There exists a scholarly debate on the cultural impact of globalization and how and to what extent it is affecting indigenous people in particular. Three theoretical standpoints can be discerned from the debate; the homogenization-perspective which holds that globalization is making world cultures more similar, the hybridization-perspective which emphasizes that it is fragmenting cultural boundaries and the differentiation-perspective which implies that globalization is augmenting differences and making humanity as a whole more diverse. As regards the cultural impact of globalization on indigenous peoples, many question marks can be raised. The objective of this research is to contribute to the debate by bringing to light the perspective of the indigenous movement in Ecuador, CONAIE. An analysis is made on how they perceive globalization affecting the maintenance of indigenous identities and culture among today’s youth. That information is then used as a foundation to analyze CONAIE’s level of success regarding their main objective; to preserve Ecuador’s indigenous nationalities and peoples. The study, which has a qualitative ethnographic approach and is based on semi-structured interviews, was carried out during an eight weeks long field study in Quito and in San Pedro de Escaleras, Cuenca, Ecuador. The research has an abductive approach and the theoretical debate on globalization’s cultural impact on indigenous peoples sets the analytical frame of the study. The three theoretical standpoints; globalization as homogenization, globalization as differentiation and globalization as hybridization play central roles in the analysis of the empirical material. The findings show that there are many elements that obstruct the maintenance of indigenous culture and identity among youth in contemporary Ecuador. There is a connection between youth being exposed to cultural globalization and that they lose cultural characteristics for the indigenous identity. Hybridization of identities due to globalization is presented as a possible factor to play a role in this. Indigenous youth tend to drop characteristics for the indigenous identity as they adopt features from the mestizo culture, in case they see no benefit in maintaining the former. This indicates that what ultimately might be at stake is cultural homogenization. Light is also shed on that CONAIE lacks strategies and possibilities to reinforce the indigenous identity among the youth that is in a process of identity change. The findings thus point at that despite efforts for cultural revival by the indigenous movement in Ecuador, the maintenance of rigid frontiers between the ethnically diverse nationalities in the country is threatened. Seen to a larger picture, this implies that globalization’s impact on indigenous culture among youth is very difficult to counteract. It appears as if the move towards more cultural similarity in Ecuador cannot be hindered.

Magister Artium (Development Studies) - MA(DVS) / This study revealed the key role that social, historical, economic and political networks play in initiating and maintaining service delivery protests. While networks help in communicating service delivery problems among protestors and in mobilizing, protests that ensue are a means of communicating anger at the municipal authorities’ actions and or inactions. Using a reference to a hostage situation that occurred, I argued that there is a progression and intensification of protest tactics especially after ‘peaceful and legal’ means of engagement fail. Also, my research findings show that networks used for protest purposes can be used for other purposes. In light of this, I suggested that a better understanding, by protestors, of networks at their disposal and how they can use such networks for other community building projects is needed. Additionally, such an understanding by protestors may prove helpful for protestors to better organize and utilize their network resource and stage more effective but peaceful protests. Municipalities may use this information (networks) to communicate and connect with the communities they serve in a better way. In sum, the study further found that networks are important before the protest, during the protest and after the protest

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This study investigates workers’ perceptions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) practices on elections and living wage issues from a social movement perspective from the Apartheid (South Africa) and Unilateral Declaration of Independence (Zimbabwe) eras to 2009. The trade union social movement perspective refers to labour movements that develop a socio-political character, and concern themselves not only with workplace issues but with broad social and political issues. A study of COSATU and ZCTU practices in South Africa and Zimbabwe at this time in the field of social movements is consistent with current calls for a conceptual shift, away from looking for invariant causes and effects to looking for mechanisms and processes that occur in many different kinds of movements and that lead to different outcomes depending on the specific contexts within which they occur. The study draws insights from social movement unionsm theory to understand mechanisms and processes pursued by COSATU and ZCTU in seeking to influence policy outcomes. This study used a qualitative approach and a case study strategy. In the study, questionnaire and in-depth interview responses were drawn from COSATU secretariat, two affiliates, the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) and National Union of Mine Workers (NUM). Questionnaire and in-depth responses were also drawn from the ZCTU secretariat, two affiliates, the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (GPWUZ) and the Zimbabwe Urban Municipal Workers Union (ZUMWU). The objective was to gain insights from a broad cross-section of union members – blue-collar workers, professionals, state or semi state institution workers and ordinarily low income farm workers. The study concludes that workers’ perceptions of the two labour social movements is that they can influence changes in the political system (through elections) as a means to securing living wages by engaging in five practices, namely, disruption mechanisms, public preference mechanisms, political access mechanisms, judicial mechanisms and international access mechanisms. However, while the study noted that workers perceive COSATU and ZCTU practices as essential in influencing elections and living wage issues, the popularity of the mechanisms was lower in Zimbabwe where workers often face persecution. In South Africa, utilisation of these practices is also affected by the less militant public sector affiliates and non- standard forms of work such as subcontracting, casualisation, informalisation, externalisation and the ballooning informal sector. Given these problems, social movement trade unionism remains a viable means of representing the interests of the working poor. Establishment of these challenges leads to areas of possible further research such as how the unions can effectively represent the unorganised workers of the informal sector. A broader research on the impact of the exponential growth of non-standard forms of work is also relevant at this time in the two countries.

