This study is about seven women’s organizations in Belgrade, Serbia and their relations to domestic and international donors during the period 2003-2006. My main research questions focus on their choices of either domestic or international cooperation partners. How and why did the women organize themselves? What factors were essential when selecting donors? In what ways were the organizations influenced by donors? Through interviews, with organization representatives’ concepts such as gift and reciprocity, power and dependency, trust and mistrust and collective identity emerged.  These concepts were used as points of departure for developing deeper understanding of women organizations’ choice of cooperation partners. The women organizations’ basically had two alternatives for cooperation: cooperation with foreign donors which offered funds, organizational development and social networks. Alternately, cooperation with local donors, which offered the equivalent except for the organizational development. Cooperation with the foreign donor has resulted in more professional attitudes to the work that have been desired by other international donors. A result is that they can compete with other women’s organizations’ for international funding. Cooperation with local donors has led to fewer resources but more independent working practices. For these women organizations’ independence was important so they choose partners who, they felt more respected this allowing them to write articles or discuss gender in the media with little external influence. Regardless of the chosen donor the reciprocity is embedded in the relation between the donor and the receiver of aid, which in various ways is beneficial for both parties.

This study has focused on how the Facebook group #jagärhär has been working on inviting people to participate in the conversation against hate culture online. To examine this, we have conducted qualitative interviews with members and administrators from the group, and made a rhetorical text analysis on posts made in the group. The theoretical concepts used in the analysis are: convergence, participatory culture and democracy, collective intelligence, collective identity and doxa. By using these theoretical concepts, certain strategies in the group could be seen. Some of the most important strategies and tactics that could be seen were that the group had a strict structure - to facilitate engagement and participation - and that there was great focus on being encouraging and motivating in their language. It was also seen that it was important for the group to be visible in traditional media, and to be noticed by public figures - like celebrities - in order to be more visible and to inspire more people to participate / Denna studie har undersökt hur Facebookgruppen #jagärhär har gått till väga för att bjuda in till deltagande i samtalet mot hatkultur online. För att undersöka detta har vi gjort kvalitativa intervjuer med medlemmar och administratörer från gruppen, samt gjort en retorisk textanalys på inlägg som gjorts i gruppen. De teoretiska begrepp som använts i analysen är: konvergens, deltagarkultur och demokrati, kollektiv intelligens, kollektiv identitet och doxa. Genom att använda dessa teoretiska begrepp kunde vissa strategier i gruppen skönjas. Några av de viktigaste strategier och taktiker som kunde ses var att gruppen hade en tydlig struktur - för att underlätta engagemang och deltagande -  och att det var stort fokus på att vara uppmuntrande och motiverande i sitt språk. Det gick även att se att det var viktigt för gruppen att synas mycket i traditionella medier, samt att uppmärksammas av offentliga personer, för att kunna bli mer synliga och kunna inspirera fler till att delta.

This study is a qualitative interview study that examines antagonism, identity and collective memory among second generation immigrants from Bosnia & Herzegovina. The study is based on an existential history use-perspective and social constructivist socialization theory. The study shows that the Bosniak identity is seldom defined by their history and the Yugoslavian wars but rather by language and traditions. In addition, the results indicate that the Bosniak identity has been assimilated to a large extent into the Swedish majority culture. The results also show that antagonism against other ethnic groups in the Balkans mainly occurs among first-generation immigrants while the descendants do not relate to a large extent to the war crimes and atrocities that occurred against Bosnian Muslims. Instead, they express empathy and sympathy for their parents’ experiences of these traumas. The respondents also experienced a nonchalance towards their background in Swedish history teaching where their history was neglected in favor of other wars and genocides. While the respondents suspected a fear of conflict among teachers to account for the area, they also told examples when teachers failed in the relational pedagogy and homogenized the individuals by letting them represent an entire conflict and ethnic group. Overall, the study shows that the use of history is not a recurring phenomenon among second-generation Bosniak immigrants, and their attitude focuses on individuals rather than groups. In the didactic part of the study, the results emphasize that history teachers might need to self-educate based on the students' background to create a meaningful education and create a history awareness among students.

