Med denna uppsats var syftet att undersöka vilka faktorer som påverkar hur förskolegårdar ser ut i Stockholm och dess kranskommuner. Vi genomförde en intervjustudie där deltagarna var yrkespersoner som regelbundet varit delaktiga i planeringen av förskolor och beslutandeprocesser. Resultatet visar hur arbetet med dessa utemiljöer för barn brukar gå till samt vilka regler och synsätt som påverkar slutresultaten. I analysen tillämpas posthumanistisk teori med tillhörande relevanta begrepp. Särskild uppmärksamhet har lagts vid barns perspektiv och barnsyn hos beslutsfattare i planerings- och byggprocesser. Det finns idag inga regler eller lagar som säger att en förskola måste ha en gård, det finns dock råd och rekommendationer om exempelvis rimligt antal kvadratmeter av friyta. I Stockholm är det ovanligt att planera för förskolor utan tillgång till en gård, dock finns det tydliga ekonomiska faktorer och olika grundförutsättningar beroende på det geografiska läge som stadsdelen eller kranskommunen har.

Den här rapporten undersöker med en devisingprocess som utforskande metod ett gestaltande av en text utifrån idéerna om sammanflätningar bortom uppdelningen mellan teori och praktik. Processen möter under arbetets gång på motstånd och behöver därför fördjupas ytterligare innan gestaltningen kan komma vidare igen.

The growing global affliction of ‘inhumanism’ is shaking our surroundings. Landscapes of resource extraction, agroindustrial production, energy and information circulation, waste management and geopolitical strategies, also known as Operational Landscapes, has made it an urgent necessity to reclaim human agency and accountability to resist environmental and social collapse driven by contemporary capitalist geopolitics and biotechnologies of control. This report utilizes a rural place far north - Gállok, situated in Jokkmokk Municipality, Norrbotten County, as a case study to explore alternative methods of being present on and representing place. Site-writing, as a methodology is used to test as well as to inform the structure of this thesis and its research. Through the site-writings of Gállok a set of acts (I-V ) serves as parallel narratives to the scientific research, emphasizing the importance of each chapter of the report. Gállok was chosen as case to highlight the challenging relationship between a place and its embodiments, to the broader environmental and socio-political context as it potentially faces a completely new and challenging function, as a mining site. The research aims to explore and reveal the impacts that human-orchestrated use of space has on nature, why these impacts occur and how they can be rethought through transdisciplinary approaches. Through the design project, the layers that are part of a place are the layers that are part of Gállok, as a place, are further explored, as how disturbances affect the layers among themselves, to finally speculate on how an increased understanding of the embedded layers and their conditions can influence architecture and urban and regional planning processes. The design project, called The Air We Breathe, focuses on air and its quality as one of the most important common denominators for all life on Earth, yet a system that we, through anthropocentrism, are destroying to our own detriment.  The idea of this essay and the design project is not to provide any solutions, but rather to start a discussion in the matter. The vision is to acknowledge as much as possible given the limited time for the thesis. With a personal goal to explore alternative ways of communicating and representing the findings, this thesis is my way to practice research by design and design by research, using architecture as my main tool.

This is a study that looks at the teaching process of making a dance show within the Community School of Arts from a posthumanist perspective. How does the matter the students meet and the dance teacher uses make a difference? My interest in this question came to grow from my dance related work in a pre-school context where matter is given importance in relation to how children gets possibilities to experience and learn. The research material for this study, however, was generated from the Community School of Arts in Stockholm. The study identifies the matter that is making a difference for the dance teaching and learning in a process towards making a dance show at the Community School of Arts of Stockholm. The matter of importance identified was connected to the subject areas Body, Music/Sound, Clothes, Light and Space. The study investigates and articulates performative force between human and non-human matter, and further how the students and the dance teacher perceive this performative force. The study discusses how dance teaching and learning can benefit from a more reflective use of matter. In connection to the posthumanist approach the study takes a stand for, I argue that knowledge-making in the Community School of Arts can be seen from a rhizomatic perspective. That implies that learning the arts at the Community School of Arts can give students the opportunity to experience art from their different points of interest. To actively acknowledge the performative force of the different material matter involved in the process of creating a dance show, give students a way to develop dance joy. I argue that a more reflective and conscious use of matter can positively transform the dance teaching and learning of today. In a wider perspective the matter of matter in dance teaching and learning is a question that fosters environmental consciousness building on the sense that we share and are part of the same world, where matter matters.

