This thesis examines how the gendering of ethnicity in the Swedish Reindeer Grazing Act of 1928 (RBL 1928) was part of a colonial structure of violence. The research context in which this thesis places itself is in the intersection of previous scholarship on the colonial interest in controlling Indigenous marriage, and scholarship on Swedish colonial history in Sápmi. The theoretical framework for the thesis is made up by an understanding of violence, settler colonial extinction in fact, intersectionality, and control over women’s reproduction as intertwined phenomenon.  The study consists of an analysis of the law in question using a feminist policy analysis and the method ‘What’s the problem represented to be’; as well as a source critical reading of archival materials such as magazine clippings, protocols, legal decisions, letters, questionnaires, and transcribed interviews with Sámi interviewees.  RLB 1928 gendered ethnicity so that Sámi women who married non-Sámi men lost their reindeer herding rights, and with that their Sáminess. This is a form of epistemic violence, changing the way Sámi women can relate to their Sáminess. The effects the provision in RBL 1928 controlling marriage had on Sámi women were both economic and social. The economic violence that Sámi women were exposed to consisted of access to land as well as material property being taken from them. When women lost their juridical Sáminess, they risked being isolated from their communities and culture, making out a form of violence here framed as violence of exclusion. The gendering of ethnicity also affected the Sámi society as a whole, as it posed a threat of extinction in fact of the Sámi population.

Det ingår i skolans uppgift att främja demokrati och mångfald och läromedlen spelar en viktig roll i detta arbete. Samtidigt visar forskning på att styrdokumenten för moderna språk har en tendens att hålla fast vid en konservativ kulturuppfattning som inte har anpassats tillräckligt till det globaliserade samhället. Hur påverkar detta kulturinnehållet i läromedlen? Vilken bild av de spanskspråkiga ländernas människor och kulturer kan eleverna tänkas få med sig efter att ha studerat spanska på gymnasienivå? Finns målspråksländernas kulturella mångfald representerad i läroböckerna i enlighet med ett demokratiskt förhållningssätt? Detta är några av de frågor jag söker svaren på i denna undersökning. / The aim of this essay is to explore the way Spanish-speaking cultures and peoples are presented in Upper Secondary language textbooks of Spanish. The study is carried out in the context of globalization and its effects on culture, identity and language teaching. Postcolonial theory and a constructivist perspective on culture provide the framework for the textual analysis which is divided into two main parts. The first part is a statistical overview of the geographical areas/countries of the Spanish-speaking world that are presented in the textbooks. The second part seeks to establish who, i.e. what type of individual, is representing the Spanish-speaking peoples in the texts. The concluding discussion revolves around whether the textbooks reflect a progressive multicultural approach, or if the colonial heritage of ethnocentrism still lingers in the view of culture conveyed.

The aim of this study is to examine if English textbooks offer a cultural perspective of the English-speaking world in accordance with Swedish ordinances and recent research. The research question is: How is the English-speaking world culturally represented in English textbooks for Swedish upper secondary school course A in terms of ethnicity and national identity? The study comprises four textbooks from 2000 or later. The analysis is carried out within the framework of post-colonial theory. Four aspects are focused on: the ideological point of view, the representation of ethnicity, the representation of national identity and how these issues correspond to the ordinances. The results display that the books contain almost no biased stereotypes and that they fulfil several, if not always all, of the requirements of the English syllabus. All books include texts that provide balanced information about the ways of living, the cultural traditions and the historical conditions of a few selected countries. There are also exercises and activities that encourage intercultural understanding. However, the focus is mainly on the West and the view of culture is remarkably often based on national and monolithic assumptions. In particular, the positive values of cultural and ethnic diversity are still not fully acknowledged. In order to develop international solidarity and greater understanding and tolerance of other people, a higher degree of post-colonial and diasporic writing is needed. Above all, cultural issues have to be allowed to imbue the entire material.

