This research focuses on contemporary use of Scandinavian bridal crowns connected to history. The aim of my thesis is to show how understandings of bridal crowns are created by human and non-human actors, and thereby to illustrate how the use of bridal crowns today involves interest for history and cultural heritage. By using active-network-theory, I have highlighted how the bridal crowns become material actors which communicate thoughts of royalty, virtue, tradition, heritage and vintage. I have also shown how tradition and heritage are transformative processes which also make the meanings of bridal crowns changeable. Moreover, the bridal crown has proven to be a communicator of identity, and actively expresses thoughts of origin and personal style of the bride. Weddings are not only the context but also the tradition, ritual and network the bridal crown is active in. Therefore, I will take this network into account during the work of my thesis.

This is a qualitative study aiming to illuminate and gain better understanding of deliberate self-harm. The study has a narrative perspective and is based on three women’s life stories, focusing on a period when they had an active self-harming behaviour. The study examines what the participants experienced as important to the initiation and the cessation of the deliberate self-harm. It is also examining identity performances and turning points which can be discerned in the life stories. The analysis is based on theories of the narrative perspective and on Erving Goffman's dramaturgical perspective. Our conclusions are that the participants of the study at the time prior to the self-harming behaviour felt as outsiders, and that they lacked strategies for dealing with emotions. We also found that functional relationships had an important role for the participants to enable the cessation of the deliberate self-harming behaviour. At the time when the participants managed to end the self-harming behaviour, they all had developed more functional relationships and did not feel the same alienation. They also feel that they have a different identity now than they had during the period of deliberate self-harm.         Keywords: Deliberate self-harm, identity performances, turning points, narrative   Nyckelord: Självskadebeteende, identitetsuttryck, vändpunkter, narrativ