Under min utbildning har tankar kring elevers placering i klassrummet ofta lyfts. Visualiserar jag dessa tankar ser jag framför mig en spelplan där läraren frenetiskt flyttar runt elever likt spelpjäser. Spelplanen – klassrummet – kan här ses som något passivt som fylls med mening av mänskliga aktörer – lärare och elever. Jag vill dock i denna studie närma mig en bildpedagogisk kontext utifrån ett posthumanistiskt perspektiv, där den fysiska omgivningen förstås som medskapande aktör i människors meningsskapande processer. Jag väljer därför att undersöka relationen mellan stol och kropp inom en bildpedagogisk kontext; både gymnasieelevers relation till stolar i en bildsal, samt min egen kropps relation till den röda karaktäristiska Konstfacksstolen. Studien görs i syfte att undersöka hur stolen kan förstås i relation till gymnasieelevers skapande i en bildsal, samt att tillsammans med eleverna synliggöra och utforska deras relation till stolen som materialitet. Studien blir relevant för det bildpedagogiska fältet då elevers skapande i bildsalen enligt mig ofta görs i relation till stolar. Studiens frågeställningar är Hur kan stolen förstås som konstituerande fenomen inom en bildpedagogisk kontext?; Hur kan stolen förstås som performativ aktör i tillblivelseprocesser inom en bildpedagogisk kontext?; samt Hur kan stolen förstås som orientering och materialiserad norm inom en bildpedagogisk kontext?. Undersökningen genomförs på en gymnasieskola där empiri insamlas genom: en deltagande observation, en deltagande observation där bildsalens förutsättningar modifieras, en semistrukturerad intervju med elever, samt en workshop där eleverna undersöker stolar utifrån olika påståenden och fotodokumenterar resultatet. Bilderna används sedan vid en bildelicitering. I undersökningens gestaltande del undersöker jag hur jag kan förkroppsliga elevernas utforskande strategier och koreograferar mitt varande med Konstfacksstolen genom att rikta vår relation mot det-ännu-icke-artikulerade. I undersökningen finner jag att stolen utifrån en posthumanistisk ingång kan förstås som aktör i relation till kropp inom en bildpedagogisk kontext, samt att stolen som del av fenomen oavsett bruk av mänskliga aktörer kan förstås som något som orienterar och materialiserar kroppar. Undersökningen kommuniceras genom en uppsats samt visas i Konstfacks digitala vårutställnings online-katalog. En tryckt katalog publiceras även i samband med utställningen.

This work takes as its starting point the idea that awareness and understanding of the complex nature of relationships, among people and the natural and built environment, is of crucial importance against the background of the ongoing environmental crisis. The author explores how holding art workshops can contribute with specific knowledge about this complexity. In early 2020, the author held art workshops in the South African port city of Durban, in a gallery area adjacent to a park. Qualitative methods, including ethnography and visual methods, were put to use in the study which developed from this project. The stages of fieldwork, processing and analysis are described in detail. The study’s posthumanist theoretical framework draws in insights from Arts-Based Environmental Education and Art Education for Sustainable Development, as well as current thinking about design and creativity. These ideas, together with the choice of methods, facilitated an awareness of correspondences, or productive similarities, among elements from the workshops and the surrounding area. Noticing correspondences like these widened the project’s focus to include informants, groups and stories from the edges of the field, and opened up possibilities for relating local insights to larger concerns. The study considers how holding art workshops can provide opportunities for research into environmental, educational and social issues. It concludes with a discussion about how thinking about complexity can be productive within the field of Art Education.

