Transhumanism is a philosophy and a contemporary movement dedicated to improving the human condition in various ways. This thesis explores how the transhumanist movement contributes to the contemporary conceptualization or reconceptualization of the human body and the human condition. Furthermore, this thesis discusses three transhumanist key concepts, namely Mind Uploading, Cryonics, and the Primo Posthuman, and how these ideas might affect the research participants’ understanding and enactment of the human body and the human condition. By relying on ethnographic methods, including semi-structured interviews and participant observations from a 12-week fieldwork in Arizona, the ethnographic material is then discussed with the use of Annemarie Mol’s body multiple theory. In addition to this, the material is also analyzed with literature discussing the three main themes of this thesis, namely the re-conceptualization of the body, the mind, and body dualism, and the redefinition of death and the dying body. The ethnographic material and the accounts made from the research participants illustrate that the body is enacted and understood as insufficient and fragile, cartesian, a current vehicle readable and quantifiable through numbers and graphs, and a body whose mind can be uploaded into a computational substrate by the transhumanist community. It also describes how the body can be enacted as alive, an anatomical object, and a body with agency and personhood. Furthermore, the thesis concludes that the transhumanist movement contributes to the contemporary conceptualization and reconceptualization of the human body and the human condition by enacting multiple bodies as well as discussing and imagining new possible human conditions and human bodies. Lastly, this thesis does not only address important anthropological questions regarding ontology and the enactment of the human body. It also discusses relevant questions about humans and technology, as well as questions regarding death and imagination.

Raggare is a unique and rather understudied subculture within Scandinavia that emerged in the 1950s and has been vibrant since. They are noted for their affection towards 1950s American aesthetics and, most importantly, American vintage cars. In Sweden, these cars are known as raggarbilar, and I contend these vehicles are central to how social interactions occur between raggare. The purpose of this thesis is to examine how cars create social bonds by looking at raggarbilar through the lens of raggare and in this way investigating how and why the cars fascinate people. I use sensory methodology to examine how cars are approached and embraced by raggare, arguing that sensuous experiences are fundamental to the perception of the materiality of cars. Theoretically, I use materiality and material culture as guidelines for how objects enforce cultural and social significance. More specifically, Alfred Gell’s notion of the technology of enchantment is utilized to understand the effects and social agency of artefacts and I develop this notion further with what I call the sensory enchantment of materiality. During ten weeks of ethnographic fieldwork that took place in different garages in Västernorrland county, along with semi-structured interviews and the usage of visual instruments, I explored the interconnectedness between cars, people, and environment to investigate how cars are objects capable of enchantment and persuasion to raggare. Overall, raggarbilar are multi-sensory objects that are perceived as different from other cars and create certain phenomenological experiences that are shared between raggare, and thus, bring the subculture together.

Denna studie i sociologi har syftet att beskriva sambandet mellan (a) roller (arbetsrollen, arbetstidsrollen), (b) engagemang (c) genom intern kommunikation inom räddningstjänsten med hjälp av en enkätstudie. Det teoretiska ramverket för studien är rollteori och insamlad enkätdata omfattar sju räddningstjänstorganisationer. Insamlad enkätdata är grunden till studien regressionsanalys. Resultatet i studien visar på ett samband mellan roll och kommunicerad information och rollers arbetstid och kommunicerad information inom räddningstjänsten. Studien visar även på ett samband mellan kommunicerad information och engagemanget för arbetsorganisationen. / This study in sociology aims to describe the relationship between (a) roles (work role, work time role), (b) commitment (c) through internal communication within the rescue service with the help of a questionnaire study. The theoretical framework for the study is role theory and the survey data collected includes seven rescue service organizations. Collected survey data is the basis for the regression analysis study. The results of the study show a connection between role and communicated information and roles' working hours and communicated information within the rescue service. The study also shows a connection between communicated information and the commitment to the work organization.

Diversity and inclusion work is intimately connected to valuing difference in the workplace. This thesis aims to look at how difference is constructed through the language and practices of diversity and what it means to value difference in organizations. Diversity as an organizational principle has gained popularity since the 1990’s and diversity work in Sweden has been, and is still heavily influenced by the US, where the modern diversity work as we know it today originated. When diversity work came to Sweden, it met a strong tradition of gender mainstreaming, that still has a strong impact on diversity work today. I have examined diversity work in Swedish private organizations from the perspective of the diversity practitioner, through qualitative interviews with ten diversity practitioners. The analysis shows that diversity is about working with contradicting value systems of what difference means, which has implications for employees that are named different. / Mångfald- och inkluderingsarbete är ofta kopplat till att värdera olikheter hos medarbetarna i organisationen. Denna masteruppsats har som syfte att undersöka hur olikheter konstrueras genom språket och aktiviteter som utförs i mångfaldsarbetet och vad det innebär att värdera olikheter. Mångfald som en organisationsprincip har ökat i popularitet sedan 1990-talet och är i Sverige starkt påverkat av USA, där mångfaldsarbetet, som vi känner till det i dag, uppkom. När mångfaldsarbetet kom till Sverige, mötte det en stark tradition av jämställdhetsintegrering, som jag har funnit, fortfarande har en stor påverkan på mångfaldsarbetet idag. Jag har undersökt mångfaldsarbetet i svenska privata organisationer, utifrån mångfaldsarbetarens perspektiv, genom kvalitativa intervjuer med tio mångfaldsarbetare. Analysen visar att mångfaldsarbetet innebär att arbeta med olika och motsägelsefulla värde-system som säger något om vad olikheter innebär. Detta påverkar i sin tur de anställda som konstrueras som olika genom mångfaldsarbetet.

