The research showed five types of initial contacts could be identified along with their functions. The types identified are the time effective, the improvised, the committed, the observant and the strategic positioning. Originality/value – By narrowing the interaction to the first moment, this paper contributes knowledge about the initial contact which will facilitate frontline employees work in the face-to-face interaction with customers. Research limitation/implications for future research – The study is conducted in Karlstad. Depending on which kind of industry examined and contextual factors, variations in the result may occur. The findings could differ if cultural perspectives were considered, which could be something to include in future research. Only the face-to-face interaction is examined. This creates opportunities for future research to extend this study by, for instance, investigate the initial contact over internet or phone.

abstract: Over the course of more than half a century, Rabbi Dr. Irving Greenberg has developed a distinctive theology of intra- and inter-group relations. Deeply influenced by his experiences in the Christian-Jewish dialogue movement, Greenberg's covenantal theology and image of God idea coalesce into what I refer to as Hybrid Judaism, a conceptualization that anticipated key aspects David Hollinger's notion of Postethnicity. As such, Greenberg's system of thought is mistakenly categorized (by himself, as well as others) as an expression of pluralism. The twentieth century arc of social theories of group life in America, from Melting Pot to Postethnicity by way of Cultural Pluralism, serves to highlight the fact that Greenberg is better located at the latter end of this arc (Postethnicity), rather than in the middle (Pluralism). Central to Greenberg's proto-postethnic theology is the recognition of the transformative power of encounter in an open society. Greenberg's ideas are themselves the product of such encounters. Understood fully, Hybrid Judaism has great relevance for American Jewish identity in the twenty-first century. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Religious Studies 2014

Bakgrund: Även om många patienter är nöjda med vården de får via ambulans och på akutmottagningar så finns det ett missnöje hos patienter avseende brist på bekräftelse, delaktighet och information. Syfte: Syftet med detta arbete är att beskriva hur patienter upplever bemötandet av vårdpersonal inom ambulansvård och på akutmottagningen. Metod: Denna studie använder sig av kvalitativa originalartiklar för att sammanställa patienters perspektiv av bemötande av ambulanspersonal och personal på akutmottagningen.   Resultat: Tre huvudteman framkom i resultatet: Patienternas behov av att inkluderas; vilket främst handlade om att bjudas in till dialog kring sin vårdsituation. Patienternas behov av att bekräftas; där det framförallt handlade om att bli tagna på allvar gällande oro och symtom samt bli behandlade som unika människor. Patienternas behov av information; vilket huvudsakligen var information kring väntetider, behandling och regler på akutmottagningen. Behoven varierar mycket från patient till patient. Då patienter inte upplevde att de blev bemötta på ett tillfredsställande sätt uppkom ett missnöje hos patienterna.   Slutsats: Sammanställningen visade liknande resultat för patienter som blivit omhändertagna av ambulanspersonal såväl som personalen på akutmottagningen. Bortsett från att det fanns ett ökat behov av information för patienterna på akutmottagningen. Med ett holistiskt perspektiv kan vårdpersonalen främja ett gott bemötande mellan patient och vårdgivare.

In this paper, several lines of evidence (geology, paleoenvironment, lithic and faunal analysis, among others) from the Calera site (Sierras Bayas, pampean region, Argentina) are summarized and discussed. The cultural deposit seems to be a ritual site, formed by the occurrence of several ceremonies during the late Holocene. In the Calera site, four cubetas (pits) were intentionally excavated, between ca. 3400 and 1750 years BP, and filled with a great amount and variety of archaeological materials as well as alochtonous sediments. Among the recovered materials, there were more than 6000 of lithic artefacts, 310 pottery sherds (some of them with antropomorphic motifs), 1760 pieces of mineral pigments, 4 marine molluscs, a shell bead, a granite axe, several instrument made of bone and deer antler, and a phallic statuette. A yet undetermined number (several thousands) of faunal remains were from 16 different mammal species (guanaco, pampean deer, carnivores, mesomammals, micromammals, among others), 6 avian species, 3 fishes and probably reptiles. The exceptional features of the site allow the study of social and ideational aspects of the pampean hunter-gatherers and discussion of the archaeological signatures of the site in terms of non-hierarchical societies. / En este trabajo se discuten y resumen las evidencias obtenidas como resultado de estudios multidisciplinarios —geológicos, paleoambientales, líticos, arqueofaunísticos y tafonómicos, entre otros— del sitio Calera, ubicado en las Sierras Bayas, región pampeana, Argentina. Este sitio se presenta como un depósito excepcional de origen ritual producido probablemente como consecuencia de varias ceremonias realizadas en las inmediaciones. En este lugar se registraron cuatro cubetas excavadas intencionalmente, fechadas entre c. 3400 y 1750 a.p., que fueron rellenadas con materiales arqueológicos y sedimentos alóctonos. Entre los materiales se destacan más de 6000 artefactos líticos de diferentes materias primas locales y no locales, aproximadamente 400 instrumentos líticos, 310 tiestos de alfarería (algunos con motivos figurativos antropomorfos), 1760 restos de pigmentos minerales, cuatro moluscos marinos, una hacha de granito, una cuenta de valva, una estatuilla cilíndrica decorada de forma fálica y varios instrumentos sobre hueso y astas. También se registró un número aún indeterminado (varios miles) de restos óseos de 16 especies de mamíferos —entre ellos guanaco, venado, carnívoros, mesomamíferos y micromamíferos—, seis aves, tres peces y, posiblemente, reptiles. Las características excepcionales del sitio permiten abordar aspectos ideacionales y sociales de los cazadores recolectores pampeanos y discutir la visibilidad arqueológica de los sitios de encuentro.

