This dissertation deals with three different studies of rural women in northern Sweden and Wisconsin, USA. All three of them aim at identify and elucidate pertinent aspects of women's lives in rural areas. In the first study, The Åsele study, women's work and free time activities are in the focus of investigation. The second, The Leading Light study, deals more explicitly with obstacles and problems that women meet with when trying to improve their living conditions and, finally, the Wisconsin study deals with the ways rural women organize their everyday lives. More specifically, while all three studies assume a gender and mode-of-living perspective, cultural issues, the relations between structure- agent and questions concerning the organization of everyday life receive separate treatment. Mostly qualitative methods are used in collecting data, including interviews and essays. Also questionnaires are used in order to gain a comprehensive picture of certain areas, such as activities and aspirations within the field of leisure. In the last study a reanalysis of an archived interview material, built on oral life histories, is used. The results give a complex and nuanced picture of women's lives in these areas. The farm women in the Wisconsin study have a heavy work load and contribute in different ways to the maintenance of the family. Their productive work is, however, made invisible in official statistics. The Åsele study gives a picture of a woman, who is not demanding anything special for herself, but is adapting to the traditional gender structures. Her life is organized around her home, her husband and her children. The young women intend to leave this area, which is one of the problems that the local politicians have to deal with. In the Leading light study, finally, it is above all the male representatives at the local governmental level that impede the women's ideas and ignore their propositions for change. Despite official signals of decentralisation of decision making, the bureaucratic structures seem to strengthen at the local level. Most of the women in this study praise life in the country side. The rural ideology also comprises a positive view of this mode of living. While the rural ideology is a entire male construction, the female conditions have to be problematized. This has been done in this thesis. / digitalisering@umu

O trabalho aqui apresentado tem o objetivo de analisar a espacialidade dos apartamentos produzidos pela iniciativa privada na cidade de São Paulo, entre os anos de 2000 e 2008, procurando entender fatores determinantes de seu desenho e relacionando-o aos modos de vida de moradores em potencial. Parte-se do estudo de aspectos históricos do desenvolvimento de uma estrutura espacial, caracterizada pela recorrência de seis pontos no desenho de suas plantas e que configuram um modelo amplamente difundido e consolidado na produção paulistana, da discussão de mecanismos do mercado imobiliário e de dados censitários. Todas essas questões são relacionadas e utilizadas como ferramentas de leitura das peças gráficas estudadas na pesquisa, verificando similaridades, potencialidades e limitações em sua organização espacial. / The work presented here aims to analyze the spatiality of the apartments built for the private initiative in the city of São Paulo between the years 2000 and 2008, looking for understanding determinative factors of its projects and relating it to potential inhabitants\' ways of living. The research studies historical aspects of the development of a spatial structure, characterized for the recurrence of six points in its plants drawing that configure a widely spread out and consolidated model in São Paulo\'s production, examines mechanisms of the real estate market and census data. All these questions are then related and used as tools for the reading of the graphic peaces studied in the research, verifying similarities, potentialities and limitations in its spatial organization.

O trabalho aqui apresentado tem o objetivo de analisar a espacialidade dos apartamentos produzidos pela iniciativa privada na cidade de São Paulo, entre os anos de 2000 e 2008, procurando entender fatores determinantes de seu desenho e relacionando-o aos modos de vida de moradores em potencial. Parte-se do estudo de aspectos históricos do desenvolvimento de uma estrutura espacial, caracterizada pela recorrência de seis pontos no desenho de suas plantas e que configuram um modelo amplamente difundido e consolidado na produção paulistana, da discussão de mecanismos do mercado imobiliário e de dados censitários. Todas essas questões são relacionadas e utilizadas como ferramentas de leitura das peças gráficas estudadas na pesquisa, verificando similaridades, potencialidades e limitações em sua organização espacial. / The work presented here aims to analyze the spatiality of the apartments built for the private initiative in the city of São Paulo between the years 2000 and 2008, looking for understanding determinative factors of its projects and relating it to potential inhabitants\' ways of living. The research studies historical aspects of the development of a spatial structure, characterized for the recurrence of six points in its plants drawing that configure a widely spread out and consolidated model in São Paulo\'s production, examines mechanisms of the real estate market and census data. All these questions are then related and used as tools for the reading of the graphic peaces studied in the research, verifying similarities, potentialities and limitations in its spatial organization.

74 pages

Both the theoretical outlines of a solution to the climate and ecological crisis, as well as concrete efforts at environmental reform and energy transformation, often run into the ambivalent role of organised labour, particularly trade unions, in todays growth-oriented, fossil-fuel based economy. On the one hand, trade unions often already formally endorse the ideal of sustainability, on the other hand, in concrete environmental conflicts, they often the side with "jobs" against climate and environmental protections, and thus serve as a support of the growth-oriented fossil economy. The concept of a just transition, embodying the attempts at creating a framework in which the interests of workers and climate protection can be reconciled, thus also becomes ambivalent, serving often as a basis for arguments against more ambitious decarbonization. The aim of this thesis, drawing on the theoretical framework of critical political ecology, is to explore the possibilities of solving this dilemma in the case of Czech trade unions. On the basis of interviews with their various representatives, it will try to answer the questions: 1) what political strategy is shaping the policies of Czech trade unions in the sphere of climate and energy policy, 2) how do these trade unions see their role in the proces of a...