This thesis critically examines the intersections between whiteness and terror/horror in texts produced during the long eighteenth century. I reframe the Gothic as a migratory Transatlantic, colonial mode that problematizes eighteenth-century distinctions between terror as a form of the intellectual sublime and horror as a bodily reaction that generates shock and aversion. Drawing upon contemporary Black Feminism(s), I analyze Enlightenment theories of mind and objective reason and consider whiteness as a spectral and material presence throughout long eighteenth-century writing, with which the Gothic mode grapples directly. Highlighting how the Gothic operates in Transatlantic spaces that rehearse the legacies of violence enacted against Black and racialized peoples, my project contends that classifications such as terror-Gothic (i.e., psychological horror) and horror-Gothic (i.e., bodily horror) are arbitrary and reductive; instead, the Gothic responds to colonialism by imagining that the experience of embodied knowledge is a conflation of both. Centered primarily as a study of literary methodology, this thesis presents readings of three works of literature that operate within and against the backdrop of Anglo-American Enlightenment myths of white supremacy: Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), Charles Brockden Brown’s Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1798), and Matthew Lewis’s Journal of a West India Proprietor: Kept During a Residence in the Island of Jamaica (1834). This thesis puts questions to each text, regarding the reproduction, mobilization, and subversion of whiteness in their portrayal of terror/horror; the use of mobility to illustrate preoccupations with displacement, socio-political, and cultural conditions; the depiction of Black life, agency, and subjectivity despite oppression. By unraveling complexities of whiteness and terror/horror, noting the Gothic modality’s haunting/haunted relationship to colonial discourses of power, this study emphasizes the enduring relevance of these themes in understanding contemporary racial imaginaries. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This project examines the entangled relationship between whiteness and terror/horror in literature from the long eighteenth century. Drawing from contemporary Black Feminist theories to analyze Transatlantic works that make use of the Gothic mode, this study reframes historical concepts of terror and horror as separate affective categories, reimagining the foundational elements of Gothicism, to underscore the inseparable nature of psychological and physical manifestations of colonial oppression. Focusing on race and racialization, I illustrate how specific conceptions of whiteness generated, bolstered, and deployed terror/horror to shape the experiences of Black humans inhabiting Transatlantic locations in the period and beyond. I think with(in) Black Feminism(s) to delve into the impact of Enlightenment philosophy on Gothic narratives that grapple with slavery, colonialism, and imperialism. By retheorizing the Gothic as a migratory mode, I emphasize its capabilities to address the haunting legacies of whiteness and its violent manifestations across time and space.

The purpose of this essay is to analyze the intersectionality between themes of cultural clash and gender roles within the novels Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe, accentuating their common quest for equality. This essay offers a historical and cultural analysis, divulging the gender norms prevalent in Victorian England and pre-colonial Nigeria, serving as a backstage to the characters’ adaptations and struggles. The essay analyses the characters, giving an insight how they either conform or resist to the societal limitations of their respective eras. In addition, it examines the transformative effect of British colonialism on Igbo society, looking over the resulting struggles in gender dynamics and cultural conflicts. Spirituality and religion become evident as important aspects in shaping gender roles, juxtaposing Igbo traditions against the influence and spread of Christianity. The protagonists’ quest for independence and self-respect is documented in both novels, marked by their steadfast commitment to personal principles despite societal expectations. The essay draws similarities between Jane Eyre's pursuit of equality and the evolving gender roles in Igbo society, ultimately attesting to the enduring significance of these literary explorations in the context of contemporary conversations on the never-ending quest for equity, shifting gender norms, and cultural clashes. / Syftet med denna uppsats är att analysera intersektionaliteten mellan teman om kulturkrock och könsroller i romanerna Jane Eyre av Charlotte Brontë och Things Fall Apart av Chinua Achebe, och accentuera deras gemensam strävan efter jämställdhet. Den här uppsatsen erbjuder en historisk och kulturell analys som avslöjar de könsnormer som är vanliga i det viktorianska England och det förkoloniala Nigeria, och fungerar som en backstage till karaktärernas anpassningar och kamp. Uppsatsen analyserar karaktärerna och ger en insikt om hur de antingen anpassar sig till eller motsätter sig de samhälleliga begränsningarna i sina respektive epoker. Dessutom undersöker den omvälvande effekten av brittisk kolonialism på Igbo-samhället, och ser över den resulterande kampen i genusdynamik och kulturella konflikter. Andlighet och religion blir uppenbara som viktiga aspekter i att forma könsroller, och ställer Igbo-traditioner mot kristendomens inflytande och spridning. Huvudpersonernas strävan efter självständighet och självrespekt finns dokumenterad i båda romanerna, präglade av deras orubbliga engagemang för personliga principer trots samhälleliga förväntningar. Uppsatsen drar likheter mellan Jane Eyres strävan efter jämställdhet och de utvecklande könsrollerna i Igbo-samhället, vilket i slutändan vittnar om den bestående betydelsen av dessa litterära utforskningar i sammanhanget av samtida samtal om den oändliga strävan efter jämlikhet, skiftande könsnormer och kulturella sammandrabbningar.