This research looks at the change in ethical sensibilities towards a mangrove in a fishing colony in the periphery of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and at how they may have changed as the mangrove became a protected area and entered the environmental assemblage. Formerly called Z-1, this was the first of 800 cooperative fishing colonies founded along the Brazilian coast in 1920 as part of a government initiative. The study unveiled the following pattern around the mangrove: from being a source of livelihood and place for communal activities up until the 1970s, it became the locus of an environmental movement in the 80s and 90s after it was devastated by a big fire. The concrete outcome of the movement was the creation of the APARU, Area of Environmental Protection and Urban Regeneration, which meant that after more than seventy years under a system of tutelage by the Navy, the colony and the mangrove were subjected to an environmental form of governance administered by the City Council, and the mangrove went from being a taken-for-granted thing to an environmentally-oriented concept. It finally fell silent and isolated as it became increasingly polluted, even if ‘protected’ by a municipal decree. The main argument presented is that, as the mangrove passed from nature to environment, which implied a change in governance from the Navy to the Department of Environment, people found creative ways of holding on to its thingness, and to ethical values that at times conflict with the broader environmental assemblage. Those local ethics forge the links that sustain an ecological assemblage, and the ethics prescribed by the environmental governance currently in place can be undermined by more embedded values. That said, local knowledge and practices are environmentally informed, and different ways of being political emerge. This community was not only created literally on a mangrove, but it was also symbolically and politically reproduced through the mangrove, and even more so after it became a protected area. The dialectical outcomes of the relationships between human beings and the mangrove, and between human beings as they multiply, transform the landscape continuously, just as the mangrove in its perpetual unfolding impresses itself upon human matters and sustains the social ordering of things. As new elements are assembled around the mangrove, from discarded utensils to stories of environmental activism, the mangrove is enacted as heritage, as nature, as a biome, as culture, as pollution, as an institution, and as environment. This thesis hopes to contribute towards the broader body of literature on environmental anthropology, political ecology, and anthropology of moralities, by focusing on ‘human-disturbed environments’ (Tsing 2013) and bringing attention to the value of local perceptions in policy making.

This thesis seeks to analyse the role of the Gambian diaspora activists in Gambian politics particularly during the December 1st, 2016, Presidential election in which the long-time dictator Yahya Jammeh was defeated by the less experienced and known Adama Barrow. Despite an extensive mobilization effort over the past twenty-two years, spanning across continents, the fragile and disorganized Gambian diaspora has been unable to exert influence in Gambian politics due to unfavourable domestic conditions such as the unwillingness of the opposition to unite as well as state repression. However, the formation of coalition 2016 provided the diaspora activists an opportunity to engage effectively in mobilizing against the Jammeh regime through their online media platforms as well as financial contribution.  By using a multi-level research design using interviews and document analyses, the thesis explores the mobilization strategies of the Gambian diaspora as means of influencing at both the homeland and international levels.

Safety in public spaces has become an issue of increased concern and attention in India, after incidents of sexual harassment and violence against women. The need for safe public spaces was formulated in the civil society in New Delhi and can be described as a social movement. Mobilization and mechanisms behind is studied in a theory-based analysis to learn more about social movements. Results can be of general importance in understanding the role social movements may play in work for safe public environments, not only in New Delhi, but elsewhere as well. The purpose of the thesis is to i) describe the work by social movement on safe public spaces among three central actors within the movement and ii) analyze the movement´s success in its mobilizing efforts and highlight mechanisms of importance. The study is a qualitative case study in New Delhi. The empiric material was collected through a document study and semi-structured interviews. Frame theory was used in study design and data analysis. The analysis showed common problems perceived by the actors as overall fear, patriarchy and urbanization, while working methods and solutions differed. The main difference was a result of digitalization and activities on social media in a cycle of protest. Motivational frames portrayed vulnerabilities, challenges and opportunities for women getting attention and motivated to engage. It has resulted in a diverse movement, shaping new ways to reach out taking advantage of new technology.

