In the nineteen nineties, former Yugoslavia, went through a series of interstitial disputes, both religious and political, which evolved into hatred amongst its own people and ultimately into an unforgiving civil war. Rising demonstrations of the groups with different religious and cultural views within the country’s boundaries amalgamated into a war which divided the state into separate countries and left many cities and villages in despair, economic desolation and poverty. Although some have been directly affected by the physical casualties of war, others have suffered indirectly. One of the villages affected is Ruski Kerestur, found in the Republic of Serbia where more than ninety percent of the residents are non-Serbian. Many of its people fled the country due to political and economic uncertainties. This minority group is of the Carpatho-Rusyn decent which are the heart and soul of the village. Inspired by personal motive and desire to heal communities in distress, this thesis presents an opportunity to reconcile Carpatho-Rusyn people from the social diaspora in attempt to reclaim their national identity and give them the courage to persist on and continue the cultural legacy that has been nurtured for generations. Leaning on the speculation that ‘a spirit in people and belief in the future comes from the very foundation of a building’; it utilizes an architectural intervention as basis to conceive a quintessential communal space that redefines social and practical functions necessary for cultivating Rusyn traditions, ethics and domestic values. To develop an understanding of their public realm, the thesis dips into the crevices of time searching for Carpatho-Rusyn progress of development and migratory movement from their homeland in the Carpathian Mountains to the present day conditions. It tends to explore the idea of ‘adaptation’, the ideology that defines an architectural type through the process of transformation and negotiation of a community and its direct effect on public space, urban system and architectonic form. These theories will become a kernel for producing a useful and meaningful civic landmark that will strengthen the spirit of people giving hope and new life to the wounded village. The new ‘living monument’, Carpatho-Rusyn Art Gallery and Reconciliation Centre, presents a new gateway for Ruski Kerestur and its people into the healthy future shedding light on their moral values which were tamed for centuries by wars, ethnic cleansing and inexorable conviction of their non existence. The design proposal reintroduces a Rusyn way to the world and echoes the emotion of pride which permeates every Rusyn soul.

In the nineteen nineties, former Yugoslavia, went through a series of interstitial disputes, both religious and political, which evolved into hatred amongst its own people and ultimately into an unforgiving civil war. Rising demonstrations of the groups with different religious and cultural views within the country’s boundaries amalgamated into a war which divided the state into separate countries and left many cities and villages in despair, economic desolation and poverty. Although some have been directly affected by the physical casualties of war, others have suffered indirectly. One of the villages affected is Ruski Kerestur, found in the Republic of Serbia where more than ninety percent of the residents are non-Serbian. Many of its people fled the country due to political and economic uncertainties. This minority group is of the Carpatho-Rusyn decent which are the heart and soul of the village. Inspired by personal motive and desire to heal communities in distress, this thesis presents an opportunity to reconcile Carpatho-Rusyn people from the social diaspora in attempt to reclaim their national identity and give them the courage to persist on and continue the cultural legacy that has been nurtured for generations. Leaning on the speculation that ‘a spirit in people and belief in the future comes from the very foundation of a building’; it utilizes an architectural intervention as basis to conceive a quintessential communal space that redefines social and practical functions necessary for cultivating Rusyn traditions, ethics and domestic values. To develop an understanding of their public realm, the thesis dips into the crevices of time searching for Carpatho-Rusyn progress of development and migratory movement from their homeland in the Carpathian Mountains to the present day conditions. It tends to explore the idea of ‘adaptation’, the ideology that defines an architectural type through the process of transformation and negotiation of a community and its direct effect on public space, urban system and architectonic form. These theories will become a kernel for producing a useful and meaningful civic landmark that will strengthen the spirit of people giving hope and new life to the wounded village. The new ‘living monument’, Carpatho-Rusyn Art Gallery and Reconciliation Centre, presents a new gateway for Ruski Kerestur and its people into the healthy future shedding light on their moral values which were tamed for centuries by wars, ethnic cleansing and inexorable conviction of their non existence. The design proposal reintroduces a Rusyn way to the world and echoes the emotion of pride which permeates every Rusyn soul.

