The focus of much marketing research for the past two decades has been on the role of consumption in consumers’ lives. Relationships with products, brands, and favorite possessions have captured the interest of researchers and practitioners. More recently the concept of brand love has emerged to describe the lengths to which some consumers will go to maintain relationships with certain consumed objects. But is consumer love contained only to favorite brands or might there be different types of love as in interpersonal relationships? This dissertation presents a case for the development of one type of consumer love – customer chemistry, the consumer process of forming a positive, environmentally-derived attachment to a retailer. Because the concept of customer chemistry is new, this dissertation employs a methodical approach necessary for building theory. Essay One (Chapter Two) explores the reactions of consumers to a select group of retailers. Through analysis of their reactions to various retail servicescapes, the researcher draws conclusions regarding the levels of importance that consumers place on specific elements of the retail experience. Essay Two (Chapter Three) delineates the bridging laws that allow for theory development. Conclusions from the previous essay inform the creation of a model that describes the customer chemistry process and allows for prediction of specific antecedents and outcomes. The model is tested using structural equation modeling (SEM). With customer chemistry established empirically, Essay Three (Chapter Four) explores the purpose that customer chemistry serves in consumers’ lives. Modified consumer life histories describe customer chemistry in the context of life narratives, suggesting that customer chemistry plays an important role in identity construction. While the concept of consumption serving an identity creation purpose for consumers is not new, the idea that a place (in this case, a retail store) can serve that purpose is unique to this research. This dissertation argues for a better understanding of consumers’ relationships with loved retailers and suggests several avenues for future research. The surface ofa broad phenomenon has only been scratched, but important groundwork is laid for the development of a rich stream of research, one that can benefit researchers, practitioners, and consumers.

The world is moving at an increasingly rapid pace due to widening globalization. As a result of the technological development that has accelerated over the past decades, today, people are not only offered the opportunity to travel faster over geographical distances but also experience and achieve more per unit of time. This may cause negative consequences for humans and the environment, for example stress-related illnesses and an increased speed of climate change. The global slow movement has emerged as a response to this. Primarily, the movement advocates for valuing time higher than money, in order to slow down the speed of life. This thesis aims to investigate how members of the slow movement perceive the process of adopting a slow lifestyle within a fast-paced society. The aim is further to examine how identity can be constructed through slow principles. The study is based on interviews with seven individuals in Sweden, who all have made certain lifestyle changes in order to slow down. The result indicates that there are different motives behind the informants’ decision to adopt a slower lifestyle. These include environmental related reasons, health related reasons, and a common desire for increased self-determination in terms of being able to control one's own time. Furthermore, the result shows that the informants have slightly different experiences of the adopting process in terms of handling practical aspects as well as dealing with potential challenges such as financial uncertainty and lack of comprehension from the surroundings. In addition, the study illustrates that the informants perceive a connection between their lifestyles and a sense of identity. This is expressed by the informants’ ambition to change the surroundings, the way in which they manifest slow principles to others, and how they have experienced inner changes in relation to the slow living lifestyle.

This study examines Asian American identity construction in drama exercised by Asian American theatre companies on the mainland from the 1970s to the present. I use the term “wave” for the classification of the plays to illuminate artistic movements. The plays are classified into four waves: the first wave in the 1970s, the second wave in the 1980s, the third wave in the 1990s and early 2000s, and the fourth wave since the 2000s. The characters’ self-identification in these plays varies over time in response to historical, socio-political, economic, and cultural circumstances. Through chronological exploration, this dissertation articulates that Asian American self-identification and representation have developed from a rigid identity pursuing a single, coherent identity to a fluid identity beyond the binary frame by embracing other contingent and salient factors of identity. In addition, my dissertation illuminates that more dramatists use non-realist styles, especially in the third and the fourth waves, to reflect the American perception of anti-Asian racism and Asian American internalized racism. The illustration of Asian American dynamics that strive to form and evolve their identities challenges racial discourses and myths, opposing stereotypes.

This manuscript will explore the intersection of perceived disability due to limb loss and self-identity. The research is centered around the work in the Limbitless Solutions laboratory, where clinical research is providing children with customized prostheses. This research applies a focus on how customization can lead to positive identity construction. By facilitating active engagement in the design process a stronger connection is formed between the participant and their prosthetic device.

No description available.

No description available.

