Denna avhandling undersöker tre statligt finansierade kampanjer mot human papillomvirus (HPV) i Sverige. Författaren visar att kampanjerna innehåller och artikulerar olika former av omsorg som inte är begränsade till att endast uppmana människor att ”ta hand om sig själva” eller ”bry sig om andra”. Istället studeras omsorg som något mångfasetterat och kontextuellt, och som något som innefattar såväl mänskliga som icke-mänskliga komponenter. I studien fokuserar författaren på hur aktörer möjliggör och problematiserar olika former av omsorg. Dessa aktörer inkluderar yrkesverksamma inom landsting som försöker kommunicera omsorg till tjejer och deras anhöriga, men också olika materiella ting, såsom en ”HPV-app”, en Facebook-kampanjsida och en vaccinationshusvagn. Kampanjmedia, intervjuer och textbaserade cancerberättelser analyseras med hjälp av teoretiska perspektiv från fältet feministiska teknik- och vetenskapsstudier (STS). Studien är situerad till forskning kring omsorgspolitik inom teknik och vetenskap, och bidrar till diskussioner om tidsmässiga dimensioner av omsorg. I kampanjmaterialet som studeras dominerar ett fokus på omsorg som något som skall göras nu för att möjliggöra en hälsosam och lycklig framtid. Genom att använda sig av ett ”etiskt-politiskt” ställningstagande, och en analytisk ansats, där fokus ligger på att synliggöra marginella, frånvarande och alternativa omsorgsformer problematiserar författaren  sådana ”snabba” framtidsorienterade omsorgsvisioner enligt vilka omsorg ses som något som skall göras omedelbart i preventivt syfte. Detta görs genom ett synliggörande av ”långsammare” och sammanflätade ”omsorgstemporaliteter” som öppnar upp för osäkerheter, tveksamheter, obestämdheter samt för olika känslouttryck, och som möjliggör mer omsorgsfulla praktiker. / This dissertation examines three state-funded human papillomavirus (HPV) campaigns in Sweden. The author shows that they include and articulate a range of different forms of care that are not limited to just asking people to “take care of themselves” or “care for others”. Care is instead approached as a multilayered, contextual and contingent phenomenon, and as made by a heterogeneity of human and nonhuman components. The study shows how care is articulated by human actors such as county council professionals who try to communicate care to girls and their relatives, and by material devices like an “HPV app”, a Facebook campaign site and a vaccination trailer which enable, distribute and trouble different forms of care. Campaign devices and campaign media, interviews, and textual cancer narratives are analyzed using a feminist science and technology studies (STS) approach. The study is situated within feminist STS discussions on the politics of care in technoscience, and contributes to discussions on temporal dimensions of care. In the campaign material the study examines, there is a dominant focus on care as something that needs to be done now to enable a healthy and happy future. By working with an ethico-political and analytical standpoint that is focused on making present neglected, marginal, absent and alternative matters of care, the author disrupts and troubles such future-oriented visions of care as an “anticipatory immediacy” through a focus on other temporalities of care. These include slower, messier and folded temporalities which open up for uncertainties, hesitations, indeterminacies, a range of feelings, and for more caring articulations of what care is. / Prescriptive Prescriptions: Pharmaceuticals and "Healthy" Subjectivities

The works of Erik Beckman (1935-1995) are quite unique within the Swedish literary scene. His texts convert the experimental language of the concretists of the sixties into a new form of fabulation that undermines our understanding of what literature can be, ranging from novels and poetry to theatre pieces and radio theatre. His literary style has been discussed by critics, but the depths of it are yet to be fully explored. There is a lot to gain from combining contemporary theories of materiality and corporeality with his self-proclaimed materialistic poetics. The novel Inlandsbanan (1967) is a fragmentary account of an inland train going through Sweden, with characters coming and going in a frustrating tempo. The text is filled with word games, narrative constructs and a language that brings forth the material aspects of communication that push the boundaries of literary interpretation. This thesis examines Beckman’s novel through the lens of theoretical concepts of thingliness and corporeality developed by the likes of Judith Butler, Karen Barad, and Andrew Pickering in order to elaborate an analysis that goes beyond the surface of its experimental and materialistic use of literary language. Using bodily themes, I analyze specific passages in the novel in order to find a new understanding of its semantic functions. By doing this through the concept of performativity, not only can I identify a thematized corporeality, but beyond that a literary form and a language that problematizes the very notion of the written text as a body and highlights a material agency in literature. This method enables an interpretation of the novel that can illuminates important aspects at play that previously have not been explored.