Places of ritual encounter have been significant in South American Andean cultures for millennia. In this paper I examine the highland Andean center of Tiwanaku as a place of ritual encounter, focusing on changes in its built ceremonial structures and monuments from the Late Formative (200 BC-AD 500) to the Early Middle Horizon (AD 500-800). Specifically, I focus on changes in the total physical contexts of its sunken courts. Drawing on very recent research on the Late Formative, I conclude that Tiwanaku’s ascendance in the Middle Horizon was in great part its transformation from a local ritual-political center to a panregional urban ceremonial center. This transformation recursively depended on and produced new places of encounter and new types of ritual persons to maintain and visit them. / Durante milenios, los lugares de encuentros rituales han sido muy importantes en las culturas andinas de América del Sur. En el presente artículo se analiza el centro altiplánico de Tiwanaku como un lugar de encuentro ritual, con un énfasis en los cambios constructivos de los monumentos y estructuras ceremoniales desde el Periodo Formativo Tardío (200 a.C.-500 d.C.) hasta el Horizonte Medio Temprano (500-800 d.C.). De manera específica, se tratan los cambios de la totalidad de los contextos físicos en los patios hundidos. Sobre la base de investigaciones recientes, se concluye que la ascendencia tiwanaku durante el Horizonte Medio se debió, en gran parte, por su transformación de centro político-ritual local en uno de carácter ceremonial urbano y panregional. Esta transformación produjo y dependió de nuevos lugares de encuentro y de nuevos tipos de personajes rituales para mantenerlos y visitarlos.

O assentamento selêucida de Dura Europos constitui um apropriado campo de análise do processo de transformação cultural em antigas áreas coloniais. O sítio, fundado no entreposto entre as maiores civilizações orientais e ocidentais, é um assentamento multicultural que expressa a coexistência de judeus com várias populações. Esta tese analisa como o grupo de judeus desta cidade usou a cultura material do local a fim de preservar sua identidade e ao mesmo tempo dialogar com outros povos. A transformação resultante desta interação é vista na arte e na arquitetura de duas sinagogas por eles construídas que constituem um dos mais antigos testemunhos da arte judaica produzida por aqueles que viveram na Diáspora. / The Seleucid Settlement of Dura Europos constitutes an appropriate setting to analyze the process of cultural transformation in ancient colonial areas. The site, founded at the crossroad between major Eastern and Western civilizations, is a multicultural settlement that expresses the coexistence of Jews with various populations. This dissertation analyses how the Jewish group of this city used the local material culture to preserve their identity and at the same time did dialogue with other people. The transformation resulted out of this interaction is seen in the art and architecture of the two Synagogues that they built there and which constitutes one of the most ancient testimony of the Jewish art produced by those who lived in the Diaspora.

The European Union expansion in 2004 has resulted in the most significant migration within Europe in recent years. While a contemporary understanding of multicultural Europe often emerges from politicians’ ideas on managing diversity, this thesis concentrates on a new understanding of multicultural societies which emerges from routine interaction between the recent arrivals and established individuals. These new patterns of interaction are a result of what Gilroy (2004) calls conviviality. While the literature on conviviality tends to focus on non-white ethnic minorities, my study fills the gap in research by concentrating on convivial experience of recent migrants coming from a predominantly white society to super-diverse cities. This research empirically explores how convivial culture emerges in encounters between Polish migrant women and the local population in Manchester and Barcelona, in the context of post-2004 migration. By applying a cross-cultural comparative and gendered approach to research on conviviality, the thesis focuses on Polish presence increasingly affecting multiple and complex relations situated in a specific time and place, and positioned by personal biographies. It develops the conceptualisation of conviviality by drawing on the historic and contemporary forms of convivencia in the Spanish and Latin American context. This allows an understanding of conviviality as a practical and dynamic process grounded in daily interactions. Furthermore, the conceptual framework is situated within the emerging field of geographies of encounters, and literature on race, racism and whiteness. It draws on the combination of methods, including participant observation, focus groups and narrative interviews conducted with Polish migrant women in Manchester and Barcelona. It stresses the importance of a person-centred approach through a use of cases. This contributes to a better understanding of everyday social relations between these women and the local population, including settled ethnic minorities and other migrants. The empirically explored narratives shed light on interaction in a myriad of quotidian situations in various spaces of the neighbourhoods, homes and in the workplaces. These encounters illustrate various forms of conviviality not necessarily free from tensions and classed, racialised and gendered perceptions of the Other.

