Uppsatsen Läroboks-muslimer behandlar postkoloniala föreställningar och stereotyper i läromedel avsedda för den svenska gymnasieskolan. Studiens syfte har varit att kartlägga och analysera hur islam och muslimer framställs i fyra av gymnasieskolans läroböcker; tillvägagångssättet studien använt sig av har varit att genom diskursanalysen som metod och med avstamp i den kritiska postkoloniala teoribildningen, kartlägga och analysera postkoloniala typifieringar av islam och muslimer med avgränsning på om och i sådana fall hur, läromedelsförfattarna skildrar: 1. Jihad, och 2. Islams kvinnosyn. Resultatet visar att den historiska västerländska diskurs, vilken porträtterar islam och muslimen som blodtörstig, våldsbejakande, kvinnoföraktande och misogyn, fortfarande dominerar och florerar i de granskade läroböckerna. Beträffande skildringen av jihad går det att finna en märkbar utveckling i en av läroböckerna som framställer begreppet komplext och nyanserat. Vad gäller islams kvinnosyn så präglas porträtteringen, i likhet med jihadbegreppet, i mångt och mycket av stereotypt och tendentiöst urval. Studiens analys- och diskussionsavsnitt behandlar hur dessa fynd kan sättas i ett större historiskt sammanhang och kopplas till en postkolonial epistemologisk produktion som stakat ut riktlinjerna för en dominerande samhällsdiskurs om islam och muslimer.

In the mid-1990s, Japanese artists Mariko Mori (b. 1962) and Takashi Murakami (b. 1967) began creating works that referenced Japanese popular culture tropes such as sexuality, technology and the idea of kawaii, or cute. These tropes were associated with emerging youth cultures instigating a “soft rebellion” against social conventions. While emancipated female youths, or shōjo, were criticized for lifestyles based on the consumption of kawaii goods, their male contemporaries, the otaku were demonized for a fetishization of kawaii girls and technology through anime and manga, or animation and comic books. Destabilizing the nation’s patriarchal theory of cultural uniqueness, or nihonjinron, the youth triggered fears of a growing infantilized, feminized automaton ‘alien’ society during Japan’s economically tumultuous 1990s. In response to these trends, Mori and Murakami create works and personae that celebrate Japan’s emerging heterogeneity and reveal that Japan’s fear of the ‘alien within’ is a result of a tenuous post-war Japanese-American relationship. But in denoting America’s position in Japan’s psyche, Mori’s and Murakami’s illustration of Japan as both victim and threat encourages Orientalist and Techno-Orientalist readings. The artists’ ambivalence towards Western stereotypes in their works and personae, as well as their distortion of boundaries between commercial and fine art, intimate a collusion between commercialization, art and cultural identity. Such acts suggest that in the global economy of art production, Japanese cultural identity has become as much as a brand, as art a commodity. In this ambivalent perspective, the artists isolate the relatively recent difficulty of enunciating Japanese cultural identity in the international framework. With the downfall of its cultural homogeneity theory, Japan faced a crisis of representation. Self-Orientalization emerged as a cultural imperative for stabilizing a coherent national identity, transposing blame for Japan’s social and economic disrepair onto America. But by relocating Japanese self-Orientalization within the global art market, Mori and Murakami suggest that as non-Western artists, economic viability is based upon their ability to cultivate desirability, not necessarily authenticity. In the international realm, national identity has become a brand based upon the economies of desire, predicated by external consumption, rather than an internalized production of meaning. / Arts, Faculty of / Art History, Visual Art and Theory, Department of / Graduate

Cette thèse prolonge les études déjà menées sur l'image du Japon en France et en Europe à partir de l'ère de Meiji (1868-1912). Elle analyse la production littéraire en France, ainsi que certains films et bandes dessinées, à compter de l'ère de Heisei (1990-2010). Elle soutient que, malgré les progrès du savoir et des mentalités, l'observateur français continue de considérer le Japon, les Japonais, les choses japonaise, d'un point de vue moins compréhensif et moins informé que critique et passablement négatif. Elle fonde son examen sur les méthodes de l'imagologie littéraire qui détermine la place, le rôle, le sens de la représentation d'un pays dans une oeuvre à partir de traits précis (nomination, distance hiérarchique, scénario, mythe personnel). / This thesis extends the existing studies on Japan's image in France and Europe from the Meiji era (1868-1912). It analyzes the literary production in France, as well as some movies and comics, as they have been developping since the Heisei era (1990 and 2010). It argues that despite the progress of knowledge and attitudes, the French observer continues to view Japan, Japanese, Japanese things, from a point of view far less comprehensive and informed than critical if not quite negative. It bases its scrutiny upon the methods of literary imagology, which determines the place, role, the meaning of the representation of a country in a given work from specific features (naming, hierarchical distance, plot, personal myth).