The aim of this study was to investigate the relation between activism and well-being and the underlying mechanisms that make up this relationship. The study's hypothesis was that there is a relationship between activism and well-being and that this relationship is either moderated or mediated by optimism and locus of control. It means that we expected that locus of control and optimism would at least partly explain the association between activism and well-being. Data was collected using an online-survey and recruiting participants through social media. The survey included questionnaires that measured locus of control, optimism, activism, depression and anxiety, satisfaction with life and meaning in life. A total of 259 participants was included in the final sample. Correlation analyses were conducted and showed that there was a negative significant correlation between activism and locus of control/optimism. There was a positive correlation between locus of control/optimism and well-being. The correlation between activism and anxiety was positive and the correlation between activism and meaning in life was positive. No support for the moderation hypotheses was found. However, three mediation analysis were conducted and the results showed a significant mediation effect of optimism and locus of control on the relationship between activism and different dimensions of well-being. The results of mediation analysis indicated that activists experience less control and are less optimistic and in turn experience poorer well-being. It is concluded that optimism and locus of control could be underlying factors that explain the underlying mechanism behind the relationship between activism and well-being, but this relationship is complicated and future studies are needed in order to gain better understanding of possible underlying factors.

Israeli society is diverse and complex, with a great variety of religious worldviews, both with regard to the various religions that are present in the country, as well as within Judaism. This research is focused on the latter, the variety of Jewish worldviews, and the wealth of social movements that developed out of them. The spectrum is vast, and this has far reaching consequences for attitudes towards the political and social situation in Israel and the relationship with its neighbors. With this research, I aim to get insight into these widely diverging attitudes, especially when it comes to a vision of peace. We are often led to believe that peace is a singular thing, but the reality is that peace as a concept and an idea is as diverse as any idea, and can mean vastly different things to different people. In this research, I analyze what peace means to different groups of people, what it looks like, and how they think peace can and will be achieved in the world they are living in. I have a special interest in the role religious tradition plays in this and the ways in which religion has helped people to come to this perception. In a way, it is an exercise of creative thinking, because the goal is to overcome normative and theoretical ideas of peace, and to give meaning to peace beyond what is generally accepted. With this effort, I aim to open up a new avenue of thinking about peace, peacebuilding, and peace processes, and challenge academics and professionals to look beyond what they perceive as an acceptable peace.

In the last decade, social movements have demonstrated their power of bringing change to societies, often in terms of democratization. At the same time, the level of democracy in the world has been established as decreasing. It is therefore interesting to study whether the increase of social movements is related to the decline of democracy. The aim of this thesis was thus to explore the perception of democracy amongst activists in a social movement calling for democratization. This was done by conducting semi-structured interviews with activists of varying degrees of participation in the Hong Kong protests 2019 – 2020. The results of the study indicated that a majority of the activists regarded democracy from the perspective of liberal democracy, stressing the importance of elections and protection of human rights through a well-grounded constitution. Nevertheless, some of the respondents sought more than a fundamental description of democracy, incorporating elements of deliberation and participation as well. The Hong Kong protests 2019 – 2020 have not seen the end yet. Likewise, the existence of social movements will forever remain through variations of repertoires. The significance of what conception of democracy motivates activists to organise themselves through civil society movements remains to be academically covered in full. Thus, future studies of democratization should continue to shed light on the role of the civil society in democratization processes.

<p>My dissertation is divided into five relatively freestanding yet thematically linked essays, investigating a number of ways in which social norms and the question of racism are related. In these chapters, I aim to show the vital influence of social norms on our interpersonal relationships, going beyond the futile binary between individual (moral philosophy) and state (political philosophy), thereby affirming the primacy of the social over the political. Considering social norms can help us to see how individual agents are socially and culturally mediated, shaped, and distorted. In the dissertation, I discuss the racial contract (John Rawls and Charles Mills), racism as volitional states (Jorge Garcia), racism as ideology (Tommie Shelby and Sally Haslanger), and anti-racism through social movements (Elizabeth Anderson). By engaging them, I argue that racism as a socially harmful norm should be understood in the context of broader social environments. My thesis is that racism as a socially harmful norm should be understood as a manifestation in broad social environments where the mechanisms of social norms function structurally. In conclusion, I argue for the relevance of social critique instead of a narrow moral critique of racism. In this regard, my solution is not intended as a complete solution for the termination of all forms of racism, rather as certainly a needed viable approach both morally warranted and pragmatically efficacious.</p>