Avhandlingen beskriver och analyserar hur frågor kring tillgänglighet/handikapp för första gången aktualiserades och implementerades i planeringen och utformningen av den byggda miljön i Aten, nämligen processen i samband med beslut, planering och implementering av jätteprojektet Atens Metro. Studien tecknar framväxten av olika handikapporganisationer, som från att ha varit svaga aktörer successivt lyckades få gehör för sina krav inom stadens förvaltning, politiska organ, den grekiska riksdagen och inte minst inom de företag som byggde metrosystemet. Avhandlingen diskuterar hur handikapporganisationer och metrosystemet växte fram och påverkade varandra, hur viktiga forum för att diskutera/problematisera olika perspektiv på handikapp skapades där aktörsgrupper med delvis olika intressen förde fram sina ståndpunkter och förhandlade samt vilka konkreta avtryck som dessa processer ledde till i form av en - slutligen - handikappvänlig teknisk konfiguration av metrosystemet. Studien knyter också an till den europeiska diskussionen, bl.a. inom EU, kring handikapp och vilken betydelse som denna diskussion hade för det framväxande metroprojektet, inte minst inför Atens OS-värdskap 2004. Avhandlingen tar sin teoretiska utgångspunkt i dels samhällsvetenskapliga teknik- och vetenskapsstudier, dels "disability studies". / The idea of building a metro network in Athens dates back to the 1950s. It took almost fifty years for the Greek government to develop plans, secure funds and to carry out an effective procurement process for the construction of the Athens metro. In February 1987 the government announced an invitation to tender for the design and construction of the metro. Thirteen years later, in January 2000 the first two lines began operation. The construction of the metro consisted of numerous preliminary studies, different public organizations which dealt with its development and several controversies concerning its design. One of these controversies referred to the issue whether the metro would be accessible to disabled people or not. Integrating accessibility provisions in the metro design constituted a controversial issue where different actors argued and acted for and against its implementation. This study describes and analyses the process of making the metro accessible. The analysis focuses on how questions regarding accessibility/disability were actualized for the first time in the planning and design of the Greek built environment and in particular on the process of building the biggest and most complicated infrastructure project in Greece, the Athens metro. At the same time, the study describes the evolution of disability organizations in Greece: they changed from being weak actors who were unable to influence socio-political configurations to actors that successively gained attention within the public administration, political organs, the Greek Parliament and the company that constructed the metro. The study discusses how disability organizations and the metro were developed and influenced each other and how important forums, where several actors with diverse interests problematized and produced different perspectives on disability, were initiated. These forums constituted public spaces within the public administration and eventually contributed to the construction of an accessible metro network. The analysis is also connected to Athens hosting of the Olympic and Paralympic Games of 2004 which created increasing demands for constructing an accessible built environment, including the metro. Furthermore, the study also draws upon the discussion within the EU on disability and on which kind of consequences this discussion implied for the developing metro. The theoretical basis for this study is located at the intersection of two broad fields, namely science and technology studies (S&TS) and disability studies.

This dissertation investigates how a symmetrical approach to archaeology can be applied to identify the properties and effects of the non-living, abiotic materials. And to reconfigure the relationship between humans and non-human objects, bridging the divide between what has been termed ‘cultural’ and ‘natural’ and thus placed in different ontological realms. This is examined by studying the practices surrounding “boulder graves”, from the Late Bronze Age - Early Iron Age (approx. 1000 – 0 BC) in Kättsta, Ärentuna parish in Uppland, Sweden. The boulders tend to be studied from an anthropocentric point of view, in which they are seen primarily as passive objects, interpreted only for what they represent. The objective of this research, however, is to gain new insights into the agency of boulders, and how they contributed to the practices carried out adjacent to them. The dissertation is based on a case study where a thematic analysis is performed, focusing on the properties and characteristics of boulders, their affordances, the distribution of finds and their interrelations, and the effects their relations generated. The results show that the boulders themselves contributed in human-stone relations and were vital in the formation of the grave-like features they became part of. It is argued that a symmetrical, non-anthropocentric approach to these features will broaden our view on materialities in the past, affording ontological as well as ecological implications.

