The aim of this thesis is to understand the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaking along the coast of Norrland, with the specific aim to analyse the activities of regional interest groups in the Norrland region and government agents at different administrative levels at the key stages of the decision-making processes: initiation, drafting and decision-making. The thesis also explores how institutional factors at different administrative levels affected the agents that were involved at those stages of the decision-making processes. As navigation along the northern Swedish coast must negotiate winter conditions which causes ports to freeze over, the government ice-breaking service functions as an instrument to compensate the export firms in Norrland for these constrains. Year-round navigation in the north Swedish coastal waters was achieved through a series of decision-making processes that took place during the period from 1940 to 1975. These decision-making processes are important to study since ice-breaking was an integrated component of the expanding heavy basic industries in Norrland and thereby for the rapidly growing exports during the 1950s and 1960s. This period is the decisive point in the economic history of the Norrland region regarding how the natural resources should be exploited and how exports should be advanced. This study concludes that the decision-making processes were initiated by government agents at different administrative levels. Official investigatory commissions were set up at several occasions to deal with issues related to the government ice-breaker service by the ministries responsible for ice-breaker policy. It is also demonstrated that the decision-making processes concerning ice-breaker investments were initiated by the government boards that were responsible for the operation of the ice-breaker service. In this respect, the study concludes that the government activities during the initiation stages should not be confused as a sign of regional interest group passivity on these issues. The activities of the interest groups during the initiation stages were primarily intended to draw attention to the problems caused by winter to regional shipping, in order to put the issue on the political agenda. As the decision-making processes proceeded into the drafting stages, the participation from regional interest groups was much more significant as the government offered interest groups forums and procedures for structural consulting through various organisational arrangements. The regional interest groups that participated in those arrangements were industrial firms in the heavy basic industries sector. In those cases other regional interest groups participated, they would promote the interests of those firms. As a result, the final drafts from committees and government bodies included arguments that favoured an expansion of ice-breaking to promote the growth of the heavy basic industries in the Norrland region. The analysis of the decision-making stages suggests that a combination of institutional factors at different administrative levels contributed to the outcome of the decision-making processes. One result is that the general aims of macro policy such as trade policy, growth policy and regional development policy were favourable towards an expansion of the government ice-breaker service, which would benefit the export industries in the Norrland region. Another result is that the sectoral organization within the government maritime bodies contributed significantly to the outcome of the decision-making processes. Large-scale planning and operational experimentation was allowed to take place within the ice-breaker service, which convinced the government that ice-breaking and winter navigation was a feasible transport alternative.

Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur kvinnor, inflyttade till Stockholm från Norrbottens län och som bott i staden i mer än fem år, konstruerar sin identitet i relation till rådande diskurser om storstad/småstad eller storstad/landsbygd. Analysen är utförd baserad på sju intervjuer med kvinnor i åldrarna 36-48 år, alla härstammande från Norrbotten. Efter analys framkommer det att kvinnornas identiteten är del i en konstruktion, en ständigt pågående process som aldrig riktigt blir färdig, då kvinnorna ständigt skapar sin identitet i förhållande till ’det andra’, eller får sin identitet bekräftad eller definierad av andra. Det blir också tydligt att norrbottniskhet inte bara har att göra med identitet, utan även också med klass, då det i dualiteten mellan Stockholm och Norrbotten framstår ett maktförhållande, och det står i slutändan klart att kvinnorna inte bara gjort en identitetsresa utan även också en klassresa, genom sitt val att byta ut Norrbotten mot huvudstaden i söder.

Syftet med denna kvalitativa studie är att bidra med kunskap om hur Norrland och norrlänningar skildras i TV-serien Rebecka Martinsson, samt om Norrland skildras från ett inifrån- eller utifrånperspektiv. Metoden som använts är fallstudie och data har insamlats genom egna observationer med Faircloughs tredimensionella analysmodell som teoretisk ram. Resultatet pekar mot att Norrland och norrlänningar förvisso skildras på ett stereotypt sätt i Rebecka Martinsson, men att det också förekommer en stor mängd nyansering där människormed norrländskt ursprung också tillåts att bryta mot den rådande diskursen. I diskussionssegmentet lyfts blicken och där görs jämförelser med andra populärkulturella verk. I det segmentet diskuteras också studiens styrkor såväl som svagheter, bland annat att det utvalda materialet är relativt litet och att med ett annat urval hade resultatet eventuellt kunnat bli annorlunda. Som förslag till fortsatt forskning ges att göra en undersökning på samma utvalda material, men med annan metod, alternativt använda samma metod och teoretisk ram men välja ut annat eller en större mängd material att analysera.

