The aim of this study is to examine high school students’ perceptions of Christianity,Islam and their followers. This is performed with the purpose of raising awareness of students’ authentic understandings of religion – so that their perceptions, and perhaps prejudices, could actively and effectively be addressed during school hours.The data was collected through interviews in focus groups, where a total of 10 students were asked questions about their perceptions of Christianity and Islam. The results show that a majority of the students have a negative attitude towards traditional religious beliefs in general, and that most them, consequently, have strong preconceptions regarding both Christians and Muslims. However, the findings display that there are some evident differences between the ways students view Christian and Islamic faith. These dissimilarities mainly seem to revolve around the idea that Christians typically are born within “rational and modern societies” – and therefore “should know better” than to believe in God. In contrast, there is a strong notion that Muslims generally are born in “less fortunate societies”, and thus cannotbe held accountable for their “illogical” beliefs. The study concludes that there is an alarming need for schools to pay attention to, and thereafter challenge, students’religious preconceptions.

Hur ser framställningen av rumänska och bulgariska romer ut i svensk dags- och tabloidpress? Vad säger den mediala bildom en större politisk och samhällelig kontext? I denna studie presenteras en översikt och analys av artiklar publicerade under perioden januari 2010–november 2013. Artiklarna är hämtade från Dagens Nyheter, Svenska Dagbladet, Expressen och Aftonbladet. Angreppssättet består av en metodtriangulerande ansats med en kombination av kvantitativ och kvalitativ innehållsanalys. I materialet framträder en förskjutning mot ett individualistiskt förhållningssätt, där fokus ligger på attityder hos läsarna snarare än strukturell problematisering. Resultatet av studien tyder på att rumänska och bulgariska romer riskerar att låsas fast i bestämda subjektspositioner, genom en diskursiv viktimisering. Bilden av centraleuropeiska romer som utsatta, fattiga, utan egen agens reproduceras och förstärks i tidningarnas rapportering. Det framkommer även att ett tydligt fokus på nationer samexisterar med en intention att avvärja en utbredning av främlingsfientlighet och antiziganism. Sammanfattningsvis visar resultaten att diskursen om centraleuropeiska romer är klassiskt andrafierande samtidigt som den används för att måla upp en bild av Sverige som duktig, antirasistisk humanistisk gentemot övriga länder i Europa. / This study has its focus on how Roma migrant from Rumania and Bulgaria is seen upon in the Swedish media.  The material that is studied is selected from four of the largest newspapers in Sweden between January 2010 and November 2013. A triangulating method is used based on quantitative and qualitative content analysis. The analysis shows that the representation of Roma in the material is reproducing an image of Roma as the “Other”. The study also indicates a tendency towards an individualistic approach, where Rumanian and Bulgarian Roma risk to be locked to positions as victims of discrimination and poverty, without any agency from within the Roma community. These limited subject positions of are reproduced and become amplified through the medial presentation. A coexistence of a strong focus on nations and an attempt to stop a wider spread of nationalism and antiziganism does also appear in the material.

This study examines imagined boundaries between Swedes and non-Swedes. Rather than using pre-determined definitions as a starting point, the attempt is to examine the discursive construction of difference. The purpose is not to study the portrayal of immigrants per se but to examine how the “immigrant-ness” is constructed. The result shows the perception of “immigrant-ness” is linked more to a person’s origin than to the act of immigration itself.  The selected newspapers are Dagens Nyheter (DN) and Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) for the period of 15th November – 21st November, 1999. The theoretical frame is based on discourse analysis, myths, representation and construction of whiteness and blackness (e.g. Hall, Foucault, Barthes, Fanon, Dyer, Ristilammi). News coverage of ethnic minorities is also discussed (e.g. Dijk, Campbell).  The methodological approach is based on semiotics and critical linguistics.  The result shows mainly that people of non-Western origin are presented as Others (immigrants). Eastern Europeans fall into a more ambiguous category, being both different and similar. However, both groups are linked to “suburbs”, a racialized sign connoting non-Swedish populations and socio-economic problems, thus closely linking those problems and segregation to “immigrant-ness”. On the other hand, white, well-educated non-Swedes are described as cosmopolitan, i.e. persons whose “non-Swedishness” is a positive feature.