The purpose of this thesis is to understand how small scale farmers navigate the market to access and participate in the formal maize market to improve their revenue, utilising the case of the P4P program inKenya. The empirical material was collected during fieldwork in Kenya. Qualitative methods were found to be the most suitable for this thesis. The methods that was utilised were a case study strategy, semi structured interviews, focus groups, observations and analysis of secondary sources. In this study different approaches about farmers’ organisations (FO) and small scale farmers’ access to and participation in markets have been utilised to create an analytical context. The study found that food markets in developing countries are lacking in infrastructure, market information and bank credit. The dynamics of the Kenyan market are even more complicated due to its two different marketing channels. Using collective action has the farmers overcome many of these limitations. One change is in the farmers’ mind set from viewing agriculture as a hobby to a business. The farmers have been criticised for defaulting on their contracts, whereas WFP has been criticised delays in payments. Some FO:s have been more successful than others which are a reflection of the barriers within the P4P program itself.

This essay is about two Swedish folk musicians, Anders Rosén and Leif Stinnerbom, who have been playing two important rolls in the developing process of Swedish folk music, on their separate ways. The main part of this work is focused on the era called “The Folk Music Vogue”, which was the era when my informants were in the limelight on the Swedish fiddler scene of the 70s. Our music culture is constantly lying under the change of progress and I find it interesting to reflect how these kinds of changes are affecting the role of the musician. In this essay I am reflecting on the different perspectives of the musicianship according to my informants and how they both are referring to their role as musicians. The purpose is further on to see how they have been relating to the change of progress on the field of the Swedish folk music during the 70s and up to this date. Throughout interviews with the informants I am analyzing their personal relationship to their life as folk musicians. I am focusing on their personal relationship to the Swedish folk music climate of today, as well as to the Folk Music Vogue of the 70s. The essay also focuses on the interpretation of traditional folk tunes, which leads us further on into the folk music tradition itself. During the 70s there was a young generation of fiddlers, which my informants was a strong part of, who was questioning the old values of the traditional folk music. With new kinds of perspectives and with different values this young generation changed the values in the tradition and through this, the folk musical climate became more open minded than before. One of my main conclusions in this essay is that my informants have been changing their relationship to the style of folk music as well as to the field of folk music. They have been changing their point of view, and these changes is mainly a result of the developments that have occurred in the style and on the field of folk music, after the era of the Folk Music Vogue, and further on up to this very date. These changes have also been affecting their personal relationship to their own musicianship. The history chapter of this essay will give the reader relevant information about the Swedish folk music history. Throughout the history the reader will get a bigger picture of the circumstances before and meanwhile the time of the Folk Music Vogue. The answers of my informants are compared to this history but firstly I have been comparing them with each other, and thereby answer the main questions of this essay.

This thesis aims to understand the formation of the Russian identity in the Kazakh Steppes by examining the migration flows of Russians and the affects of state policies and pattern of inter-ethnic relations between the Russians and the Kazakhs during different historical periods. Constructionist theoryhas guided the analysis of the research. The Russian identity formation in the Kazakh Steppes is examined within the contextof three consequtive historical periods that correspond to fundamental social, political and administartive re-structuring. Firstis the period of the Russiam Empire, during which the resettlement policy of the Empire shattered the traditional social structures of the native Kazakhs and entailed extensive inter-ethnic contact between the Russians and the Kazakhs. Second period corresponds to the period of the Soviet Union, which experianced the intensification of Russian settelments in the Kazakh Steppes. The soviet policy, while encouraging Russianness as a component of soviet identity, atthe same time, granted autonomy todiverse ethnic entites. The third period, which correspondes to the current era starting with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, witnessed the emergance of Kazakh State. A large portion of the Russian population in the Kazakh Steppes remained in the independent republic of Kazakhstan and face a new challenges in tearms of identity formation due to the Kazakh nation building policies.