The aim of this essay is to get a wider perspective on the early production and usage of textiles in Northern Sweden during the Iron Age and Middle Ages (up until the 17th century). The work consists of collecting digital data of finds, their location and approximate date, and then place them in l'chaîne opératiore, and group the finds accordingly. The groups of the production chain is presented on distribution maps. The lack of finds in large areas shows that, from this study, everyone using textiles were not necessarily creating them from their own raw material.

Between 1810 and 1819, the Church of Sweden adopted three new books: the new handbook from 1811, archbishop Lindblom’s new explication of Martin Luther’s Small Catechism and Wallins new hymn book from 1819.  A few years earlier, a Lutheran revival movement had arisen in upper Norrland. The members of the revival movement, generally named “new readers”, reacted strongly to the influence of Enlightenment inspired theology (neology) in the new books. In 1848, the opposition of the most radical new readers led them to separate from the Church.  This master thesis examines the opposition to the new Swedish hymn book from 1819 in the area which since 1904 has been the diocese of Luleå. The study is limited to the period between 1819 and 1903. It is based on a qualitative problem-oriented source study through a close reading of the visitation documents for the parishes in the area. Opposition can be expressed in many ways and there can be many different indicators of it. The study’s inductive approach means that these indicators are not determined in advance, but rather are discovered through the close reading of the visitation documents.  The main questions discussed in the thesis are: • How long did it take before the parishes in upper Norrland introduced the hymn book of 1819? • What signs of opposition to the new hymn book are found in the visitation documents, and for how long? • How did the opponents motivate their resistance to the hymn book of 1819? • How was the new Sami hymn book from 1849 which was partly a translation from parts of the Wallinian hymn book received?  The study shows that it took a while before the new hymnal was introduced in most upper Norrland's Swedish-speaking parishes. More than half of those parishes had not introduced the new hymnal in 1829. This changed in many parishes during Bishop Franzén's visits in 1835. Opposition to the hymn book was largely expressed in parishes where the radical reading- movement had an influence. People expressed opposition to the hymn book in different ways during different phases. The opposition was usually explained in the visitation documents based on doctrinal reasons. The Sami hymnal, which was published in 1849 and which was partly based on the Wallinan hymnal, met with criticism from both the clergy in northern Lapland and the Sami. The priests criticized the translation, that it was difficult to understand for those who spoke the northern dialects. What the Sami were critical of is unknown.  The study shows that the new hymn book seemed to have been used in all Swedish-speaking parishes before 1903, but in parallel with the hymn book from 1695 in at least two parishes. This parallel use lasted for a very long time, perhaps during the entire investigation period. The old hymn book continued to be important to many people in upper Norrland.

"From Lada to Folly" investigates the relationship between an agricultural artefact of Northern Sweden, ladan, and the move of the city of Kiruna. A lada is a structure to store hay which dates back to medieval times as a part of månghussystemet, a Swedish building tradition where each house on a farm had one function. Ladan was analysed on different scales through mapping, photography and model making with the aim of understanding its relation to the landscape. The scale, placement and orientation were the most significant. Subsequently, this information was translated via diagrams to form the basis of a proposal in Kiruna. Four core values are the foundation of Kiruna: timber, water, iron and people. Timber, because the first buildings were built out of wood and because coal from the forest was used to fuel the engines of the mine. Water, as a mode of transportation and a source of energy. Iron, the oar is the main reason why Kiruna exists. People, in the same way natural resources have been extracted out of Kiruna, people have been sent to the city to facilitate this process. Through four corresponding landscapes in the new city centre, the core values forming the origin of Kiruna is revealed. A folly, an unprogrammed structure erected to enhance a landscape and derived from the lada, is placed on each site functioning as a shelter and contextualising the intervention to the region of Northern Sweden. As architecture most often are physical obstacles built to orchestrate our lives, not allowing but limiting our behaviour, this proposal seeks to create free spaces in the city where not the architect but the people themselves can dictate what will happen. Who is the architect to decide whether someone should eat, make love or die in their structure?