Les Grandes Découvertes de la Renaissance amènent les Européens à rencontrer de nouveaux peuples dont l’apparaître, les croyances et les modes de vie sont si éloignés, qu’ils vont incarner ensemble l’Autre absolu : le négatif, l’antagoniste de l’Européen blanc et chrétien d’alors. Le théâtre va offrir la possibilité à tous ceux qui ne voyagent pas de rencontrer cet Autre et c’est cette rencontre que nous étudions ici, dans le répertoire du théâtre français, car elle est non seulement une situation dramatique par nature, mais elle va également se faire anthropologique puisqu’elle joue à convoquer d’autres continents sur scène. Toutefois le théâtre n’est qu’artifice et sur scène, l’Autre n’est pas réel puisque créé par des dramaturges français, joué en français par des acteurs français et pour un public français. Nous nous proposons d’étudier cette rencontre depuis la Saint-Barthélemy jusqu’à la Révolution Française, deux événements névralgiques de l’Histoire de France, qui ont à voir avec la violence de l’altérité religieuse et de l’altérité sociale et qui correspondent à deux périodes de renouvellement de l’art dramatique. Nous nous interrogerons donc sur l’identité de cet étrange étranger, si éloigné socialement, politiquement et géographiquement et sur la manière dont le théâtre s’empare de cet Autre si spectaculaire. Les personnages exogènes devenant sur scène de véritables figures à facette, nous poserons la question de savoir si la démarche n’est pas en réalité d’aller au devant de l’Autre dans le seul but de l’interroger sur ce qu’il est pour se définir soi-même. Si l’Amérindien est sauvage, n’est-ce pas pour se conforter sur le fait d’être civilisé ? Si le More est cruel, n’est-ce pas pour se rassurer sur le fait qu’on ne l’est pas ? L’Autre ne sert-il pas en réalité qu’à parler de soi ? / With the Great Discoveries of the Renaissance, Europeans encountered new peoples whose appearance, beliefs and lifestyles were so divergent they came to embody the absolute Other: the negative, the antagonist of the then white and Christian Europeans. Theater came to offer the opportunity for those who did not travel to meet this Other, and it is this encounter that we study here, within the French theatrical repertoire, for it was not only a dramatic situation by definition, but became equally an anthropological one, since it endeavoured to summon forth the representation of other continents on stage. Theater, however, is only an artifice, and on stage, the Other is not real since it is created by French playwrights and performed in French by French actors, for a French public. We will study this encounter from the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre to the French Revolution, two critical events in the history of France marked by the violence of religious and social alterity, and which correspond to two periods of renewal for the dramatic arts. We will examine the identity of this strange foreigner, so socially, politically and geographically removed, and how theater captures this most spectacular of Others. Exogenous characters becoming on stage truly multifaceted figures, we will ask whether this approach is not in fact to reach out to the Other with the sole purpose of questioning what is to be oneself. If the Amerindian is savage, is it not to reinforce one's civility? If the Moor is cruel, is it not to be reassured that one is not? Would the Other not simply be a means to discuss oneself?