The digital copy is rapidly becoming the dominant form in which researchers encounter cultural heritage. In this situation, the relation between the original and the digital reproduction has become a crucial, yet too little discussed problem. This thesis investigates this relation through two questions: (1) Which is the ontological status of the reproduction in relation to the original, and (2) How is the original mediated to its digital format? Question (1) is answered in dialogue with previous research: The reproduction is a new artefact, but with a relation (of similiarity) to the original. It is the understanding of this relation that the remaining part of the thesis tries to deepen and around which the second question revolves. This more empirical question (2)is examined through a comparative analysis of a physical original—the 17th century album amicorum of Gottfried Schröer—and its digitisation in the platform Alvin.The informative dimensions “context”, “materiality”, “textbased information”, and the category “aura” are investigated in the original and in the digital reproduction. For this purpose, Walter Benjamin’s concept “aura” is critically discussed and redefined as an analytical concept, and the research question is rephrased in terms of (a) which qualities are transfered, (b) not transfered, and (c) if/how they are transformed during the transfer to the digital format. It is also asked which consequences this might have for the artefact as a source of information. The analysis is positioned in a materiality discourse, adopting perspectives from, i.a., Actor-Network Theory and Material Philology. In this context, a widened concept of materiality is also developed, allowing the inclusion of the “virtual”. The thesis identifies aspects in which the reproduction differs from the original, depending, among other things, on its own materiality. This strengthens the call for users’ information competency when interacting with digital reproductions. This is a two years masters's thesis in library and information science.

Abstract This study concerns the Swedish artist Roj Friberg (1934–2016). The essay is based on a study of technique and materiality used by Friberg. He is quite marginalized and slightly forgotten in the Swedish art history and when mentioned merely described as a painter from the 1960´s who used graphite mixed with French turpentine, in order to work on the surface with an eraser attached to an electric drill. However, Friberg used other different and more complex painting techniques in his work, something this essay will notice and highlight. The used method is a biographical, dealing with the references to Friberg. To explain why he was considered an “outsider” in Swedish art, the theory of social capital by Pierre Bourdieu is applied. Also, Wolfgang Kemps concept of reception history, which focus on the arts beholder, rather than the artists itself. From the middle of 1970 Friberg also used an ancient painting technique called encaustic, heated beeswax mixed with pigment. Paintings which have received very little attention; therefore, the focus is on his use of encaustic in combination with his other techniques, such as melted graphite, melted wax crayons or drawn with wax crayons and graphite. The work with lasered layers and the typical method of working from darkness to light in Friberg´s pictures shows resemblance with the ancient encaustic portraits from Fayum, in the 50 AD.

I mitt projekt utvecklar jag konstnärliga designmetoder för att studera, samla in och berätta om kvinnohistoria och interiörhistoria, inspirerat av feministiska och queerteoretiska perspektiv på temporalitet, identitet, historia, material och berättande. Mitt examensarbete utgår från min 90-åriga mormors berättelser om sina barndomsminnen av hennes två mormödrar ‘Momma’ och ‘Mormor’ och hur det var att spendera somrarna på deras gård, Fridhem. I formgivning av bordet Fridhem, tavlan Systrar på gungbräda i trädgården, installationen Flytande fragment och installationen av dessa under Konstfacks Vårutställning 2021 tillsammans med ljudverket Minnen från Momma och Mormors Fridhem, manifesterar jag studierna och berättelsen.

