This thesis explores how hope in relation to the threats to the earth’s biosphere can be formulated theologically. The starting-point is a questioning of hope raised by the French sociologist and anthropologist Bruno Latour. In Facing Gaia. Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime (2015) he asks why so little has happened to reduce the emissions of CO2. Parts of his answers relate to the view that hope is preventing action. Since hope is a central part of Christian doctrine, this study lets Latours scepticism meet some eco-theological litterature, mainly representing evangelical, orthodox and radical material theology, and religious naturalism. Since critic against eschatology is important in Latours explanatory model, this theme is discussed together with the possibilities of the church practices of liturgy and eucharistic celebration, especially in relation to the concept of time and space, the latter elaborated by the radical material theologian Petra Carlsson Redell. Although putting different emphasis on an ultimate eschatological hope, all authors stress the importance of acting now. The evangelical authors Daniel Brunner et al. present a strategy “living as if”, practicing restoration of the Earth here and now. In religious naturalism the hope lies in the common biological ground for all humanity and living things, also leading to a caring ethics. In general, relationality and materiality as well as including marginalized voices are important concepts when the authors are formulating environmental ethics and eco-theology.  The concept of hope is shown to be important to define, in order to sort out especially false hope from a possibly fruitful concept: resilient hope. A resilient hope is grounded in Christian discipleship, is adaptive and able to recover. It is in a reciprocal relation to action. To develop a resilient hope I argue that it is important to allow both desperation and hope, since the free moving between the two “poles” can act liberating and enable action. A resilient hope gives space for scepticism since it is grounded in a reality always on the move. It is open for emergence and construction. Christianity has resources to house the space between hope and despair both in central biblical narratives and in bodily practices as liturgy and eucharist. Resilient hope in this thesis is earthbound, withstands being lost, and arises again and again in search for new constructive possibilities.

Den Europeiska Unionen vill med Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) standardisera hållbarhetsredovisning för företag som är verksamma inom unionen. Återigen kommer fler och fler företag omfattas av reglerna att behöva upprätta en obligatorisk hållbarhetsredovisning – vilket kan utgöra en utmaning för mindre erfarna små och medelstora företag. Denna studie undersökte små och medelstora företags syn på hållbarhetsredovisning samt deras uppfattning för dess kärnbegrepp; närmare bestämt ESG och materialitet. Studien utfördes genom semistrukturerade intervjuer med sex företag och med hjälp av sju respondenter. Studien visade att det finns en överväldigande positiv inställning till hållbarhetsredovisning bland de studerade företagen. Hursomhelst framgick det tecken på att företagen var bristfällig i vissa aspekter. Till exempel upplevde samtliga företag svårigheter med att koppla delar av sin verksamhet till hållbarhet på en bolagsstyrningsnivå (eng. governance). Liknande resultat upptäcktes för materialitet. Alla företag upplevdes ha svårigheter att begripa innebörden av begreppet ’materialitet’. Studien visade, trots svårigheten att begripa innebörden av materialitet, att de studerade företagen visade tecken på att vara effektiva i identifieringen av materiella hållbarhetsaspekter. / The European Union wants to standardize sustainability reporting with the implementation of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD). Once again, more and more enterprises will be subject to the mandatory requirements to disclose sustainability information – which may pose a challenge for less experienced small and medium sized enterprises. This study examines the perception of small and medium sized enterprises on sustainability reporting and its foundational concepts; namely environmental, social and governance (ESG) and materiality. The study was conducted on six individual companies and seven interviewees in total. The study concludes that there exists an overwhelmingly positive perception of sustainability reporting amongst the studied enterprises. However, there were signs that the studied companies were deficient in certain aspects. For example, all enterprises experienced difficulties in identifying aspects of their business that could be linked with governance sustainability. Similar results were discovered on the materiality topic. All enterprises had difficulties in understanding the term ‘materiality’. The study concludes that, despite the difficulty understanding materiality, the studied enterprises showed signs of being efficient in identifying material sustainability topics.

