With the birth of “virtual worlds,” created a new space for social norms to evolve and change within a subset community. This thesis focuses on toxicity within the virtual world of EA DICE’s Battlefield V title. The goal of this research is to understand toxicity on a micro scale inside the world of Battlefield V from a gaming anthropological perspective. Along with understanding what toxicity looked like within the virtual world ofBattlefield V, the thesis obtained data for how the community and EA DICE employees perceived toxicity. This research has components of interviews with these members of the communities/staff as well as a netnography of the virtual world of Battlefield V gameplay. Findings and analysis were categorized under the themes of toxic language, power/freedom, virtual world creation, and gender toxicity. Battlefield V toxicity is ever evolving and shaped by player techne (player actions). Player chat consumes the majority of toxicity and therefore diving into toxic language was vital. Understanding the player perspective of power and freedom while gaming was just the first step as the thesis also dove into the developer’s perspective and analyzed the interviews with the backbone of Malaby’s (2009) contingency concepts to see how the developers have a large role to play when it comes to toxicity in games, even if they may not realize it. Just as in the “real world” the virtual world of Battlefield V also had a major theme of gender discrimination winessed and discussed via both community members and staff members of EA DICE. Overall, the goal of this research was not to find out if toxicity was “good” or “bad” but to simply shed more light on the complex topic within virtual worlds and open up research for other anthropologists to do further research on the topic.

This essay analyses the use of media as an instigator of tourism as it creates perceptions of Svalbard in the minds of prospective and former tourists. It explores what these created imaginations about Svalbard as a destination and experience mean for individuals who have been submitted by a curated image in media, made for the profit of the tourism industry. The essay uses accounts from three different informants who all belong to different categories; one has been there several times, another has been there once, and the third not at all. The analysis of their experiences and expected experiences is made through the theoretical framework posed by Noel B. Salazar theory of imaginaries and Arjun Appadurai’s mediascape, ethnoscape, and imaginative worlds and communities. This study means to show that the individual experience is necessarily impacted by their preemptive expectations, which is strongly, almost entirely, influenced by the image and idea of “otherness” which media has projected.

This thesis explores the legacy of the Herero-Nama genocide that occurred in 1904 to 1908 by examining the descendant’s narrative in contrast to the preeminent state narrative. I investigate both these narratives from the emic perspective of the Herero people in Namibia, who today are a minority group. By following the narrative, I discover the fundamental emplotments and multidimensionality in the genocide narrative imperative which are tribal democracy, nationhood and ancestral land. My informants imply that the genocide is a neglected and buried memory in contemporary Namibia, and I apply theoretical concepts such as Werbner’s immediate memory and anti-memory, but also Trouillot’s notion of silencing to understand in what way the state narrative is being amplified by the ruling government, subsequently silencing the genocide. At the same time, I also want to see how the genocide narrative is being maintained in a milieu of silencing forces. The genocide is still a sensitive topic among the descendants who feel that the dignity of their ancestors has been tarnished throughout the 20th century. In Herero religion ancestor spirits hold an utterly pivotal role as mediators between the living and god.

Tourism has various effects on society. Not only economic but also immaterial effects on destinations as well as on tourists themselves. Especially regarding tourism between the Global North and South, it is arguable if tourism is a social force influencing societies in a positive way or if it rather reinforces stereotypes and colonial structures. Postcolonial approaches help to narrow down this topic and to complement classical tourism studies. This paper focuses on the situation of German tourists in a former German colony: Namibia. It examines how the tourists perceive themselves within the system of tourism in a postcolonial context, how they perceive the Other and colonial heritage during their trips. Interviews were conducted with eight German tourists who had travelled to Namibia during the last years on their experiences and thoughts to complement existing studies and broaden the picture. The interviews show that stereotypes and notions of white superiority still exist within tourism whilst the sensitivity for history, colonial times and postcolonial structures is rather weak amongst German tourists. At the same time, the tourists wish for more equality and encounters at eye level. It is reinforced that tourism scholarship as well as the tourism industry itself should have postcolonial issues in mind, as well as the non-economic effects of tourism which are in dire need to be considered stronger. The tourists showed that they are ready for a closer engagement with history if colonial heritage is presented and interpreted more intensively. If this interpretation is elaborated in communicative processes respecting all stakeholders, especially the local populations, tourism can not only impact economic development, it can also be a strong social force which ultimately would create a better understanding and experience for both stakeholders, the tourists, and locals respectively.

This thesis is a netnographic study of Save Bugoma Forest Campaign and digitally enhanced environmental activism in Uganda. Save Bugoma Forest Campaign is a crusade run by a loose coalition of Ugandan environmentalists who oppose a planned sugarcane plantation project in Bugoma Central Forest Reserve, western Uganda. By examining who the activists envisage as their audiences, what online platforms they use and how, what messages they intend to send, and how the forest is represented in online narratives, I attempt to find out how Ugandan environmental activists use digital technologies as part of their campaigning strategies, and what the digital narratives created in these practices can reveal about their relation to nature. The study is built as a netnography, a research method developed by Robert E. Kozinets, which combines online participant observations, online interactions, and semi-structured online interviews. I highlight how digital platforms, social media in particular, should be understood as a tool for campaign activities or as an infrastructure within which the struggle takes place. I also show how nature receives multiple and dynamic meanings in digital narratives which are affected by the audience of choice. The findings indicate that, in addition to better understanding movements’ online practises, netnographic research methods can also give valuable insights into understanding culturally and socially bound phenomena and lend to a deep and rich reporting of the results.

