This dissertation presents an investigation into two so-called live art works – Ugly girl at the rugby (1998) and Chandelier (2001-2002) – by the contemporary South African artist Steven Cohen (1962-). These works are explored with reference to the manner in which Cohen (as self-declared queer Jewish freak) uses performance art as a form of activism in order to expose practices of marginalisation and suppression (oppression) of non-normative or so-called deviant subject positions in terms of gender, race and ethnicity. The analysis of artworks is guided by the discourse of the carnavalesque and performative conceptualisations of gender with particular emphasis on Cohen’s use of drag as contemporary form of masquerade in order to propose an alternative subject position. The argument is as follows: that Cohen, by setting up an extreme alternative to normative identity constructs, manages to destabilise existing hierarchies that are structured according to binaries as these exist in spaces (such as a rugby stadium and a squatter camp) in the South African context. This destabilising of binary hierarchies gives rise to the argument that the symbolically encoded nature of spaces known for associations of suppression, exclusion and marginalisation are wrought open so that alternative meanings can come into being by activating these spaces as multifaceted and chronotopic constructs. The conclusion is that Cohen contributes profoundly towards the destabilisation of identities and in this way also helps to propose invigorating and fresh views of gender, race and ethnicity in a contemporary South African situation. / Thesis (MA (History of Art))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2013.

This study examines the response of Generation Z females in Sweden to fast fashion web advertisements incorporating six linguistic persuasion strategies. The aim is to identify which of these strategies can be effectively employed in this context to persuade the targeted demographic. An online survey consisting of twelve fast fashion web advertisements was distributed over the social media platforms Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. The respondents' objective was to choose a preferred advertisement from two options, one featuring a linguistic strategy of persuasion and another where the linguistic strategy had been changed or removed, while the respondents had to consider questions related to the linguistic strategies’ persuasive aims. The result from 44 target respondents revealed that the strategies of reader pronouns, directives, and the subject position effectively reached their persuasive aims, while the results for boosters, rhetorical questions, and engagement markers were inconclusive. Still, open-ended non-mandatory answers indicated that the three strategies that got inconclusive results also received negative reactions from the demographic and therefore likely failed at their persuasive aims.

Syftet med denna studie är att identifiera sociala konstruktioner av 1-3 åringars ålder och kompetens, genom att analysera hur pedagoger porträtterar de yngsta barnen. Detta görs genom diskurspsykologisk analys av pedagogers uttalanden i samtal om omsorg och undervisning, utifrån studiens tre frågeställningar; Hur talar förskollärare och barnskötare om 1-3 åringars kompetens? Vad framställs som sanningar om 1-3 åringars kompetens? Vilja subjektspositioner tillskrivs 1-3 åringar? Diskurspsykologi har agerat som både epistemologisk och metodologisk utgångspunkt i denna studie. I resultatet framträdde totalt fem tolkningsrepertoarer. Tre av dessa framträdde genom samtal om barns kompetens i omsorg; fysisk omsorg, praktisk omsorg och intellektuell omsorg. De andra två trädde fram i samtal om barns kompetens i undervisning; pedagogers självmedvetenhet och erfarenhet som förutsättning. Vi kunde sedan sammanställa fyra av dessa till en, vad vi kallar, bristdiskurs. Vi diskuterar sedan kring hur dessa tolkningsrepertoarer försätter barnen i olika subjektspositioner och vad barnen därigenom ges för handlingsutrymme.