The aim of the study is to elucidate what enables positive attitudes towards buying sex. The study has a posthumanist approach and the data is gathered trough hidden observations of a Swedish web forum dedicated to discussions of prostitution. The theoretical frame that is used in the study consist of concepts from the material feminists Karen Barads and Donna J. Haraways theories and Niels van Doorns argument of the embodiment of virtual texts. A theoretical inspired thematic analysis is used to examine the data from the observations of the web forum. The study shows that positive attitudes towards buying sex are given space and permanence though a variety of intra-actions between material and human agents. At the same time the result of the intra-actions is that the positive attitudes get mediated and endorsed, which enables positive attitudes towards buying sex. In addition to that, the intra-action between material and human agents creates normative understandings about buying sex and prostitution, which also enables these attitudes. In conclusion, the study shows that the enablement of positive attitudes towards buying sex is created through intra-action between not only human agents, instead the material shows to have a significant part in the enablement of positive attitudes towards buying sex.

The cave Stora Förvar, excavated in the end of the 19th century, yielded a vast archaeological assemblage, providing great insight into the stone-age occupation of Stora Karlsö, an island a few kilometers off the west coast of Gotland. The bones of around ten humans dating to the Mesolithic have previously been identified among the four tons of faunal remains recovered from the cave. The human bone material featured cut-marks and split tubular bones. This, along with the apparent mixing of human- and animal bones in the cave, was interpreted as signs of anthropophagy. Later researchers have tentatively proposed that the individuals represented in the bone material might have been shamans, deviants, human sacrifices or low-status individuals. In the author’s opinion, this assertion is based on the dichotomies nature/culture and profane/sacred which produce a separation between the human bones and the animal bones. It is shown that defleshing and disarticulation were widespread practices during the Mesolithic, which could explain the marks found on the bones from Stora Förvar. Similarly, the mixing of human- and animal remains is a common feature of many Mesolithic sites across Europe. Employing a theoretical framework inspired by posthumanism and the ‘ontological turn’, the author argues that the assemblage should be understood through an alternative ontological premise where human and animal, hunter and prey, were not regarded as fundamentally different.