The subject of this bachelor thesis is the study of the artefact type called simple shaft-hole axe (Swedish: enkel skafthålsyxa) that have been found in the northern region of Sweden, Norrland. In contrast to finds in southern and middle Sweden, axes of this type in Norrland have not been extensively studied. Therefor the aim of this paper is to tabulate their number and distribution and see if the axes have any spatial relation to ancient monuments (Swedish: fornlämningar) dated to the same period and to see if the axes have any spatial relationship to any specific type of geography/terrain. This study also analyzes how they compare to the axes found in the rest of Sweden and thus what they may be able to tell us about prehistoric society in Norrland. This paper can be viewed as an extension of Per Lekberg’s dissertation Yxors liv, människors landskap: en studie av kulturlandskap och samhälle i Mellansveriges senneolitikum which is the most modern and extensive analysis of axes found in southern and middle Sweden and has provided a blueprint for the research done in this paper.

This essay examines the nature of Sara Lidmans novel Bära mistel by drawing on theories of Kate Soper and Greg Garrard. The analysis examines the culture surrounding the characters Linda Ståhl and Björn Ceder in relation to the nature of the north. It considers concepts such as the imminent presence of nature versus a distance to it, the idealization of nature, the connection between nature and God, and the problems that follow society’s way of looking at Norrland as wilderness. Simultaneously I analyze how nature and culture tend to overlap and thus one often becomes a product of the other.

In this dissertation the construction of two coastal railways, the East Coast Line and the Bothnia Line, in the Norrland region of northern Sweden is used as a case study of how regionally based interest groups are formed, and how they gain access to decision-making processes on a national level. In periods when a number of preconditions were in place, a window of opportunity opened for the coastal railway that the regional elites could exploit. Among these was the ability to form a coherent regional interest group, through institutions that created platforms and power-bases that enable regional elites to co-operate and act on regional and national levels.The existence of an institutional framework that was adapitve towards regional railway promotion was also important. The study shows that the coastal railway had a very flexible role on the agenda, as it provided a fixed solution against which actors could pin a multitude of different problems. An important factor for explaining the development of the coastal railway question in Norrland was the ideological notion of the region itself. Being a vast, resource-rich and sparsely populated region, Norrland had almost always received special consideration in both public opinion and national policy making. It also created a remarkable stubbornness among the regional actors in working for the coastal railway. Regional interest groups had also learnt that linking their claims to Norrland's peripheral position had high legitimacy on the national arena, by claiming the need for regional fairness and/or the national importance of the regional export-intensive industries. This was instrumental in justifying the repeated exemptions from the national railway policy regimes that ultimately were decissive in making the regional elites successful.