Studiens syfte är att förstå hur innehavare av feministiska aktivistkonton på Instagram ser på det arbete de lägger ned, hur de upplever Instagrams feministiska fält samt hur deras konton har påverkat dem själva som individer. Tidigare forskning visar att sociala medier är en viktig arena för onlineaktivism och politisk engagemang, inte minst vad gäller informations- och kunskapsdelning, samtal och kontaktskapande. Forskning visar även att det finns en diversitet i hur feminister använder sociala medier, vilken roll de har på mediet spelar roll för hur användningen ser ut. Studien utgår från teoretiska perspektiv om digitalt arbete, emotionellt arbete samt kollektiv identitet inom sociala rörelser. Kvalitativa intervjuer har genomförts med fyra feministiska instagramaktivister som har över 20 000 följare och datamaterialet har analyserats tematiskt. Ett urval av studiens resultat presenteras nedan. Informanterna driver sina konton för att påverka människor och den feministiska debatten, de menar även att drivandet av stora feministiska konton kommer med ett ansvar. Informanterna anser att Instagram är ett bra verktyg för att få upp feministiska frågor för debatt i samhället och att det ibland leder till reella förändringar. Det feministiska fältet på Instagram består av grupperingar. Inom de olika grupperna finns en solidaritet men inom fältet som stort är tonen hård och det pågår mycket konflikter. Informanterna uppger att det tar mycket tid för dem att driva sina konton och flera av dem känner sig pressade, alla vittnar även om att de har mottagit hat och hot. Avslutningsvis kan sägas att innehavare av feministiska aktivistkonton utför både ett digitalt och ett emotionellt arbete.

Den breda mitten, eller bara mitten, är ett centralt begrepp i Centerpartiets identitet. Trots detta är Centerpartiets sakpolitik inte särskilt positionerad i ”mitten”. Partiet är snarare det mest högerlutande partiet av samtliga riksdagspartier vad gäller ekonomiska frågor. Samtidigt är själva idén med den breda mitten att etablera ett bredare samarbete över blockgränser men exkludera Vänsterpartiet och Sverigedemokraterna på grund av deras respektive ytterkantsposition. Rent sakpolitiskt är den breda mitten en gåta. Medan fenomenet inte tillåter sig att begripas speciellt väl ur ett sakpolitiskt perspektiv, argumenterar föreliggande uppsats för att det bättre kan förstås utifrån dess symboliska betydelse. Den breda mitten undersöks således som en instans av sekulär religion. Genom intervjuer med Centerpartister kartläggs ett religiöst meningssystem som grundas på; (1) ett heligt ideal om en icke-extrem politisk karaktär i form av mitten; (2) en moralisk gemenskap som sluter upp kring idealet och försvarar det från all form av upplevd extremism, men som är mer intresserad av sitt förakt för Sverigedemokraterna och (3) upplevelser av hur ritualer kring motståndet mot Sverigedemokraterna och självuppoffring för idealet erbjuder frälsning från synden att kunna associeras med Sverigedemokraterna via högeridentiteten. Religionens funktion tolkas vara att reglera diskrepansen mellan partiets identitet och praktik genom ritualer och moraliska argument som triumferar över sakliga problem med motstånd mot Sverigedemokraterna som den övertygande mekanismen. Mitten identifieras vidare som den perfekta täckmanteln för en förlorad högeridentitet och för de framgångar som motståndet mot Sverigedemokraterna bringar partiet, då motstånd mot båda ytterkantspartierna gör att Centerpartiet kan hävda sig som mitten och därigenom attrahera den större grupp väljare som finns där. Motståndet mot Sverigedemokraterna tolkas i sin tur som den grundläggande drivkraften bakom fenomenet den breda mitten, en drivkraft som inte bara bygger på framgångar i termer av en ökad väljarbas utan också på en upplevd välvilja, en dold förhoppning om en alternativ och självständig högergemenskap men även på en möjlighet för Centerpartiet att göra upp med sin egen historia av främlingsfientlighet. / The broad middle, or just the middle, is a central concept in the identity of The Centre Party in Sweden. Despite this, the politics of The Centre Party is not particularly positioned in “the middle”. Rather, The Centre Party is the most right-leaning party of all the parliamentary parties when it comes to economic issues. Simultaneously, the very idea behind the broad middle is to establish wider cooperation across block boundaries but exclude the parliamentary parties The Left Party and The Sweden Democrats due to their respective outer edge position. As a matter of concrete policy, the broad middle is an enigma. While the phenomenon does not allow itself to be understood particularly well from a concrete political perspective, the present thesis argues that it can be better understood based on its symbolic meaning. The broad middle is thus analysed as an instance of secular religion. Through interviews with members of The Centre Party, a religious meaning system is mapped which is based on; (1) a sacred ideal of a non-extreme political character in the form of the middle; (2) a moral community that defends the ideal by protecting it from all sorts of experienced extremism, but whose interest lies more in its contempt for The Sweden Democrats and (3) experiences of how rituals surrounding the antagonism towards The Sweden Democrats and self-sacrifice for the ideal offers salvation from the sin of being associated with The Sweden Democrats trough a Right-wing identity. The function of the religion is interpreted as regulating the discrepancy between The Centre Party’s identity and practise through rituals and moral arguments that triumphs over factual problems with the antagonism towards The Sweden Democrats as the convincing mechanism. The middle is further identified as the perfect cover for a lost Right-wing identity and for the successes that the antagonism towards The Sweden Democrats brings the party, since opposition to both the outer-edge parties allows The Centre Party to assert itself as the middle and thus attract the larger group of voters who are located there. The antagonism towards The Sweden Democrats is in turn identified as the primal driving force behind the phenomenon the broad middle, a driving force that is not only based on successes in term of increased voters but also on an experienced benevolence, a hidden hope for an alternative and independent Right-wing community as well as on an opportunity for redemption with The Centre Party’s own history of xenophobia.