The purpose of this essay is to examine how Navid Moodiris concept of "mellanförskap", translated by the author himself as "inbetweenship", the postcolonial we and them as well as different identity constructions are expressed in social debator Navid Modiris authorship. The notion of identity is used from a social psychological perspective and the notion of inbetweenship is based on Modiris own description of the term. The theoretical starting point for the study is the post-colonial theory with focus on Said's construction of "the Other" and Spivak and Halls thoughts on how colonialism influenced and influence today's society. The questions at issue are examined by analysis of three poems from the poem vollection Skrik om du brinner (eng. Cry if you are on fire) and two lyrics. Analysis results are presented through quotes from the texts, which are discussed and commented on the basis of how inbetweenship, we and them as well as different identities are expressed in the texts. Overall, it is mainly through themes such as family relationships, distance, generalizations and lack of limits that the investigated objects are highlighted. The clear conclusion is that it's because of the normative society that we and them, and the feeling of inbetweenship can be produced and that the criticism of this society is the underlying theme of the Modiris entire authorship. / Syftet med uppsatsen är att undersöka hur mellanförskap, det postkoloniala vi och dem samt olika identitetskonstruktioner kommer till uttryck i samhällsdebattören Navid Modiris författarskap. Begreppet identitet används utifrån ett socialpsykologiskt perspektiv och mellanförskap utifrån Modiris egen beskrivning av termen. Den teoretiska utgångspunkten för studien är den postkoloniala teorin med fokus på Saids konstruktion av "de Andra" samt Spivak och Halls tankar om hur kolonialismen påverkat och påverkar dagens samhälle. Studiens frågeställningar undersöks genom analys av tre dikter från diktsamlingen Skrik om du brinner samt två låttexter. Analysresultatet presenteras genom citat från texterna, vilka diskuteras och kommenteras utifrån hur mellanförskap, vi och dem samt olika identiteter kommer till uttryck i texterna. Sammantaget är det främst genom teman som släktskap, avstånd, generaliseringar och avsaknaden av gränser som de undersökta objekten lyfts fram. Den tydliga slutsatsen är att det är på grund av det normativa samhället som vi och dem samt känslan av ett mellanförskap kan skapas samt att det är kritiken mot detta samhället som är det underliggande temat för hela Modiris författarskap.

<p>The aim of the paper is to explore the dominating perception of the Other after the conflict regarding the Danish Mohammed caricatures. How Swedish newspapers have portrayed Arabs, which role they have been given in society and what problems they are struggling with is going to be the focus of this thesis.</p><p>As methodological approach I chose discourse analysis, since it presents a view where language defines and structures our understanding of reality. Through the study of various Swedish newspaper articles, this essay tries to illustrate the implicit yet existent negative image of the Arabs as a group and potential alternative ways of understanding the Other.</p><p>The perception of Arabs is a product of a necessary imaginary foe, a mirror image of the bad and strange in contrast to the idyllic and safe Swedish nationality. The rhetoric’s of the discourse are therefore constructed between a politics of acknowledgement and a will to culturally dominate the Other. To challenge this view the citizens of a nation must accept it as nothing more than an imaginary design.</p>

Title: ”… Then came the realization that I was just like them. That I have a gambling addiction…” This is a qualitative study of four former gamblers and their experience of getting out of the gambling addiction. The study is about how individuals have overcome a gambling addiction. The purpose of this study is to examine the social processes and factors that are of importance when overcoming a gambling addiction. In addition, the study focuses on how individuals experience the change from gambling addiction to a life free of that addiction. In this thesis, I conducted a qualitative study in the form of semi-structured interviews with four former gamblers. The theoretical approach concentrated on Ebaugh’s (1988) role exit theory and Giddens’ (2005) identity formation theory has been used to illustrate the interviewees' experiences of gambling addiction and their identity as addiction free. The study shows that the gambling addiction has brought economic, social and health-related impacts and some of these aspects still exist today. The exit out of a gambling addiction has been a process with different phases and events where the process for some has been incrementally with relapses during the journey. Based on my results, the changing process appears to consist of parallel turning points where different and more significant events give rise to role exit. The study shows the need of continuous social support in combination with gambling association support efforts and the gamblers’ own insight, motivation and freedom of action. It appears that the interviewed have accepted their role that they had left behind and they take careful consideration to the past and the future and try to make more conscious choices and build their new identity. This is done by actions and re- evaluations of themselves and their world. It is based on their lives, by their own choices. However, these choices seem to be limited by conditions that occur in the interaction with the environment, social norms and social situations.

This thesis investigates the importance of the work community and its social organisation and the role it has for the participants' ability to learn and to form a professional identity as pedagogical leaders. Furthermore, the thesis wants to investigate if it matters to the directors’ learning how the principal (municipality or private company) organises for learning. The empirical material for the study comes mainly from semi-structured interviews with participants in the directors’ programme and close colleagues. An expression for the working community in a workplace is a community of practice. Learning and social interaction are about negotiation of meaning, making sense in everyday life. All four interviewed participants have contexts with features of communities of practice. In a few cases, it is clear that the context is about educational leadership, in a practice that is designed in collaboration with colleagues. Although there are significant differences in both the scope and the structure of supporting structures between the two investigated private contexts, it becomes clear that their structure leads to learning. The lack of structure in municipal schools leaves their directors with little access to guidance for their learning and identity development.