This essay aims to understand how meaning and materiality work in four picture books from the 00s and 10s; Gittan och gråvargarna by Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen by Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? by Maria Nilsson Thore and Vi blåste bort ibland by Viveka Sjögren. The essay uses two theoretical works about picture books: Bilderbokens pusselbitar by Maria Nikolajeva and Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden by Elina Druker. Questions to lead the analysis are: How can text and picture be understood as materiality? How can meaning be understood as a material-discursive phenomenon? How can reading and meaning be understood as performative processes? The chapter “Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” from Karen Barad’s book Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning provides help to understand diffraction as a metaphor and methodological attitude. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s understanding of knowledge as performative in the book Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity is used to understand the picture book as an act of knowledge and meaning, and reading as a performative process where human involvement cannot be overlooked. The essay problematizes the theoretical texts about picture books by taking on different parts of the picture book’s form and drawing examples from the four chosen picture books. Parts that are examined are divisions of signs in semiotics (and in the picture book theory), the picture book’s limits between for instance framework and content, fiction and reality, and book and reader, mimesis and the analytical problems with looking for truth, the impact of the picture book’s size and shape, and lastly illustration techniques and the influence that illustrator, materiality and reader have on the book. The essay shows how different involvements affect the meaning that is created in the picture book, how solid delimitations of different kinds can be problematic, and how words such as picture, text, paratext and content should be treated gently and consciously. Different ways of breaking with methods and thoughts of habit are presented, for instance by using Barad’s concept of diffraction. The essay ends by emphasizing the complexity that follows meaning, materiality and reading, the responsibility it demands of us and how picture book theory sometimes simplifies analysis. This essay stresses the importance of questioning how the methods and words we use affect what is possible to understand, but not in the sense that we should read in a paranoid and closed way, but rather open minded and with room for failures, reconsiderations and other ways forward. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att förstå hur mening och materialitet hänger ihop i fyra bilderböcker från 00- och 10-tal; Gittan och gråvargarna av Pija Lindenbaum, I skogen av Eva Lindström, Vem ser Dim? av Maria Nilsson Thore och Vi blåste bort ibland av Viveka Sjögren. Uppsatsen går i dialog med de bilderboksteoretiska verken Bilderbokens pusselbitar av Maria Nikolajeva och Modernismens bilder – Den moderna bilderboken i Norden av Elina Druker. Frågor för att leda undersökningen är som följer: På vilket sätt är text och bild materialitet? Hur kan mening förstås som materiellt-diskursivt fenomen i bilderböckerna? Hur kan läsning och mening förstås som performativa processer? Avsnittet ”Diffractions: Differences, Contingencies, and Entanglements That Matter” ur Karen Barads verk Meeting the Universe Halfway – Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning fungerar som hjälp för att förstå diffraktion som metafor och metodologisk hållning. Eve Kosofsky Sedgwicks förståelse av kunskap som performativ i verket Touching Feeling – Affect, Pedagogy, Performativity används för att förstå bilderboken som ett görande, och läsningen som en performativ process där mänsklig inblandning inte kan förbises. Uppsatsen problematiserar de bilderboksteoretiska verken genom att ta sig an olika aspekter av bilderbokens form samt exemplifiera detta med hjälp av det skönlitterära materialet. Områden som vidrörs är semiotikens (och bilderboksteoretikernas) indelning av tecken, bilderbokens gränser mellan bland annat ramar och innehåll, fiktion och verklighet samt verk och läsare, mimesis och sanningssökandets analytiska problem, bilderbokens påverkan av storlek och format, samt slutligen illustrationstekniker och den inverkan illustratör, materialitet och läsare har på verket. Uppsatsen visar på hur olika inblandningar påverkar den mening som skapas i bilderboken, hur fasta gränsdragningar av olika slag kan anses problematiska, samt hur begrepp som till exempel bild, text, paratext och innehåll bör behandlas varsamt och medvetet. Olika sätt att komma runt upptrampade metodologiska tillvägagångssätt och tankespår presenteras, bland annat med hjälp av Barads diffraktionsbegrepp. Uppsatsen avslutas med att betona den komplexitet som följer med mening, materialitet och läsning, det ansvar detta avkräver oss och hur bilderboksteorin ibland fungerar förenklande i analyser. Denna uppsats lyfter vikten av att ifrågasätta vad de metoder och ord vi använder egentligen gör med vad som är möjligt att förstå, men inte i den mening att vi bör läsa misstänksamt och stängt, utan snarare öppensinnat och med utrymme för misslyckanden, omprövningar och andra vägar vidare.