A implementação da Nomenclatura Gramatical Brasileira (NGB) em 1959 e a assunção da Linguística no Brasil na década de 60 são acontecimentos que provocaram profundas mudanças no fazer gramatical. A NGB, enquanto acontecimento discursivo, ao evidenciar determinados termos e silenciar outros, reestrutura a memória do discurso gramatical brasileiro, regulando a relação do sujeito com o dizível e instaurando uma nova formação discursiva dominante, a qual se sobrepôs às formações discursivas anteriores. No presente trabalho, partimos do pressuposto de que, apesar do efeito da censura imposta pela terminologia oficial, o discurso gramatical produzido após a sua instituição é constitutivamente da ordem do heterogêneo. Assim sendo, com base no aporte teórico da Análise de Discurso de Pêcheux e Orlandi e nos estudos do projeto História das Ideias Linguísticas, investigamos o funcionamento do discurso legitimado pela NGB nas gramáticas cuja publicação a sucederam, mais especificamente em sete gramáticas publicadas entre 1959 e 1969. Interessa-nos, portanto, com vistas a depreender a forma como se materializa a tensão entre os sentidos oficiais e os sentidos censurados, desnaturalizar o processo de (re)significação dos termos acolhidos pela NGB, depreendendo, assim, como os sentidos silenciados se fizeram significar na materialidade linguística das gramáticas / The Implementation of Brazilian Grammatical Nomenclature (NGB) in 1959 and the assumption of science Linguistics in Brazil in the 60 are events that caused profound changes to the grammar. The NGB as a discursive event, highlighting certain terms and silencing others, restructured the memory of Brazilian speech grammar, regulating the relationship between subject and utterable and establishing a new dominant discursive formation, which overlapped the previous discursive formations. In this paper, we assume that, despite the effect of the censure imposed by the official terminology, the grammatical discourse produced after its establishment is constitutively of the order of the heterogeneous. Therefore, based on the Theoretical Analysis of Discourse of Pêcheux Orlandi and on studies about project História das Ideias Linguísticas (Linguistic History of Ideas), we investigated the functioning of discourse legitimized by NGB in grammars which followed publication, specifically in seven grammars published between 1959 and 1969. Then we are interested in, in order to show the embodiment of the tension between the senses and the senses official censored, deconstruct the process of (re) signification of the terms accepted by the NGB, deducing, how the silenced senses got a meaning by themselves in the linguistic materiality of the grammars