Art history is riddled with existential questions hiding just beneath the surface of the subject matter, that is, the physical objects being created. This is true for the centuries-old, as well as the contemporary, and picking apart the materiality of works of art can reveal the value of using art as a medium to understand and work through the concept of death in relation to our own human existence. This paper constitutes a thorough, material analysis of three works of art created (or finished) in the last 20 years, specifically focused on the topic of death. The works examined are Roman Opalka’s conceptual lifetime project 1 to Infinity, Morgan Quaintance’s video artwork Efforts of Nature and El Anatsui’s site-specific sculpture Fresh and Fading Memories in Venice, Italy. As well as materiality, contextual aspects of the works are considered for this analysis, this to help make concrete and coherent the narratives and stories that make up the works themselves. These narratives are what this paper is aiming to decipher.

Studien undersöker 14 djurfiguriner från Arne Furumarks utgrävning av den sena bronsåldersbosättningen Sinda på Cypern. Figurinerna detaljstuderas med syftet att vidare förstå Sindas socio-kulturella miljö. De grupperas utifrån liknande drag, för att sedan analyseras utifrån de influenser som genomsyrade tiden. Figurinerna jämförs även med de från andra platser för att se om det existerade ett lokalt formspråk i Sinda. Genomgående betraktas figurinerna utifrån teorierna att föremåls betydelse påverkas av sin kontext, och att ting och människa är sammanbundna. Gravkontexten betraktas som figurinernas primära kontext, i motsats till Furumarks tidigare slutsatser. Sindas figuriner skiljer sig från de på andra platser, i huvudsak genom deras naturtrogna drag, även om det finns förenande aspekter. Sindas förmodade fokus på djurhållning visar sig i vilka djur som är representerade; tjurarnas betydelse låg i huvudsak vid fertilitetssymbolism, och även de andra djuren har en koppling till jordbruk och djurhållning. Det påtagliga mykenska inflytande påverkade utformandet av den typ som alla Sindas figuriner tillhör, de så kallade buff painted bulls. / This study examines 14 animal figurines found in the late bronze age settlement of Sinda during Arne Furumark’s excavation. The figurines are studied in detail with the purpose of better understanding the socio-cultural environment of Sinda. The figurines are grouped by similar traits and is analyzed based on the influences and ideas of the time. They are also compared to figurines from other places, to see if there existed a locality in style in Sinda. Throughout, the figurines are understood from the theories of the human-thing relationship and that the context affect the purpose of an object. The grave context is understood as the objects’ primary context, as opposed to Furumarks earlier conclusions. Sinda’s figurines differ from those of other places, mainly due to their naturalistic traits, although there are uniting attributes. Sinda’s presumed focus on livestock is apparent in the represented animals; the bulls signified fertility, and the other animals depicted also had a connection to agriculture and livestock. The apparent Mycenaean influence affected the shaping and development of the type of figurine found in Sinda, the so-called buff painted bulls.

The purpose of this study is to show the discourses that we can see in the texts from RFSU (2015) and “Rädda Barnen” (2013) about children's sexuality, we connect this empiricism to the preschool curriculum. Furthermore, we highlight the gaps that we can see are the different discourses in the texts and how present or absent physical factuality is. We also want to examine what it could mean for our didactic work with body factuality. Generally, there are a lot of texts about the importance of playfulness and many expressions that leave room for interpretation to the reader. We believe that concepts like playful, positive, equality, security, develop a responsible sexuality, private body parts, intimately, and so forth leaves subjective to interpretation of each individual preschool teacher. Children are described exploring their sexuality through play, were the body are in focus, but are often described limited as children's sexuality. Children's bodily feelings and sexuality described indistinct and confused resulting in that the body is made invisible. The discourses make themselves prominent in our discourse analysis is sexuality discourse, disquieting and fear discourse, discourse of norms, materialistic corporal discourse and the invisible discourse.