The immigration debate is not new to the United States; however, today’s heated discussions include strong anti-Mexican sentiments (Bean & Stone, 2012; Hughey, 2012). As Americans attempt to secure borders in an effort to insure safety and economic security, current legislation includes elements of racial profiling against Mexicans that could extend to those who possess varying levels of Mexican blood since physical characteristics tend to guide racial labeling (Aoki & Johnson, 2009; Bernal, 2002; Fernandez, 2002; Quiñones et al, 2011). As an individual of Mexican and White bloodlines, racial categorization has resulted in internal struggles and social dilemmas for me. The purpose of this dissertation was to gain understanding of my personal multiracial identity development within various social contexts; this study fulfills the requests of theorists seeking to understand multiracial identity development through self-analysis over a lifetime (Binning et al, 2009; Charmaraman & Grossman, 2010; Cheng & Lee, 2009; Miville et al, 2005). This qualitative dissertation used critical autoethnography as its methodology and theories of multiracial identity (Poston, 1990; Root, 1996; Rockquemore, Brunsma, & Delgado, 2009) and LatCrit (Aoki & Johnson, 2008; Solórzano & Bernal, 2001; Tate, 1997; Valdes, 1997; Villalpando, 2004; Yosso, 2005) while considering the impact of Whiteness Studies (Jay, 2005; Jeffries, 2012; Yeung, Spanierman & Landrum-Brown, 2013), and the cultural process of naming (Boris, 2005). The research questions guiding this dissertation were: How have I internalized and interpreted encounters related to racial identification, and what does being multiracial mean to me? The presentation of findings included narrative analysis of visual and audio data sets located on a personal website that accompanies this study; online presentation of this study provides an opportunity to explore multiracial identity development in a space that has potential for impacting change due to popularity and accessibility (Bamford, 2005; Lang, 2002; Lange, 2008). Findings revealed complexities and fluidity in multiracial identity development as well as problems of self-identifying as monoracial. The significance of this study is that it will contribute to ongoing discussions of multiracial identity development as well as add to the growing body of literature related to LatCrit Theory, Whiteness Studies, and autoethnographic studies.

This paper investigates the current situation of the youth that applied for asylum in Sweden in 2015 as Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC). Specifically the former UASC youth from the Hazara ethnic group who were denied asylum yet are still living as undocumented in the municipality of Malmö, Sweden in 2018, now aged between 18 to 21 years old. This case study employs a hermeneutic-constructivist approach utilising semi-structured interviews with 10 of these Hazara unaccompanied, undocumented asylum seeking (UUAS) youth to examine their experiences and perspectives in terms of political and emotional belonging to communities and places in which they experience some form of marginalisation. Theories surrounding the concepts of belonging which consists of both emotional and political elements will be used, along with ‘othering’, to frame the youth’s experiences. The results of this study demonstrate how political belonging affects emotional belonging in various ways depending on context. The study also highlights how the impact of elements within both forms of belonging are assessed by individuals, and how these considerations are instrumental to a migrants decision to remain in, or leave, a location. This study also calls for further research in this field on these concepts of belonging affect marginalised groups.

Development aid discourses have been criticised for perpetuating othering and coloniality. The discourses have been argued to produce and reproduce conceptual creations of a distinguishable 'us' and 'them' through binaries of 'developed' and 'underdeveloped', and they have been stated to uphold lingering colonial and racial hierarchies where the former colonial powers remain preeminent and subjugate the 'Global South'. This decolonial critique of development aid discourses and their perpetuation of asymmetrical relationships between donor and recipient has led to the emergence of development partnerships. This discourse emphasises the levelling of the playing field, and mutual cooperation to achieve common development goals. The development partnership discourse thus appears to challenge the othering and coloniality inherent in former development aid discourses. In 2015, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development (DFID) ended their 'traditional' bilateral aid programme to South Africa and implemented a 'development partnership' in its place. DFID's development partnership discourse has previously been criticised for denying mutuality, however, and for perpetuating racialised hierarchies. The question is therefore whether the discourse surrounding DFID's development partnership with South Africa is perpetuating othering and coloniality, or whether it is establishing a relationship built on mutual interests and cooperation. This research paper analyses two DFID policy papers setting out the planning of the partnership approach, and four transcripts of interviews with representatives involved in the implementation of the development partnership. By applying Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) the thesis analyses linguistic aspects of the discourse that serves to uphold certain power structures by defining decision-­‐making. The CDA particularly focuses on the science, narrative and perceived 'truths' about development, the recontextualisation of its particular language and the interconnectedness with other discourses that continue to sustain and reproduce the discourse. The research finds a more nuanced approach to development, as conceptualised by the representatives involved in the implementation of the partnership, and that it is challenging the 'imperial gaze' inherent in development aid discourses. However, the analysis also reveals clear examples of othering and coloniality. This is evident through linguistic distancing through notions of time, relying on particular binaries, and referring to a naturalised development trajectory which denies lived experiences and subjugate South Africa as a country. The suggestion of mutuality therefore appears to be just a façade, and the development partnership discourse is rather emphasising difference and justifying colonial hierarchies.