Som följd av EUs direktiv om nya byggnaders energiprestanda ökar kraven på det svenska byggnadsbeståndet. Passivhusstandard är ett energiklassningssystem som kan nyttjas som verktyg för att nå energieffektiva byggnader. Att nå denna standard i små byggnader innebär dock enligt tidigare studier en utmaning och i Sveriges norra halva finns få passivhus, särskilt sådana som uppförts av egnahemsbyggare. Det gör det svårt att bedöma vad standarden innebär för den private beställaren av små enbostadshus, utifrån tidigare erfarenheter av motsvarande projekt. Denna studie syftar till att öka förståelsen för utmaningar vid byggande av små enbostadshus med passivhusstandard i norra Sverige. Det övergripande målet är att ta fram rekommendationer till beställare i norr som står inför val av energiprestandanivå för sina små enbostadshus, utifrån insikter som genereras av ett studieprojekt. Vilken energiprestanda som är rimlig för enbostadsbyggnader < 70 m2 i norr, är en av de frågor som svar söks på. Bedömningen görs utifrån svensk klassning av passivhus från Forum för Energieffektivt byggande, FEBY 18. Vidare ställs frågan hur utmaningarna ser ut för projekt av motsvarande omfattning där passivhusstandard eftersträvas. För att besvara frågorna har ett skarpt projekt valts som studieprojekt och utgångspunkt. Studieprojektet innebär en komplementbyggnad i ett plan om 55 m2 Atemp som planeras av egnahemsbyggare i Skellefteå för totalentreprenad. I studien ingår litteraturgenomgång om passivhusteknik och dess tillämpning i projekt samt fallstudie om Studieprojektet innefattande gestaltningsförslag, anbudsförfrågan till entreprenörer och intervjuer med dem. För kompletterande insikter till det studerade området, små enbostadshus med strävan mot passivhusstandard i norra Sverige,har även samtal skett med personer med erfarenhet av liknande projekt och personer med expertkunskap om passivhusstandarden. En av utmaningarna som identifierats är de tekniska lösningar som krävs för att teoretiskt uppnå energiprestanda motsvarande passivhus, FEBY Guld. Dessa fordrar en investeringskostnad som inte bedöms vara rimlig för byggnader av så liten skala. I studiens resultat framgår att den lägre nivån FEBY Silver är en mer rimlig målsättning för enbostadsbyggnader < 70 m2 i norr men att även den nivån kan innebära en utmaning för beställare. Hängivenhet hos beställare till energieffektiviserande lösningar är centralt för möjligheten att nå FEBY Silver. När dessa tekniska lösningar efterfrågas från en totalentreprenör med begränsad erfarenhet av energieffektiva småhus kan det vara svårt att fånga entreprenörers intresse. Dessutom kräver entreprenadformen relativt mycket arbete av entreprenörer vid kostnadskalkylering. Här identifieras utmaningar som spåras till att entreprenören bär funktionsansvaret som totalentreprenör vilket leder det till slutsatsen att beställare bör välja utförandeentreprenad för enbostadshus under 70 m2 i norra Sverige, med strävan mot passivhusstandard. Förslag på vidare studier innefattar att jämföra förutsättningar för låg energianvändning i olika, små byggnadstyper. Ytterligare förslag är att genomföra en ny anbudsförfrågan för Studieprojektet med utgångspunkt i resultatet från denna studie, för djupare insikter i kostnadsrelaterade utmaningar. / Stricter requirements for energy performance in buildings in Sweden is a result of a directive from EU. Passive house-standard is an energy classification system which can be used as a tool to reach energy efficiency in buildings. However, achieving passive house standard for small buildings is a challenge according to previous studies. Further, passive houses are few in the northern parts of Sweden, especially those built byprivate homeowners. Therefore, it’s difficult to assess what the standard means to private buyers of small single-family homes, based on previous experiences. This study aims to increase the understanding of challenges when building small single-family homes of passive house-standard in the north of Sweden. The main goal is to make recommendations to buyers of small single-family homes in the north who are facing the decision of what energy performance level to target, based on insights generated by a study project. One of the questions asked is -What is an appropriate level of energy performance of single-family homes <70 m2 in the north? The assessment is based is based on the Swedish classification system for passive houses, FEBY 18. The second question asked is -What are the challenges facing projects of this scale, where the passive house standard is sought? To answer the questions, a real project has been chosen for study and reference point. The Study Project is a 55 m2 Atemp single-storey house which is planned by private home-owners for a turnkey contract, on a real estate with an existing residence in Skellefteå. The study includes a literature review on passive house technology and its application in projects, as well as a case study of the Study Project containing a design proposal, a request for turnkey proposals from selected contractors and further contact with these through interviews. People with experience of relevant projects and people with expert knowledge of passive house standard have been contacted to reach additional insights within the studied area. Among the identified challenges are the building solutions and techniques which are required to reach passive house-standard, “FEBY Gold”. These solutions entail an investment cost that’s not considered to be reasonable for buildings of such a small scale. The study’s result shows that the lower energy level “FEBY Silver” is an attainable objective but still, this level as target can pose a challenge to the buyer.  A buyer’s dedication to energy efficient solutions is central for the prospect of having the Silver level within reach. When these building solutions are requested from a turnkey contractor with limited experience of energy-efficient, small houses, obstacles arise in making the project attractive for contractors as relatively much work is required when calculating costs. Here, challenges are identified that relates to the contractor being responsible for the function of the finished product, the house. This leads to the conclusion that private buyers should opt for other contract types than turnkey, for single-family homes < 70 m2in northern Sweden, when aiming for passive house standard.  Suggestions for further studies includes comparing the conditions for low energy use in different, small building types. Another suggestion is to carry out a new request for proposal of the Study Project and make adaptions according to the insights given by this study and thus, investigate the cost-related challenges further.