När den svenska klimatdebatten intensifierades under 2000-talets första decennium tilldelades allmänheten en särskild roll. I den mediala och politiska debatten verkade lösningen på miljöproblemen intimt förknippad med individers livsstilar. I den här avhandlingen betraktas det synsättet som del av en pågående individualisering av miljöansvar. Med en poststrukturalistisk feministisk utgångspunkt hanteras det individualiserade miljöansvaret som en specifik diskurs. Diskursen beskriver individer som de centrala aktörerna som ska motverka miljöproblemen. Hur individer förhåller sig till rimligheten i en sådan ansvarsfördelning eller förstår innebörden av ett sådant ansvar är emellertid oklart. Syftet med avhandlingen är att utforska hur individer begripliggör och förhandlar diskursen om individuellt miljöansvar i gruppsamtal. För att förstå hur individer kan positionera sig i relation till diskursen analyseras tolv fokusgruppsamtal med personer som befinner sig i olika livssituationer och har olika erfarenheter av miljöfrågor och resande. Samtalsdeltagarnas förhandlingar av diskursens innebörd och relevans analyseras. Avhandlingen undersöker vilka andra diskurser som stödjer, konkurrerar med eller utgör motdiskurser till den individualiserade miljödiskursen. Därmed framgår hur individer kan införliva eller göra motstånd mot miljödiskursens verklighetsbeskrivning. I avhandlingen undersöks även vilka subjektspositioner som görs problematiska respektive oproblematiska i relation till ett individualiserat miljöansvar. Det bidrar med insikt om hur diskurser knutna till genus och klass kan positionera individer som i olika grad eller på olika sätt ansvariga för sin miljöpåverkan. Analysen visar hur individuellt miljöansvar förknippas med resursstarka och oberoende individer, individer som kan tänka sig att agera utan stöd från vare sig omgivningen eller stödjande samhällsstrukturer. Samtalsdeltagare i studien beskriver det individualiserade miljöansvaret som alltifrån moraliskt viktigt och positivt till orimligt och orealistiskt. Konkurrens mellan individer följer i diskursens spår. Både personer som tar på sig stort ansvar och de som inte förmår eller vill leva upp till idealet om att förändra sin livsstil pekas ut som problematiska. Samtidigt hamnar andra potentiella ansvarstagare och politiska arenor ofta i skymundan. Därtill riktar vissa samtalsdeltagare misstro mot samhällets förmåga att överhuvudtaget hantera miljöproblem, vilket tolkas som en aspekt av det individualiserade miljöansvarets dominans. / Over the last decade, the behaviors and lifestyles of the Swedish public have been depicted as having important environmental effects by both politicians and the media in Sweden. In this thesis, this is regarded as part of an ongoing tendency to individualize environmental responsibilities. Using a feminist poststructuralist point of departure, this individualized environmental responsibility is understood as a particular discourse that frames individuals as essential actors in handling environmental problems. How individuals position themselves in relation to the reasonableness and meaning of these responsibilities, however, is still an open question. The aim is to explore how individuals make scnse of and negotiate the discourse of individual environmental responsibility in group discussions. Twelve focus group conversations involving people in various life situations and with various expericnces of environmental issues and travelling are analyzed. The analysis investigates how the focus group participants position themselves in relation to the discoursc and, thus, negotiate its meaning and relevance. The analysis seeks to understand what other discourses support, compete with, or challenge the discourse of individual environmental responsibility in order to illuminate how individuals can incorporate or resist this particular discursive description of the world. The thesis also investigates what subject positions are made troubled or untroubled by the focus group participants, which reveals how gender and dass discourses position individuals as in various ways or to various degrees responsible for their individual impact on the environment. The analysis suggests that the discourse of individual environmental responsibility privileges independent, self-governing individuals, that is, people who assume responsibility without demanding either societal or social support. Some focus group participants depict individual environmental responsibility as morally significant and beneficial, while others depict it as unrealistic and unacceptable. The discourse seems to engender competition between individuals. Both people acting as highly environmentally responsible and people acting as unable or unwilling to take environmental responsibility are framed as troubled individuals in the conversations. Concurrently, other potential environmentally responsible actors and political scenes are often neglected. The discourse of individual environmental responsibility dominates; for some focus group participants, this discourse leads toa lack of faith in societal ability to handle environmental problems.