How did the conformist “organization man” of modern welfare society turn into the restless and flexible market-rational individualist of late-modernity? And what role did technology play in this transformation? Drawing from inquiries like these, this doctoral thesis deals with topics such as technology, culture, and the production of social consciousness. The aim of the study is to elucidate the historical emergence of late-modern reason, visible in the socio-material process of automation. The study takes two mundane technical innovations as starting points to investigate dominant social values and rationalities embedded in, and emerging from material transformations in the production process of two late modern, Swedish organizations. Covering a period of roughly fifty years (1960–2013), the analysis relies on the interpretation of a variety of both contemporary and archived sources, including interviews, observations, witness accounts and archived material in the form of staff magazines, newspapers, photographs and official documents. While following a hermeneutical tradition of European ethnology the study is also an attempt to enrich its synchronous cultural analysis of everyday life with theory grounded in historical (dialectical) materialism. Along this line of thought the thesis suggests that many of the qualities, values and everyday experiences attributed to late-modernity, such as “flexibility”, “creativity” and “flat organizations” depend on the reification and embedding of modernist social forms, ideas and relations, such as instrumental rationality, routine labour and bureaucratic taxonomy into the material foundation of daily life.

This thesis discusses the potential consequences of applying the philosophy of Mark C. Taylor to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI). The first part of the thesis comprises a study focusing on two discursive trends in contemporary HCI, materiality and the self, and how these discourses describe interaction. Through a qualitative, inductive content analysis of 171 HCI research articles, a number of themes are identified in the literature and, it is argued, construct a dominant perspective of materiality, the self, and interaction. Examples that differ from the dominant discourse are also discussed as alternative perspectives for each of the three focal areas. The second part of the thesis comprises an analysis of Mark C. Taylor’s philosophical project which enables a number of philosophical positions on materiality, the self, and interaction to be identified. These positions are suggested to be variations and rereadings of themes found in Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. These variations emerge as Taylor approaches Nietzsche through poststructuralism and complexity theory, and it is argued that the apparent heterogeneity of Taylor’s project can be understood as a more coherent position when interpreted in relation to Nietzsche’s philosophy. Based on the findings of the two literature studies, the thesis then discusses the possible consequences for HCI, if Taylor’s philosophy were to be applied as a theoretical framework. The thesis argues that Taylor’s philosophy describes the interaction between humans and computers  as an existential process, which contrasts with the dominant HCI discourse; that this view can be related to and provide a theoretical foundation for the alternative discourses in HCI; and that it can contribute to developing HCI. / Denna avhandling syftar till att diskutera de möjliga konsekvenserna av att applicera Mark C. Taylors filosofi inom fältet Människa-Datorinteraktion (MDI). Den första delen av avhandlingen utgörs av en studie som fokuserar på två diskursiva trender inom MDI, materialitet och självet, och hur dessa diskurser beskriver interaktion. Genom en kvalitativ, induktiv innehållsanalys av 171 forskningsartiklar inom MDI-fältet identifieras ett antal teman som kan sägas utgöra dominerande perspektiv i framställningen av de tre fokusområdena. Studien identifierar också exempel på alternativa perspektiv som kontrasterar mot den vedertagna bilden av materialitet, självet samt interaktion inom MDI. Den andra delen av avhandlingen utgörs av en analys där Mark C. Taylors filosofiska projekt utforskas med syfte att identifiera filosofiska positioner som kan fungera som teoretiska resurser för en fördjupad förståelse av de tre fokusområdena. Genom en jämförelse mellan dessa positioner och filosofiska teman hos Friedrich Nietzsche framträder en bild där Taylors positioner kan sägas utgöra variationer och omläsningar av Nietzsches texter i relation till mer sentida teoretiska ansatser. Analysen syftar till att påvisa att Taylors projekt, som vid första anblicken kan tyckas utgöras av en rad skiftande och ibland motsägelsefulla filosofiska framställningar utan inre sammanhang, i själva verket kan förstås som en mer sammanhängande teoretisk position om den läses i relation till Nietzsches filosofi. Med utgångspunkt i de två litteraturstudierna diskuteras slutligen möjliga konsekvenser av att använda Taylors filosofi som teoretiskt ramverk inom MDI och följande slutsatser presenteras: att Taylors filosofi erbjuder ett perspektiv på interaktionen mellan människor och datorer som betonar interaktion som en identitetsskapande, existentiell process vilket skiljer sig från det dominerande perspektivet inom MDI; att Taylors filosofi kan relateras till och utgöra ett teoretiskt fundament för de alternativa MDI-diskurser som tidigare identifierats, samt att en sådan process kan bidra till en vidareutveckling av teoribildningen inom MDI. / <p>QC 20160831</p>