The aim of this study is to uncover and discuss the spaces appropriated by graffiti writers and to reveal out the possible resistances involved in the act throughout the writers&amp / #8217 / motivations, characteristics, spaces they produce and all over process they are entering into together with the specifications of graffiti in Turkey. It demands to unfold the possibilities sheltered in everyday practices looking through graffiti and subsequently revealing out possibilities in graffiti looking through everyday life. It sees the urban space as a social product, which is incomplete without the tactics of the inhabitants and redefined as a result of appropriation. It looks through the history of graffiti, graffiti writers, their motivations and descriptions, working mechanism of the act, spaces chosen and their overall relations to power placed upon urban space in regard to its predescribed theoretical framework reaching out an integrated explanation on play/game theory and resistance it describes. It claims graffiti as a game of the juveniles acting in urban space as their playground.

Philosophers of science have long realized that it is not possible to decide which scientific theory is true just by relying on their empirical adequacy. That theories should possess other virtues in order to be accepted by the scientific community is well understood. Nevertheless, empirical adequacy remained as having a privileged value among these virtues. In this thesis I argue that scientific theories are accepted or rejected on the bases of an evaluation of their degree of coherence. In such a coherentist understanding, empirical adequacy still plays some role. However, this is an egalitarian approach where observational reports have no special status. By means of case studies form history of science I provided reasons to think that this coherentist approach is better suited to understanding scientific change as a rational process.

The search for the process of electrification in Turkey and how it is materialized in urban space in different scales in indoor and outdoor is the aim of this thesis. Looking for the effects of electrification by means of making a discursive analysis and taking into consideration the objects in substance, concerning the practice itself, and searching for the transformations in the urban space and in urban living are the main objectives of this research. Consequently, popular media will be the main source to look for how electrification was materialized and depicted in the publicity. The popular publications of the period like / magazines, newspapers, films are going to be investigated and re-read in order to decipher how discursive formations were constructed. The intervals of the research period are theheydays of these Modernist discursive formations, mainly the 1930s / starting from 1928 the foundation of Ankara Gas and Electricity Factory which is the symbol and generator of electrification in the new capital Ankara, and ending with 1938 with Mustafa Kemal Atat&uuml / rk&amp / #8217 / s death which can be considered a major turning point in the discursive formations. The theoretical framework of the thesis will take the modernity project in the Turkish Republic, focusing on how collective memory and social identity was constructed at that time.

This dissertation investigates the case of world music in Turkey as an illustration of the discursive mechanisms involved in the production of a global cultural form from what the globality has defined as the &lsquo / local&rsquo / . The study attempts to show the complicated nature of the process by examining how the musical forms and themes supposedly belonging to the &lsquo / local&rsquo / are incorporated into and appropriated in the discourses associated with world music and into the corresponding strategies of the actors. The discursive compilations, articulations and dislocations taking place in the subspecies of the commercial category of world music in a particular locality are investigated by mapping the discursive topographies on the imaginary continuum from the global to the local. This study views locality as a space where a repertoire of discourses are contested and articulated in the production and consumption of global cultural commodities. In line with this understanding, this dissertation also investigates what is the local as it is produced through the particular brand of world music in Turkey. The study also aims to contribute to the theoretical discussions in the literature on the interaction between the global and the local by looking at the production of a global cultural form in a particular locality.

The aim of this thesis is to analyze the current situation of the Crimean Karaites. This community is one of the smallest groups with a population of 800 in the Crimean Peninsula and 2,000 in total all around the world. However, they are trying to resist assimilation via launching a cultural revival project. This thesis studies the cultural loss among the Crimean Karaites and analyzes the factors leading to assimilation. It is argued that despite their efforts of cultural revival, Crimean Karaites constitute a disappearing community.