U.S. Puerto Rico relations have always been mystifying to countless U.S. citizens, due to inconsistent policies and judicial decisions from the United States. Puerto Ricans have no control over immigration, yet they can decide the future of the island nation. Puerto Rico is a nation under colonial rule. Paul R. Bras sistains the possibility of corporate recognition for the ethnic group as a separate nationality within an existing state evocative of the United States. The United States has treated Puerto Rico as foreign country nevertheless at times as domestic. Under U.S. law and jurisprudence Puerto Rico is not part of the United States but rather the island is a possession. The elctoral difference between the two major political parties is less than three percent. Non-native voters in the island can have the clout to decide the ultimate political status of the island. A key concern to the problem is who are considered non-native voters in Puerto Rico. Non-native voters are those who have not been born in the Puerto Rico nor have one of their parents born in the island. The exclusion is legally and politically achievable. There are many countries (Ex. East Timor) in the world, former colonies (Ex. Namibia), and previous U.S. territories (Ex. Hawaii) that serve as examples of exclusion. Voting rights in plebiscites are determined by law. U.N. General Assembly Resolution 1514, states that all powers have to be in the hands of the people of Puerto Rico. International law and policies sustain that the future political status of colonies is to be determined by the nation. Puerto Rico lacks representation in the U.S. Government. When this happens the unrepresented become a separate nation. William Appelman Williams stated thet "the principle of self determination when taken seriously ...means a ploicy of standing aside for people to make their own choices, economic as well as political and cultural." Under international las and policies of self-determination Puerto Rico can exclude non-native voters. Judicial precedents make this point very comprehensible.

This dissertation examines the environmental changes that attended the founding of the colony of Pennsylvania and its capital city of Philadelphia in the latter part of the seventeenth century. Through engagement with the analytical methods of environmental history, ethnohistory, and ecocriticism, this dissertation demonstrates that environmental change was a vitally important factor in a series of conflicts among the various peoples of early Pennsylvania, and explores the ways that people changed their own social arrangements by changing their environment. The central conflict, the contest around which the others revolved, concerned the founding of Philadelphia. The idealistic aspirations of colonial proprietor William Penn, who envisioned (in various forms) an expansive and planned settlement designed to promote good social order, clashed with the motives of Pennsylvania’s colonists, who wanted a port city that would most efficiently facilitate the export of the colony’s agricultural production. The outcome of the conflict over the nature of Philadelphia was decisive: the colonial city was indeed, in form and function, primarily a node that served as the vibrant interface between Pennsylvania’s fertile agricultural landscape and the larger Atlantic economy. The conflict over the nature of the city also shaped the nature of the larger colony. Pennsylvania was primarily a project of environmental transformation, as colonists eagerly implemented an English-style agricultural system rooted in private property ownership and production for the Atlantic economy. This process of environmental transformation was especially consequential for the nature of relationships among the people of the colony. The new ecological regime of Pennsylvania served as a mechanism of integration that bound together diverse inhabitants of the colony (including the English colonists who made up the majority of Pennsylvania’s settlers, non-English newcomers, and the Euro-American peoples who already occupied the land before Pennsylvania was founded) into a shared system of land use, property ownership, and market economics. At the same time, in a simultaneous process, the new agricultural system alienated the Lenape people from Pennsylvania, as the dominant land-use practices of the colony threatened to intrude on Native American independence, cultural integrity, and self-determination. Environmental change therefore contributed significantly to developing concepts of identity in early Pennsylvania that saw the increasing differentiation of Native Americans and European colonists into separate categories of people, with increasingly incompatible ecological modes and systems of land use. / History

