Empathy is the ability to understand another person's subjective condition, including emotions. Depending on culture, emotions are expressed differently, hence there might occur difficulties for one person to understand emotions in another if they belong to different cultures. This study explores how depression is described in western psychiatry, compared to alternative cultural forms of similar conditions. Building on how the understanding of the client's emotions is shaped in the psychiatric meeting, the limit of empathy is discussed as well as what might influence the understanding of another person's emotions. Two limits of empathy are revealed, both depending on differences in the individuals relation to the surrounding world. The first limit is found in differences between emotions, the second limit is related to differences in experience due to when they are based in either emotional or cognitive conceptions. The conclusion of this study is that the scientific thinking and the cognitively based understanding of emotions changes the comprehension of them – from being interpreted as a way to relate to the world to being interpreted more as characteristics within the individual. Consequently, the possibility to empathetically understand the other's emotions diminishes.

This essay is about migration and identity among female first generation migrants having migrated voluntarily from their home country to Belgium. For citizens of the globalized part of the world, travelling and working in other countries is a choice available for almost everyone. However, once one having settled in a new country with a local partner and had children the possibilities for going back, or somewhere else, may have become much narrower.

Only For You! Brazilians and the Telenovela Flow is an anthropological study of the reception of a popular and commercial mass-media product – Brazilian "soap-operas," or telenovelas. Telenovelas are broadcast throughout Brazil six days a week, at prime-time. They attract an audience of more than forty million viewers, every day. Initially, this study began with a simple question: how do viewers engage with telenovelas' representations of the Brazilian society? Ethnographic fieldwork (conducted during several periods between 1995 and 2000, in the state of Minas Gerais, southeastern Brazil) amended and complicated this question. It became clear that in everyday life, outside of the context of immediate telenovela reception, people not only talked about the contents and characters of these programs; they also talked extensively about subjects and products that derived from or somehow entangled with the telenovela plot. The term telenovela flow is used in this study in order to describe and visualize this crucial part of informants’ receptive experience. The research presented in this study explores the contents of the telenovela flow, tracing and identifying some of its articulations and interspersions, and relating them to contemporary Brazilian society. It also examines the way the telenovela flow hails and interpellates You, the viewer, to interact with it. It is argued that the telenovela flow presents hierarchies of gender, sexuality, race and class as embodied and naturalized, at the same time that it presents tangible and immediate ways to transcend or at least circumvent those very hierarchies. Viewers, in their engagement with the telenovela flow, evaluate, scrutinize, and search for ways to reinforce or transform their positions as subjects within Brazilian society.

Fikan är en central del i svensk kultur och en inkörsport i svensk gemenskap varför det är bland de första orden en nyanländ får lära sig. Men det är inte alltid helt klart vad konceptet innebär. Huvudsyftet med denna uppsats är att ta reda på hur fyra svenska medelålders personer (en man och tre kvinnor) uppfattar och förhåller sig till sitt eget fika. För att kunna uppfylla syftet har jag genomfört individuella semistrukturerade intervjuer. Den primära slutsatsen är att fikan kan anta många former, men förknippas vanligtvis med kaffe, en sötsak och sällskap – gärna i gammaldags miljö.

Jag skall i denna uppsats relationen mellan myndigheter och transpersoners kroppar, och se på statens påverkan på enskilda individers transitioner. I Sverige krävs det könskodade performanser från individen för att staten ska erkänna individen som ett annat kön. Hur individer hanterar myndigheter och statens influens över deras liv, och vilka tekniker de har för att interagera med sin egen könsutredning kommer att undersökas. Hur enskilda personer inom transvården iscensätter, och bibehåller normer kommer även att beröras. På vilket sätt enskilda transpersoner skapar handlingssätt

Migrationsverket’s National Service Centre in Sundbyberg is a borderscape displaced from the outer contours of the nation. This borderscape of the interior, perform bordering and difference-making functions in its deciding of who gets to become a citizen, who is to be considered a legitimate refugee and in a sense who you are. Asylum-seekers visiting the Service Centre attempt to make sense of the maze-like bureaucratic organisation they find themselves caught up in. This thesis engages with the materialization and realization of the border, narratives about emotions in the asylum process, and the sensebreaking qualities of the bureaucratic organization of Migrationsverket as a Kafkaesque institution through participatory, narrative and engaged ethnographic methodologies.

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This master’s thesis will be discussing how nuanced experiences affects the crafting of identity among transnational and/or transracial adult adoptees raised in Sweden from an anthropological perspective.The purpose of this thesis is to show that adoptees craft their identity in numerous and complex ways, one as unique as the other. The nuanced experiences are important to underscore since the adoptee demographic is vast and it consists of multiple individuals with unique lives, and if these distinctiveness are ignored, we run the risk of depicting a flawed picture of the adoptee experience. In an attempt to avoid doing so, this thesis will use an intersection of different theoretical frameworks from previous literatureon adoption and identity, which are belonging, body, and kinning, with additional theoretical concepts on materiality to complement. This paper follows eight adoptees, who share their individual narratives that revolves around the crafting of their Swedish, Adoption, and Ethnic identity. I will bring their experiences to life by putting them in relation to each other to showcase their uniqueness. Keywords: Adoption, Belonging, Body, Kinship.

Uppsala is the fourth biggest city in Sweden and is known for having a rich cultural life, beautiful landscapes, and a long history. Because of how Uppsala is built, infrastructure and urban planning limit people with mobility restrictions from being able to access shops, and well-visited locations due to the absence of accessibility adjustments or poorly constructed routes. This ethnographic study takes a phenomenological approach to emphasize the experiences and perspectives of those affected by mobility restrictions and those who feel peripheral in society in multiple areas, ranging from infrastructure to social stigma due to a society built upon systematic ableism. The thesis thus explores the body as a symbol and the experience of being (in)visible. The physical body's presence is acknowledged while the stigma of being disabled, and the social and environmental barriers one encounters when navigating public areas designed for normative bodies, remain invisible.Keywords: Embodiment, ableism, impairments, identity, agency.

<p>Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka huruvida de informanter som intervjuades till studien anser att den ekologiska medvetenheten är en trend eller en bestående aspekt i klädbranschen. Vidare undersöks hur informanternas ekologiska tänkande yttrar sig i arbetslivet och i privatlivet. Intervjuerna berörde deras tankar kring miljömedvetenhet, etiska aspekter vid ekologisk produktion. Likaså analyseras om informanterna kan kategoriseras som en nyligen introducerad kulturell typ, BoBos.</p><p>Den slutsats jag åstadkom var att informanterna besitter en ekologisk medvetenhet som yttrar sig i deras arbets- och privatliv. Deras åsikter och medvetenhet kan karakteriseras som boboitiska och anses vara tidsenliga för dagens samhälle.</p> / <p> </p><p>The purpose of this study is to examine whether the informants interviewed for the study believe that ecological awareness is a trend or a permanent aspect of the clothing industry and whether ecological thinking manifests itself in the work and private life of the informants.  The interviews investigated their views on environmental issues and the ethical aspects of organic production. Similarly, analysis of informants can be categorized as an analysis of a newly introduced cultural type, Bobo.</p><p>The conclusion I achieved was that the informants have an ecological awareness which manifests itself in their work and personal life. Their views and awareness can be characterized as boboitian and is considered to be timely for today's society.</p>