The purpose of this study is to examine the impact of vocational skills in promoting women‟s empowerment and gender equality to reduce poverty in Ghana. The purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to select 15 interviewees for the study. Semi-structured interview was employed to elicit responses for the study. Data collected from the interview was transcribed and analyzed using thematic analysis in order to answer the specified research questions.  The study found that vocational skills promotes women‟s empowerment and addresses gender inequalities in Ghana. It also established that vocational skills help to reduce poverty among women. Additionally, the findings of the study posited that promotion of vocational skill trainingis not formalized. Its promotion is being facilitated by individual women, who double as workers and trainers.  In spite of foregone contribution of vocational skills identified by the study, the study discovered that the presence of single parenting, financial problem, teenage pregnancy and non-maintenance of children by their fathers thwart the efforts of women in the fight against poverty in the district. In view of these results of the study, recommendations were made to sustain the impact vocational skills have on women‟s empowerment, gender equality and poverty reduction.  To sustain women‟s empowerment to address gender inequalities and poverty reduction in the district, it was recommended that women who acquired vocation skills be given financial and logistics support to enable them set up and pursue their vocation. To make vocational education and training accessible in the district, it was again recommended an immediate establishment of vocational skills training center should be a top most priority on the agenda of the district assembly, Non-governmental organizations and other women advocate partners in the district and Ghana in general.

This thesis is a contribution to a broader interdisciplinary exploration of the ways in which emotional well-being manifests in communal contexts. Using the artistic practice of Mbusa-making among the Bemba of Zambia as a case study, it understands emotional well-being as a relational practice and a dynamic process, not as an attained goal, an affective state, or a static situation. The data used for the thesis are drawn from previous research on the art of Mbusa, specifically that of Audrey Richards in the 1930s and of Bennetta Jules-Rosette in the 1970s, with supplementary distance interviews conducted by the author of this thesis, throughout 2020 and 2021. The thesis seeks to map out the experience of well-being with the utilization of conceptual tools given mainly by existential-phenomenological anthropology. Its main objective is to revisit some pioneer ethnographic studies, by focusing on Mbusa's underestimated link to emotional well-being, enriching them with contemporary theories on imagination,agency, and personhood. The thesis discusses the mainstream discourse on well-being as sit is associated with hapiness, physical health, and the social indicators for the quality of life among poor and wealthy nations. Thus, it places the practice of Mbusa amid that widespread approach, questioning it. The case of this Bemba practice in Zambia is used to illustrate the point that well-being is the universal, ever-present act of coping with adversity and to demonstrate its artistic and imaginative qualities that help people be in the world.

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Doing ethnographic work on the effects of COVID 19, I looked at how food service businesses were affected. I found that the government’s selective distribution of aid and lacking guidance had forced them to prioritize accommodating customers over their own safety. I look at the economic, mental, and physical risks imposed by this policy, and find that people cope with them through solidarity and creativity. In this, I draw on theories addressing the state, war, emotional labor, and disaster. My understanding of the state explains how pressure is created for workers to deal with the situation, and emotional labor explains more of the burden, and how they bear it. Vulnerability theory helps explain downward redistribution of the pandemic’s burden, and I develop its core points further to capture the socially deleterious impact of lasting disasters. Theories of war and solidarity explain how normality and everyday life are impacted by the disaster, and how people restore a sense of routine and normality cooperatively. I conclude that long term disasters need to be further studied and better understood because of their capacity to worsen and entrench inequality.

Människan har ett socialt behov som i dagens samhälle hotas. Det är till stor del vår sociala förmåga som har placerat oss högst upp i näringskedjan men idag när vi inte längre behöver använda vår sociala förmåga för överlevnad kanske vi glömmer bort hur viktig den faktiskt är.Dagens digitala samhälle erbjuder ett bekvämare liv där vi går miste om möjligheter för fysiska träffar. Vi isolerar oss från andra människor helt frivilligt då vi på ett bekvämt sätt har möjligheten att umgås över internet.I detta arbete förklarar vi vikten av människans sociala behov och vilken roll den bör ha inom byggd miljö och stadsplanering. / Humans have a social need that is threatened in today’s society. It is largely our social ability that has placed us at the top of the food chain, but today when we no longer need to use this ability for survival, we may forget how important it actually is.Today’s digital society offers a more comfortable lifestyle where we miss out on opportunities for physical encounters. We isolate ourselves from one another completely voluntarily as we have the opportunity to socialize over the internet.In this thesis we explain the importance of human social needs and what role it should have in the built environment and urban planning.

No description available.