This paper examines the relationship between the sensory experience of food and cooking, how these sensory phenomena interact with questions of authenticity and memory and how this affects the process through which migrants rebuild a sense of home in theirhost nations. The data for this study has been collected through a version of short-term ethnography, where the researcher also participated in cooking sessions, which were video-recorded, in conjunction with the interviews. The findings of this study are that the sensory qualities of food are important markers of the authenticity of the food, and that this sensory authenticity has a strong ability to invoke both memories and feelings of connectedness. The conclusion drawn is that food and cooking undergotransmutational change when affected by migration, turning them from important but everyday phenomena into a series of ritual actions. The effect of these rituals is to temporarily suspend the liminal state inherent to migration and they are thus very important to the ability of migrants to be able to recreate a stable sense of home in a new place.

This thesis examines the conditions for professional and aspiring professional male theatre dancers across two separate field sites in Stockholm, Sweden. By analysing these conditions I aim to discuss how hegemonic masculine social norms inform and affect the lives of these male dancers and the consequences of those norms for the wider male population. Through interview, unobtrusive observation and dance participation I will scrutinise the male experience of dance work and training in order to understand the lives of professional male dancers and their perception of themselves and their work, as part of a very small minority of men in Swedish society. Through a comparative analysis of dance and sport, I suggest that the stark gender imbalance in dance work and training is indicative of a larger pattern of hegemonic masculine social norms that stymie male social development and undermine wider societal efforts towards gender equality.

This thesis explores the lives of Maasai women today in general, and in particular as seen through the lens of one woman, and her social network in Kajiado County, southern Kenya. By using a storytelling approach, I let the women’s own vivid stories, thoughts and priorities stay in focus. While the women’s stories reveal personal details in their lives, I argue that their stories also broaden the perspective of what it is to be a Maasai woman today. Inspired by a framework of multispecies relations, especially the concept of relatedness, I look at the relationships – to both humans and non-humans – which shapes the women's lives, possibilities, decisions, and concerns. As I explore the women's more-than-human worlds, the agency of cows, goats, sheep, and even flies are acknowledged. In combination with inspiration from the framework of feminist political ecology – especially the concepts of resource access and displacement – I bridge understandings about how multispecies relations affect the women, with reflections on education and working situations, and matters of land. With this thesis, I wish to contribute to and broaden the literature and often stereotyped image of what it is to be a Maasai, especially a Maasai woman.

The concern that democracy in the largest country in Latin America could drive toward fascism has surfaced as a point of departure for the creation of forms of resistance among Brazilians in the diaspora. This thesis addresses this development by bringing to light the narratives of FIBRA, a transnational social movement created in 2016 to denounce the coup in Brazil. By combining militant, translocal and online ethnography, this thesis explores how FIBRA has constructed its narratives surrounding the erosion of democracy in Brazil. It looks at the experience of Brazilian migrants involved in campaigning against the impeachment of former president Dilma Rousseff, the imprisonment of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the assassination of the activist Marielle Franco, and the victory of Jair Bolsonaro in the 2018 presidential election. Anthropological theories on social movement, democracy and narrative are revisited in order to investigate FIBRA’s role in shaping ideas and expectations towards democracy. This thesis also explores ways to bring the artistic practices in the field into the anthropological text. I use elements of Bertolt Brecht’s Epic Theater, Greek Tragedy and Carnival in my writing and employ these artistic languages as conceptual tools to develop a notion of democracy as a tragic carnivalesque hero. In the spirit of the Brazilian carnivalesque, this thesis celebrates the subversive dimension of the relation between the “playful”, the “political”, and the “academic”.

In the globalized world, border regimes are ambiguous, withdrawn or reinforced based on who approaches them, where and how. Borders are equally the boundaries that permeate spaces of nation-states and cut across them through racialized, gendered, and classed divisions. Following the so called "migration crisis" in Europe of 2015, there has been a wave of research documenting how practices of bordering and othering dehumanize asylum seekers, violating their rights. In this thesis, I proceed from similar observations to see how such practices, together with experiences resulting from them, affect the possibilities of agency and imagination of a common space on behalf of people with migratory background. Employing the idea of hybridity, I maintain that while the responsibility for atrocities related to migration and bordering should always remain on violators, whether official institutions or individuals, their persistence should not be seen as foreclosing agency, imagination, or practices of building a future common space on behalf of people with migratory background. The hybrid position that these people occupy does not necessarily only sustain their disempowerment, but it also equips them with unique possibilities for agency. Neither seems there to be any predefined path from exposure to harsh violations of one's rights to disempowerment. The possibilities for common and welcoming places to which everyone has a right appear through an engaged and equal attention to migrants' own agency, imagination, and capabilities, rather than through an exclusive attention to their vulnerability or a neoliberal celebration of multiculturalism.