To what extent does individuals’ personal opinions influence their professional behaviour? There has been an extensive field experiment on the existence of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labour market. There are statistics data showing that people with Swedish or occidental-sounding names have an advantage over other ethnicities when it comes to being called in for job interviews. Similarly, the wage gaps between Swedes and other ethnicities are on the rise. Rising occurrences of ethnic discrimination in recruitment is an increasing concern in the Swedish labour market. This has significant implications for ethnic minorities and the prospect of a prosperous life.This paper was based on the study of the recruiters’ approach, perception of the phenomenon of ethnic discrimination. The purpose of the study was to shed light on the presence of ethnic discrimination in the recruitment process. Using a qualitative approach and qualitative interview as a method for data sampling, this study analysed recruiters’ attitudes and understanding of ethnic discrimination in the Swedish labour market. This study answers questions regarding societal norms and perceptions, which were found to play the greatest role in facilitating the spread of ethnic discrimination and stereotyping and categorising of ethnic minorities. These behaviours were found to be indirect discriminations based on implicit bias towards other groups. / <p>2020-06-08</p>

The aim of this MA thesis is to describe and evaluate the manner in which Richard Flanagan captured Japanese culture in his 2013 novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Since the main motif of the work is the life of an Australian prisoner of war, a topic that has been significant in the creation of Australian national identity, the novel is firstly analysed from its position in the wider context of Australian literature. Richard Flanagan provided the readers with a complex work, which presents the given motif not only from the perspective of the Australian prisoners-of-war, but also from the perspective of their predominantly Japanese captors. The inclusion of the points of view of the Japanese ranks the novel among the contemporary adaptations that provide a more comprehensive view on the events of World War II. For that reason, the novel is assessed as to the complexity and accuracy of the selected and incorporated areas of Japanese culture, whether there is a tendency for schematization in the depiction, and therefore a display of the so-called "Orientalism", as described by Edward Said. This MA thesis aims to analyse whether, and to what degree Flanagan's novel differs from other works of the Australian literature that deal with the events of World War II and Japan. The analysis focuses on...

Située au carrefour de nombreuses routes commerciales et migratoires, Marseille est une ville contrastée où se côtoient des populations aux origines culturelles et sociales diversifiées. Souvent décrite comme « cosmopolite », il s’agit dans ce travail de questionner cette image et interroger les relations sociales en œuvre dans la ville, par l’étude d’un espace original, à l’intersection entre l’intime et le collectif, le proche et le lointain : le hammam. En examinant la relation entre la construction des espaces, les pratiques qu’ils induisent, ainsi que les discours énoncés par les acteurs, cette étude s’attache à mettre en évidence les enjeux sociaux et politiques d’identification et de différenciation qui accompagnent la construction ou la fréquentation des bains. Cette réflexion anthropologique suit comme fil conducteur la question des « mises en scène » des établissements étudiés, à travers lesquelles il est possible de saisir les différentes représentations et matérialisations du hammam, ainsi que leurs variations, sur une gamme allant de l’exotique au familier, de « l’oriental » à « l’occidental ». Ces jeux de proximité et de distanciation sont étudiés selon différentes perspectives : le rapport à l’espace urbain, les configurations spatiales des établissements, les aménagements matériels, les dimensions sensorielles, ainsi que les profils sociologiques des commerçants et de la clientèle. À la croisée entre une anthropologie urbaine des espaces marchands et une anthropologie du corps, les analyses proposées dans cette thèse permettent d’ouvrir une discussion sur le hammam comme « hétérotopie » et « espace-frontière ». / At the crossroads of numerous commercial and migratory roads, Marseille is a contrasted city where populations of diversified cultural and social origins live. Thus, this work aims to question the “cosmopolitan” image of France’s second largest city and the social relations that take place in it, by studying an original space, both intimate and collective, close and distant, the hammam. By examining the relationship between the construction of spaces, the practices they induce, as well as the speeches expressed by the actors, this study highlights the social issues of identification and differentiation which accompany the design or the attendance of bathhouses. This anthropological reflection follows as a main thread the question of the commercial “scenography” of the places studied, through which it is possible to seize the various representations and materialization of the hammam, on a scale going from the familiar to the exotic, the “oriental” to the “occidental”. These interactions of closeness and distance will be studied on various levels: the relation to the urban space, the spatial configurations of the bath houses, the material arrangements, the sensory dimensions, as well as the sociological profiles of the business owners and their clientele. At the intersection of urban anthropology, commercial spaces studies and anthropology of the body, all these elements allow for discussion of the hammam as "heterotopia" and "boundary-space".