I den här vetenskapliga essän undersöker jag det i förskolan bärande begreppet ”mening”, i diskussion med ett antal andra texter. Utgångspunkten är att förstå ”meningen” som den kommit att beskrivas i en poststrukturell och postmodern teorivärld, det vill säga (delvis) språkligt konstruerad och kontextuell. I enlighet med den vetenskapliga essäns disposition, som den utvecklats på Centrum för praktisk kunskap på Södertörns högskola, inleder jag med att beskriva några situationer som jag varit med om under mitt yrkesliv, situationer som på något vis inneburit ett personligt dilemma. Sedan försöker jag förstå ”meningen” i dem, genom reflektion och ett intertextuellt samtal med framför allt filosoferna Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jonna Bornemark samt Maria Puig de la Bellacasa, professor i feminist science and technology och den ryske litteraturvetaren Michail Bachtin.Läroplanen för förskolan (2018) betonar hur grundläggande barns upplevelse av ”meningsfullhet” och ”meningsskapande” är för förskolans pedagogiska verksamhet. Men den talar också om ett ”livslångt lärande”, vilket fått mig att vilja utvidga diskussionen. Vad är existentiellt meningsfullt på förskolan – alltså inte bara ur ett ”lärande”-perspektiv? Jag hittar här ett problem som jag kopplar till läroplanens ”tidsuppfattning”, det vill säga dess upptagenhet av att målstyra, skapa resultat och kvalitetsutvärdera med sikte på en viss sorts framtid där barnen så småningom tänks verka. Med hjälp av Ricoeur försöker jag identifiera vad detta framtidsfokus får för konsekvenser, för mig och för barnen, här och nu. Jag upptäcker att det som går förlorat ärden konkreta, handgripliga omsorgen om barnen, vilket i och med det allt större intresset för ”lärande” blivit både nedvärderat och osynliggjort. Detta är, menar jag, en politisk handling med avsikt att rationalisera verksamheten i enlighet med en prestationsinriktad neoliberal världsuppfattning. Med Puig de la Bellacasa försöker jag sedan vrida och vända på tidsperspektiven för att hitta ett alternativt, spekulativt sätt att förstå ”mening” som ett sorts uttryck för kontextuella och, inte minst, materiella (tids-)behov. Ambitionen är att ge omsorgen i förskolan den vetenskapliga status jag tycker den förtjänar. / In this essay I will discuss the term “meaning”, a concept often used in the preschool context. My outset is to understand “meaning” as it is described in a post structural and postmodern world, that is linguistically and contextually.My essay is written in a form that has been developed in Centrum för praktisk kunskap at Södertörns högskola. Firstly, I share a few memories from my own experience as a (becoming) preschool teacher, some of which have included personal dilemmas. Then, I analyze these in an intertextual discussion with the philosophers and thinkers Paul Ricoeur, Jean-Francois Lyotard, Michel Foucault, Jonna Bornemark; the professor of feminist science and technology, Maria Puig de la Bellacasa; and the Russian literary scholar, Michail Bachtin,The Swedish preschool curriculum emphasizes children’s experience of “meaningfullness” as fundamental to the learning process. It also speaks of “lifelong learning” which prompted a desire to expand the discussion regarding this concept of “meaning” as an existential notion. What is existentially meaningful in the preschool context?In my analysis I found a contradiction in my role as a professional. I am obliged to act upon the curriculum, but at the same time I notice that something is lost in my relation to the children. I identify it as a problem relating to the concept of time in the curriculum – a time that is mostly focused on the future. My daily hard, emotional work with the children here and now, I found, is better described by Maria Puig de la Bellacasas concept of times, that is time as a “myriad” of time lines in the present – time lines that are presenting themselves as material demands of care (Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017, s. 207). In order to re-establish care as a (political) concept of knowledge in the preschool context I, like Puig de la Bellacasa, use post-humanism as a transdisciplinary theoretical frame work.

The field of video game studies has through later years shown a growing interest in game's spatialfeatures, along with their narrative implications. By introducing earlier findings of spatialmanifestations of dreams and psychological content in narrative works, with regards to their medialrepresentation into this discussion, I hope to conjoin video game research (better known asludology) with a line of psychoanalytic inquiry, which hitherto seems to have been left unexploredwithin media research.    While establishing a viewpoint through the interdisciplinary field of media research andpsychoanalysis, my intention is to broach a discussion on the possibilities of expanding itsviewpoints and theoretical frameworks unto the video game medium. In the present thesis I will forthis purpose center the discussion on the dreamlike Portal games, developed by Valve Corporation,which manages to enact a psychologically interesting narrative content largely through its spatialfeatures, as well as their game mechanics.    The psychoanalytic approach I intend to adopt for this study will, apart from taking mediaspecifications into account, also necessarily, following Gilles Deleuzes and Félix Guattaris focus onthe historical-political situation in their critique of earlier psychoanalytic inquiry, be directedtowards a societal context while addressing the individual works. I will thus, while analyzingspatial-psychological implications of works in different media, be regarding contemporary topics ofcultural phenomena and theories on human psychology as important factors for the forms ofexpression and thematic content, which contemporary cultural artifacts may take.    The term transmediality, which below will be discussed in appliance to psychoanalytic inquiry,refers in this thesis to the definition outlined by the literary scholar Irina Rajewsky, who situates itsemergence in an ongoing development in the field of the interconnected narratology and intermedialstudy, in which I hope to engage and contribute.