This thesis seeks, from foucautianos studies and operating with notions of subject, speech and subjectivity and technologies of the self, undertake an analysis of the processes of Special Education teacher training of Special Education Course at the Federal University of Santa Maria. Analyze this course and what it produces have the sense to perceive it as a unique space training for over 30 years in the country. In this sense, the research project was given to examine how knowledge and strategies operating in the ordination of training and identify how training has been ordered and across subjects taking effect of subjective processes in a way of being a teacher of Special Education. The materials used to undertake the analysis of the projects were put into operation Course that training and fragments of narratives of academic course, taken from reports of Supervised Internship among the years 1990 to 2010. From this analysis, it was possible to understand the Special Education as knowledge field that in the conditions of possibilities of modernity brings out the subject as an object of knowledge in order that enables operating procedures to meet the purpose of knowing about it. From the construction of another way of thinking about the subject, it was possible to understand the professionalization as creating a position in which the subject engages in constituting itself within a discursive network that is a profession. For both, it is triggered at selected training and knowledge that constitute legitimate a regime of truth for the production of ways of being subject of disability and being a teacher of Special Education. Still, it was possible to understand that this formation emerges with the possibility of institutionalization of Special Education on the basis of political principles that evoke the Education for all and compulsory education. The strategies driven by Course in UFSM were identified as academic - linked to knowledge and ways of knowing; pedagogical - linked to the need to develop ways in which the professional activity, and strategies of subjectification - relating to how each produces the experience itself as a subject of desire and moral subject to exercise the position of professor of Special Education. / Esta Tese busca, a partir dos estudos foucautianos e operando com noções de sujeito, discurso e subjetivação, empreender uma análise sobre os processos de formação de professores de Educação Especial do Curso de Educação Especial da Universidade Federal de Santa Maria. Analisar esse curso e aquilo que ele produz têm o sentido de percebê-lo como espaço inédito de formação há mais de 30 anos no país. Nesse sentido, o empreendimento de pesquisa deu-se em analisar como saberes e estratégias operam na ordenação da formação e identificar como a formação vem se ordenando e atravessando os sujeitos tendo como efeito processos de subjetivação de um modo de ser professor de Educação Especial. Os materiais utilizados para empreender a análise foram os projetos de Curso que colocam em funcionamento a formação e fragmentos de narrativas dos acadêmicos do curso, retirados dos Relatórios de Estágio Supervisionados entre os anos de 1990 a 2010. Da análise empreendida, foi possível compreender a Educação Especial como campo de saber que nas condições de possibilidades da modernidade faz emergir o sujeito como objeto de conhecimento em que a ordem de procedimentos para conhecer possibilita operar efeitos sobre ele. A partir da construção de outro modo de pensar o sujeito, foi possível entender a profissionalização como constituição de uma posição em que sujeito se ocupa em constituir a si mesmo dentro de uma rede discursiva que é uma profissão. Para tanto, são acionados na formação saberes selecionados e legitimados que constituem um regime de verdade para a produção de modos de ser sujeito da deficiência e de ser professor de Educação Especial. Ainda, foi possível compreender que esta formação emerge com a possibilidade da institucionalização da Educação Especial em função dos princípios políticos que evocam a Educação de todos e a obrigatoriedade de ensino. As estratégias acionadas pelo Curso na UFSM foram identificadas como acadêmicas ligadas aos saberes e aos modos de conhecer; pedagógicas ligadas aos modos como precisam desenvolver a atividade profissional; e, estratégias de subjetivação ligadas ao modo como cada um produz a experiência de si como sujeito de desejo e sujeito moral para exercer a posição de professor de Educação Especial.

A implementação da Nomenclatura Gramatical Brasileira (NGB) em 1959 e a assunção da Linguística no Brasil na década de 60 são acontecimentos que provocaram profundas mudanças no fazer gramatical. A NGB, enquanto acontecimento discursivo, ao evidenciar determinados termos e silenciar outros, reestrutura a memória do discurso gramatical brasileiro, regulando a relação do sujeito com o dizível e instaurando uma nova formação discursiva dominante, a qual se sobrepôs às formações discursivas anteriores. No presente trabalho, partimos do pressuposto de que, apesar do efeito da censura imposta pela terminologia oficial, o discurso gramatical produzido após a sua instituição é constitutivamente da ordem do heterogêneo. Assim sendo, com base no aporte teórico da Análise de Discurso de Pêcheux e Orlandi e nos estudos do projeto História das Ideias Linguísticas, investigamos o funcionamento do discurso legitimado pela NGB nas gramáticas cuja publicação a sucederam, mais especificamente em sete gramáticas publicadas entre 1959 e 1969. Interessa-nos, portanto, com vistas a depreender a forma como se materializa a tensão entre os sentidos oficiais e os sentidos censurados, desnaturalizar o processo de (re)significação dos termos acolhidos pela NGB, depreendendo, assim, como os sentidos silenciados se fizeram significar na materialidade linguística das gramáticas / The Implementation of Brazilian Grammatical Nomenclature (NGB) in 1959 and the assumption of science Linguistics in Brazil in the 60 are events that caused profound changes to the grammar. The NGB as a discursive event, highlighting certain terms and silencing others, restructured the memory of Brazilian speech grammar, regulating the relationship between subject and utterable and establishing a new dominant discursive formation, which overlapped the previous discursive formations. In this paper, we assume that, despite the effect of the censure imposed by the official terminology, the grammatical discourse produced after its establishment is constitutively of the order of the heterogeneous. Therefore, based on the Theoretical Analysis of Discourse of Pêcheux Orlandi and on studies about project História das Ideias Linguísticas (Linguistic History of Ideas), we investigated the functioning of discourse legitimized by NGB in grammars which followed publication, specifically in seven grammars published between 1959 and 1969. Then we are interested in, in order to show the embodiment of the tension between the senses and the senses official censored, deconstruct the process of (re) signification of the terms accepted by the NGB, deducing, how the silenced senses got a meaning by themselves in the linguistic materiality of the grammars