Orientalism in Bush administration and its influence over military intervention in Iraq Abstract Master's thesis focuses on the presence of orientalist elements in the Bush administration and their influence over the justification and execution of the military intervention in Iraq. These elements are orientalist construction of identities, civilizational mission, concept of oriental Muslim and concept of oriental woman. For this purpose, three research questions were formulated. 1) How the identity of Iraq was constructed to justify the intervention? 2) How the identity of USA was constructed to justify the intervention 3) Whether the Bush administration carried elements of orientalism, how did they present themselves and what amount of influence did they have over justification and execution of the military intervention in Iraq? The Fairclough three-dimensional model of critical discursive analysis was chosen in order to answer research questions. Analysis was focused on official speeches of three key representatives of Bush administration (G.W. Bush, D. Cheney, C. Powell) within the time period from the terrorist attacks on September 11th 2001 until the actual military intervention to Iraq on March 20th 2003. Based on the analysis the presence of orientalist construction of identities and civilizational...

Saudi Arabia has been accused of sportswashing, an attempt to improve its reputation through buying the English football club Newcastle United. The purpose of this paper is to explore through a discourse analysis how Saudi Arabia's action to acquire Newcastle United can be seen as an exercise of power, and whether and how the images presented construct and reinforce orientalist discourses about the Saudi state and the region. The discourse analysis is conducted using Laclau and Mouffe's methodology and the theoretical framework applied is Joseph Nye's soft power, Edward Said's Orientalism and hegemony. Based on the international newspaper The Guardian and the human rights organization Amnesty International, orientalist discourses have been identified and the purchase of Newcastle United has resulted in soft disempowerment effects for Saudi Arabia. Local newspaper The Chronicle also constructed orientalist discourses about the state of Saudi Arabia but legitimizes the purchase of Newcastle United making the soft power exercise successful.

Qatar wants to use the 2022 FIFA World Cup as a soft power mean. They want to remove stains on their reputation via sportswashing. However, there is reason to believe that this effect might not occur in the case of Qatar, or in other words; that the tournament has a soft disempowerment effect on the state of Qatar. By doing a discourse analysis this study exams if the soft power efforts of Qatar have been successful, primarily in the Swedish context by examining how the Swedish media and Swedish FA articulates about Qatar, but also in the context of FIFA. The study also examens whether the articulations can be labeled as cases of Orientalism. The results show that in the Swedish context, both an orientalist and soft disempowerment-discourse are showing, and in the case of FIFA an orientalist discourse and a discourse which suggest that the tournament has been a good soft power resource in the eyes of FIFA occurs.

In this essay I’ve been looking to extend the knowledge regarding the construction as someone as “the other”. The aim is to examine if it is possible to depict and find a general picture of ”the other”, as he/she is described in the media.   I’m not alone in examining this, and I present several works which are somewhat similar to this essay. My work is special however, in that I’ve decided to examine the picture of “the other" by examining how four different Swedish newspapers wrote about the first Russian and the first Chilean Nobel prize winner in literature, Ivan Bunin (1933) and Gabriela Mistral (1945). To be more specific, I’ve been asking the following thematic questions, to find answers to my initial question: Is “the other” portrayed differently, as a result of the winners’ native countries? Is "the other” portrayed differently, as a result of the winners’ social class or gender? Is it possible to distinguish any interesting differences and similarities in how “the other” is constructed, in diverse political schools? Through my findings I’ve discovered that the term “the other” isn’t a homogenous one, as it varies from situation to situation. In Bunin’s case the political aspect of the term tended to outweigh the ethnical one. In other words, the fact that Bunin, in the reporting, is constructed as someone who can represent the political views of the magazine (or is otherfied, as someone who’s representing deviating views), was considered more interesting than portraying a picture of Russia as “the other”. In Mistral’s case the newspapers tended to focus more on her otherness, as a female, in contrast to how the maleness is considered to be normal. There’s also a view of South American people as a whole – as embodied in Mistral – as something different and “other” compared to the Swedish.