This essay examines how articles in the Swedish spiritualistic journal Efteråt? – which por- trayed the afterlife – were affected by imperialistic discourse and its associated power structures. The source material for the investigation is articles that were published between 1891- 1919 as channelized messages through mediums, and which depict what throughout the essay is referred to as ’the other side’: realms beyond death.Any inherent magical aspect of the channelling phenomenon has been removed and the essay treats the mediums as authors and the written messages as their textual productions. These have been assessed with a postcolonial perspective focused on eurocentrism, christocentrism, evolutionary theory, otherness and the idea of Western progress. Using Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis, the texts’ actual use of language, its discursive influences and its reflecting of imperialistic ideologies have also been assessed.The result shows that the imperialistic discourse that dominated the Western knowledge productions in the Victorian age, is directly mirrored in the way the articles in Efteråt? portrayed ’the other side’ and its inhabitants. Westernized conceptions are being treated as universal which shows in how ’the other side’ is structured around evolutionary principles that glorifies progress and development. ’Ethnic others’ are held as less developed, barbaric, stupid and in the need of help from Western experts. The texts also reflects the christocentric essence that places Western theology as the ultimate developed spirituality. And they portray hierarchical power structures and imperial dominance in a normalizing and moralizing way.Even if the Spiritualistic movement often is contextualized as a radical, progressive new spirituality and seen as the dawn of ’New Age’, this essay shows that the construction of ’the other side’, as it is narrated in the analyzed articles of Efteråt?, is merely a discursive cultural expression of the imperialistic ideologies that dominated the Western society at the time the articles where written and published.Key words: Spiritualism, Imperialism, Ideology, Postcolonial, Eurocentrism, Evolution, ChannelingNyckelord: Spiritualism, Imperialism, Ideologi, Postkolonialism, Eurocentrism, Evolution, Kanalisering

This project was conducted in Vientiane, Laos where wetlands, channels and rivers play an important role for the water quality maintenance. Now, large landscape changes like backfilling of wetlands and channelization is affecting the condition of the urban waters which has become extremely polluted. For that reason this survey has focused on the past and present status of Houay Mak Hiao River, who receives basically all drainage water from the city. The purpose of this project is to find out how the condition of Houay Mak Hiao River has changed over time and to describe how historical and current landscape changes have affected the river. Group interviews were conducted in seven villages along the river to find out about the past and present status. The groups consisted of 3-6 respondents in each village. To get as relevant answers as possible, elders, fishermen, farmers and the head of village in each village were participating in the interviews. Water samples were collected at nine sampling sites to determine the water quality of today. The results show that the condition of the river started to significantly decrease about ten years ago and has since then become worse and worse. Today, the water is extremely polluted which has affected the fish population and the vegetation along the river in a very negative way. The deterioration can be connected to channelization and wetland area loss in Vientiane.The level of contamination decreases closer to the outflow into Mekong River which can be due to uptake by floating plants and dilution effects.

This study deals with sport's controversial dependence on the gambling market. The aim of the study is to analyse the comments of authorities, organisations and associations regarding the governmental public inquiry (SOU 2017:30) A re-regulated gambling market. The method used to collect and analyse data was a literature review in the form of a qualitative content analysis. The gambling market brings enormous amounts of money to the Swedish sports movement. The gambling policy that has been pursued in Sweden has encouraged the gambling market to return profit money to the sports movement. The problem has thus been to be able to apply national laws to foreign gambling companies. The advent of the Gambling Act (2018:1138) brought some significant changes, most notably the introduction of the licensing system and the 18 percent excise tax.  The results of the study show that the advent of the Gambling Act (2018:1138) has provided the opportunity for the state to collect taxes from foreign gambling companies and to be able to work more effectively against gambling abuse. Furthermore, it means creating a balance to meet the demand in the gambling market as well as being able to provide a high level of consumer protection.