Thesis (M.A. (English studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2019 / Gender role expectations are mostly influenced and perpetuated by patriarchy whereby women are marginalised by their surroundings while men are granted the will to do as they wish. The institution of patriarchy thrives on oppressing women in many ways and silencing them is one of those various ways. This study was prompted by the need to explore the experiences that surround African women and that of women in the African diaspora with regard to muted voices of marginalised females. Their inability to express themselves in the name of respecting culture and conforming to the expected behaviour as per their gender is majorly explored. The current study is a literary analysis of Adichie’s Purple Hibiscus (2005) which is narrated by fourteen- year-old Kambili. In it, Adichie explores patriarchy through the family of a strict catholic man by the name of Eugene Achike who stifles his family due to his strict supposed laws of God. Also, The Colour Purple (1982) by Alice Walker is analysed. In this epistolary novel, Walker documents the story of two sisters, Nettie and Celie, who become estranged as a result of their muffled conditions. While the contexts for the novels are distinctly different in many ways, they share oppressive ideologies towards women, which is the colonial experience in Africa. The aims and objectives of this study were met by using the Feminism, African feminism, Womanism theories and the concept of intersectionality as references. The findings indicate that sisterhood relationships and economic independence are huge emancipators for marginalised women.

The legitimisation of discriminatory policies is the phenomenon under scrutiny in the present study. The thesis is an extreme case study, that inductively analyses The Law on Compulsory Daycare through the ‘What’s the Problem Represented to be’ approach. Deductively, the policy is examined for the presence of othering, orientalism, and cultural racism. The problem representation assumes a binary hierarchy which results in a simplified understanding of ‘non-western’ culture attributed a few negative characteristics. The discriminatory policy is legitimised through the assumption that a lack of ‘Danish culture’ causes social problems of crime, non-participation, isolation, and under-performance in school in so called ‘ghettos’ and ‘deprived neighbourhoods’, which characterises as cultural racism, because it assumes the inferiority of ‘non-western’ culture. The thesis concludes that the ‘non-western’ is created as the ‘other’ in a way that is related to the merits of orientalism, but there is not found clear evidence of orientalism.

The aim of this thesis is to investigate how identity construction is expressed in contemporary Norwegian literature written by the offspring of migrants, and thus contribute to the existing body of research on identity construction in academic literature. This is done by exploring which processes are important in the process of identity construction and through the application of a theoretical framework. The framework both makes use of the concepts of ‘othering’, identity, ethnicity, and ‘culture’, as well as it raises a discussion of how intersectionality theory functions as a broader analytical frame in this study.The analysis examines how identity construction is seen in two anthology books, making use of textual analysis supported by the theoretical framework. What the analysis shows is that ‘othering’, the grouping of ‘us’ and ‘them’, as well as ethnicity play a large role in howidentities are constructed. The empirical material provides us with a representation of theseidentity constructions, and leads to a debate on whether the processes of ‘othering’ and social categorisation work in one way only, or if it is a more complex process – as well as what this ‘othering’ might lead to concerning the question of finding belonging or community in being ‘other’.

This paper aims to show how Brave New World, a dystopia by Aldous Huxley, has strong postcolonial traces within it. Edward Said's concept of Orientalism and Gayatri Spivak's analyses of Bertha Mason, the fictional representation of the colonial female subject in nineteenth-century English literature, tie up the similarities in how the Reservation and Linda are portrayed within the book. Comparing Gayatri Spivak's theories with Huxley's writings adds a new perspective to the novel. This essay will also include a close reading of the book and aims to unveil how specifik events concerning Linda and the part of the world referred to as "the reservation" are in link with "Orientalism", "othering" and feminism. The argument will be that both Linda and "the reservations" description in the novel are in frame with British imperialistic writings and male patriarchy.