In the Cayman Islands, one is raised to be the managers of someone else’s financial empire; the empire of the United Kingdom to be precise. Historically, whenever there are whispers about political independence among the population, they are abruptly quieted by a chorus of familiar rhetoric that attributes the success of business and tourism industries on island to its administrative financial connection to the United Kingdom. In a colony where most people rarely think of themselves as colonized, to the majority of Caymanians there is nothing improper about this relationship, it is simply the way things have been. On the few occasions where there is sustained conversation on the topic of political independence, like clockwork, the dialogue often takes a decidedly anti-Jamaican and anti-black tone that positions the so-called socioeconomic “struggles” of Jamaica as a cautionary tale on the perils of political independence. Perils that are then juxtaposed with the so-called socioeconomic success of Cayman which are framed as the prosperity of political dependency. It is this enduring conversation that warrants further interrogation; how and why African descended persons are actively choosing to not be self-determining. Much of the current literature interrogates the colonial presence in the Caribbean in a historical context. However, my interest is in how modern-day manifestations of colonialism (economic, cultural) impacted understandings of agency and freedom? Moreover, Caribbean scholarly discourses on colonialism tend to situate it in the past, instead a present, ongoing reality in the region today. This project centers Caymanians and their understanding of their own humanity outside of what they provide to others. My work seeks to disrupt the concept of ‘Paradise’ in the Caribbean; a concept evoked in order to provide leisure for tourists (mostly originating from North America and Western Europe) and make the financial management of the wealth of the ruling elite from the same places as those tourists desirable. This research interrogates a humanity that is agentic, self-conscious, and decolonial. / African American Studies

This essay will discuss Jean Rhys’s novel Wide Sargasso Sea from a postcolonial and historical perspective, to show how Rhys’s recreation of Bertha Rochester’s past (Charlotte Brontë’s madwoman in Jane Eyre) can make her end appear triumphant. The analysis will be based on a combination of aspects from the novel’s contemporary English and Caribbean societies and Edward Said’s thoughts about Orientalism, mainly the binary opposition between Europe and the Orient and the creation of Orientalist knowledge. Said’s theories and historical actualities will be used to identify how colonial and patriarchal values in the novel influence the development of the heroine Antoinette through her upbringing and later how they are used to reduce her into a madwoman. The analysis will conclude that Antoinette’s rebellion against patriarchal and colonial oppression in the last part of the novel provides an opportunity to interpret her predetermined end in Jane Eyre as triumphant.

The purpose of this research is to examine the socio-economic legacies of the French Protectorate in Morocco and the attitude of modern-day Moroccans to that legacy, through a series of in-depth interviews with a wide range of people who lived through colonialism and came after it. I use these interviews alongside documents of the time and the findings of contemporary commentators to chart the establishment of the Protectorate's social and economic policies in Morocco and how they destroyed the traditional infrastructure and cultural heritage of the country to replace them by a more - modern and civilised - westernised system. I argue that, although some good did come from French colonialism in Morocco, these policies were not viable and so, when decolonisation came about, the country was unable to sustain itself and, therefore, had no choice but to continue to look to France both financially and educationally. Through highlighting how France transformed every aspect of Moroccan life to match that of la Métropole, this research shows why Moroccans find it so hard to shake off their colonial past, why they continue to use the French language in business, politics and education and why, unless Morocco steps out of the shadow of its former occupier, and make its own way in the world, they feel it will never be truly independent.