The overall aim of this thesis is to contribute to the field of research that examines the relationship between peace efforts and nationalism. The relationship will be studied from perspectives of educa- tional history and history didactics. More precisely, by focusing on history education, this disserta- tion will analyse the demands for a comprehensive peace education in schools that were put forward by a long list of actors in the Western world during the interwar period, and as such discuss to what extent, and in what ways, nationalism influenced the content and design of this peace education. The main theoretical framework of this thesis is the concept of nationalism, and the position of nationalism as a hegemonic ideology during the first half of the 20th century. Another central un- derstanding is the assumption that the educational system, specifically history education, played a central role in creating, maintaining and strengthening collective identities as well as the prevailing ideological hegemony. The empirical investigation has been limited to studying the demands and ideas presented by Nordic peace educators, mainly The Swedish School Peace League (SSF), regar- ding peace-educating history teaching. As such, the empirical aim has been to investigate the SSF’s views on the relationship between nationalism and peace education, i.e., how internationalism and pacifism were to be taught, as well as how this understanding affected the League’s ideas regarding history teaching. The results have also been analysed from a gender perspective, based on the as- sumption that contemporary notions of gender in relation to nationalism, war and peace in different ways had an impact upon the content and format of the proposed peace education.         The study shows that the SSF regarded nationalism as the very foundation and prerequisite for any peace education. SSF thus tried to reconcile nationalism, internationalism and pacifism under one and the same ideological approach; “patriotic pacifism”, which in turn strongly influenced the endorsed peace-educating history teaching. Furthermore, the study highlights boys’ central role in the peace education project, which essentially set the long-term goal of creating a new pacifist and internationally oriented male ideal and yet, despite these aims, continued an intimate association with the “national”. Key concepts in SSF’s peace education were unite and supplement, and thereby they redefined central meanings of hegemonic nationalism. SSF’s patriotic pacifism and its impact on the association's demands for a peace-educating history teaching can best be described as an “intra-hegemonic counterforce”. / Historia utan gräns: Den internationella historieboksrevisionen 1919-2009