Bakgrund: HBTQ är en samlingsbeteckning för homosexuell, bisexuell, transperson och queer och är idag ett aktuellt ämne. Synen på HBTQ-personer har förändrats genom historien där lagar har utvecklats och organisationer bildats i syfte att främja livsvillkor samt arbeta för lika rättigheter. HBTQ-personer är än idag föremål för hatbrott och diskriminering. Förekomsten av ohälsa, såsom somatiska sjukdomar, psykisk ohälsa samt olika former av substansmissbruk, är vanligare hos denna minoritetsgrupp än bland övriga befolkningen. Kommunikationen är en avgörande faktor för upplevelsen av bemötandet. Syfte: Att beskriva HBTQ-personers upplevelser kring bemötandet från vårdpersonal. Metod: För att besvara syftet utfördes en litteraturöversikt, där tio vetenskapliga artiklar granskades och analyserades utifrån likheter och skillnader. Resultat: Resultatet presenteras genom två teman och tre subteman: Vårdpersonalens skiftande kunskaper innefattar Att vara ett uppslagsverk och Vårdpersonalens attityder och förhållningssätt samt temat Att komma ut eller att inte komma ut innefattar Internaliserad stigma. Diskussion: Diskussionen framhäver vikten av ett öppet förhållningssätt och medvetenhet för att främja en jämlik vård där alla människor ska känna sig trygga och välkomna. Två fenomen diskuteras, Diskriminering till följd av avslöjandet av sexuell identitet och Heteronormativitet till följd av samhälleliga strukturer, i relation till Joyce Travelbees teori om mellanmänskliga relationer. / Background: LGBTQ is a collective term for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer and is a current issue in today’s society. The perception of LGBTQ-persons has changed through history, where laws have been developed and organizations have been formed in order to promote living conditions and are working for equal rights. LGBTQ-persons are still subject to hate crimes and discrimination. The occurrence of health issues, such as somatic disease, mental illness and various forms of substance abuse are more common in this minority group than among the rest of the population. Communication is a determining factor for the experience of the encounter. Aim: To describe LGBTQ-persons’ experiences of the encounters with healthcare professionals. Method: A literature review was conducted, where ten science articles were examined and analyzed based on similarities and differences, to answer the aim. Results: The result is presented through two themes and three subthemes: The varying knowledge of health care professionals includes Being a reference and The health care professionals’ attitudes and approach, as well as the theme To disclose or not to disclose includes Internalized stigma. Discussion: The discussion highlights the importance of an open approach and awareness to promote equal care in which all people will feel safe and welcome. Two phenomena are discussed, Discrimination as a result of the disclosure of sexual identity and Heteronormativity as a result of social structures, in relation to Joyce Travelbee's theory of interpersonal relationships.

Bakgrund: Homosexuella har historiskt sett en rad lagar som motsatte deras mänskliga rättigheter. I Sverige finns hälso– och sjukvårdslagen om rättvis vård, trots denna lag får inte alla samma vård. För en god omvårdnad av patienten behöver sjuksköterskan besitta en god kunskapsbas, detta då deras viktigaste område är omvårdnaden.   Syfte: Syftet med litteraturstudien var att undersöka homosexuellas erfarenheter av bemötande med vårdpersonal och beskriva de inkluderade artiklarnas undersökningsgrupp.   Metod: Den föreliggande studien var en litteraturstudie med deskriptiv design vilket baserades på 12 kvalitativa vetenskapliga artiklar från sökmotorn MedLine och manuella sökningar.   Huvudresultat: Resultatet i denna litteraturstudien påvisade negativa samt positiva bemötanden av sjukvårdspersonal. De faktorer som påverkade hur mötet upplevdes var personalens attityder och kunskap inom området samt om de använde heteronormativa ordval i mötet. Majoriteten av inkluderade artiklarna tog upp deltagarnas ålder och inklusionskriterier. Den största andelen av deltagarna var kvinnor och nio av tolv studier utfördes i Europa.   Slutsatser: Homosexuellas erfarenheter av bemötande med vårdpersonal har kartlagts i de inkluderade artiklarna, vilket visade att det bemötande patienterna fick kan bero på vårdpersonalens kunskap, attityder och värderingar. De homosexuella personerna beskrev både positiva och negativa upplevelser där heterosexuella antaganden, ordval och känslor av osäkerhet hade förekommit. Ökad kunskap och utbildning om frågor som berör homosexuella och deras upplevelser av mötet med sjukvården kan främja att den grundutbildade sjuksköterskan utvecklar en förmåga att ge ett mer invid anpassat och ett positivare bemötande till homosexuella personer. / Background: Homosexuality historically had a series of laws that spoke against their human rights. In Sweden, a healthcare law about fair treatment exists, however, not everyone got the same care. A nurse's key area of expertise is the care and understanding of patient treatment.   Aim: The aim of the literature study was to explore homosexual experiences of treatment in the meetings with healthcare professionals and to look at the included articles sample groups.   Method: Literature study with descriptive design based on 12 qualitative scientific articles from the search engine MedLine and manual searches.   Main results: The results showed both negative and positive experiences of meetings with healthcare professionals. The elements that influenced how the meetings were experienced were the professionals' attitudes, knowledge about the subject and usage of heteronormative words. Most of the included articles informed about the participants' ages and inclusion criteria. The largest part of participants were women and nine of twelve articles were made in Europe.   Conclusion: This have shown that the treatments homosexual patients got could have been influenced by the healthcare professionals’ knowledge, attitudes and personal values. The homosexuals described both positive and negative experiences where heterosexual assumption, certain word choices and feelings of doubt have occurred. An increased knowledge and education about questions concerning homosexual’s and their experiences in the meeting with healthcare can help the undergraduate nurses to develop the capability for a more individual and positive encounter for homosexual people.