During the period 1967-1995, Swedish mental healthcare underwent a complete re-organisation, starting with county councils taking over responsibility for mental healthcare from the state. Asylums were then phased out and mental health care moved closer to patients. The Mental Health Reform of 1995 completed this decentralisation and put the emphasis on an independent and integrated life as a citizen in society and the idea of a dwelling of one’s own. This thesis describes and analyses spatial aspects of decentralised mental healthcare in Sweden, focusing on the decentralisation discourse regarding organisation, localisation, patient care and working methods behind decentralisation and its spatial performance. A case study of decentralised mental healthcare in Nacka, a Stockholm suburb, between 1958-1999 examines in particular the emerging decentralisation discourse 1958-1973, The Nacka Project 1974-1980 (one of the first examples of community care in Sweden), psychiatry in Nacka 1980-1994 and the official report Welfare and Freedom of Choice from 1995. The methods used include studies of documents, interviews, visual and architectural drawing analysis. The theoretical point of departure for the analysis is a post-structural heterogeneous concept of space where spatial materiality and discursiveness are looked upon as intertwined.    The result shows that the re-organisation of mental healthcare brought about a substantial spatial transformation. Normalisation of patients’ lives involved integration into society and support for independent living. The local environment was the main trope for the early stage of decentralised mental healthcare, but the notion of a dwelling of one’s own became the important trajectory to an independent life after 1995. The idea of the patient is challenged by the independence discourse, which could be said to contain an idea of the ‘non-patient’. Overall, it can be concluded that spatial organisations of the built environment are never value-free or neutral. They reflect, enable and constrain power relations in a society and material space can contribute to the power of one group at the expense of another. Furthermore, the results of the spatialities, or the meanings, cannot be predicted. It is therefore crucial to distinguish power in all its configurations and scales and to keep negotiations alive, especially within the field of mental healthcare, but also in the care sector as a whole and in other societal institutions where policies buildings and built environment interact with user practices. This kaleidoscopic perspective can be used for examining complexities in the past and present and for encouraging future potentialities in the process of making/enacting spatial relations. / QC 20120306

This master thesis is an ethnological study focusing members of a young, urban Jewishdiaspora in Sweden. The study's aim is to problematize and describe the relation between theJewish minority that is regarded as religious, and the secular normative majority societyregarded as non-religious. The study explores questions regarding social positioning,belonging and memory and how Jewish traditions are practiced in contemporary Sweden. Themethodological approaches are interviews and participation observations with a specific focuson food; its symbolic value and how food can materialize identities and communicatememories. The empirical data comprises 24 interviews in total, of which 11 interviews havebeen chosen and thus constitute the material on which the study's analysis is made upon. Theanalysis is mainly based upon the theoretical perspective of phenomenology focusinganalytical concepts as materiality, positionality, (conditional) belonging, minority/majorityand diasporic processes. By being regarded as "well integrated" and at the same time beingdesignated as one of Sweden's national minorities, the Jewish group is given contradictorypositionalities, which is examined in this study. The study also shows that memory and aconnection to the past (both personal and general Jewish history) are of great importance tothese informants when expressing their identities, and that this connection often materializesthrough food. By highlighting the informants' experiences of keeping kosher, it becamevisible that Jewish way of life challenges the normative (imagined) secularity in Sweden.

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