The aim of this thesis is to examine the fear of crime in old peoples lives. Notwithstanding that the age category is exposed to crime to a low degree, old people are experiencing a great fear of crime relative younger people. This is the paradox of fear, also recognized in gender studies. The question is how this paradox can be understood. To answer this, twelve elderly men and women have been interviewed and the reports about crime in the local newspaper, Norrköpings Tidningar, has been analyzed, through discourse analysis. The discursive construction of fear is here discussed in terms of discourses of a fearful society, and stereotypes of old age. The hegemonic discourse of old age is collaborating with a discourse, in this paper called the discourse of a threatening society. Old peoples fear is produced, through the interplay of these discourses, because they are objectified and seen as victims alongside with a construction of an ever-present threat.

Borderlands. Swedish youth care in the intersections of care and punishment This dissertation concerns staff working in special residential homes, or secure units, for boys and young men and, less specifically, the compulsory care of problematic teenagers. The study is based on interviews with staff members and participatory observations of daily practices at a compulsorycare institution. The empirical material is complemented by observations of learning situations and interviews with students and teachers in education of social pedagogy. The aim of the thesis is to map out and to analyse understandings of, and motivations for, compulsory care that is produced and sustained through articulations of residing teenagers, treatment practices and institutional staff in the daily work, and in staff narratives, at a secure unit for compulsory care. Three aspects of compulsory care are analysed: constructions of teenagers, of treatment practices and of subject positions or identity of staff. Concepts and ideas from a post-structural framework are used as theoretical tools to conduct analysis of the interviews and observations. Discourse, as well as a three-fold concept of logics, is central for the analysis. As a theoretical complement to the main analytical framework, perspectives from symbolic interactionism are used. The results of the thesis show that tensions and ambivalence characterise compulsory care for adolescents. Aspects of care as well as of punishment, for example, are both evident parts of the institutional work and narratives studied. The teenagers are alternately being constructed as children in need and as manipulative criminals: articulations that are made part of either a logic of care or a logic of punishment. Other tensions that are analysed as significant parts of institutional practices and subject positions are those of the biological and the social, theory and practice, and power and powerlessness. Age, gender and class are all significant parts in constructing subject positions for both teenagers and staff and in creating a division between the two groups. Such categorisations are articulated together in various ways in the different logics identified. These subject positions also have consequences for institutional interactions and for the institutional care provided in secure units.

This thesis investigates the construction of role models, more specifically literary didactics and constructions of subject positions, in literary works with exemplary stories in Swedish 1400–1750, from the perspective of literature for children and young adults. Childhood concepts, didactic concepts and subject positions presented to the reader are analyzed from the point of view of dominance and dissonance between different characters and messages. A number of themes have been chosen for a comparative study, for example: ideas about identification, the construction of subject positions and ideals for girls, the responsibility of adults, subversive tendencies, obedience or autonomy, the immoral role model as exemplary, conflicts between different childhood concepts, adults and children as role models. A central conclusion is that there is variation when it comes to the subject positions that are constructed for children and young adults, mainly through role models. There are examples of authoritative teachings that demands the subordination and obedience of the reader/recipient, as well as encouragement of questioning and even contra conventional subject positions. One conclusion is that premodern literature for the young does not just have an authoritative tone towards the reader, but the texts also negotiates with the reader. The messages are not just about obedience and religious fidelity, but also about learning, questioning and personal, moral responsibility. A critical perspective on adults is encouraged through critizism of adults and exemplary role models. Subject positions for girls also vary in the texts. Some texts convey conventional, passive gender roles while others present active subject positions, where chastity, wisdom and manliness are presented as ideal virtues for girls.