This study is a postcolonial literary analysis of Miika Nousiainen’s novel Hallonbåtsflyktingen from 2007. The aim is to analyse how Sweden and Finland, along with the Swedish and Finnish characters, are portrayed in the novel. Through a close norm-critical reading and with postcolonial theory as a basis, the content and characters in the novel have been analysed. The result shows that the Finnish characters are portrayed in stereotyped patterns and described in general forms. A dichotomy of “us” and “the others” is created in the novel. The Finnish characters and Finnish culture are described negatively and constantly contrasted with positive descriptions of Sweden and Swedes. If literature teaching in school gives pupils knowledge and skills in postcolonial reading of literature, they may learn to identify and analyse negative portrayals. This might makes it possible to break down their assumptions and prejudices, and instead they become critical individuals who act in a global context. By comparing how different nationalities and cultures are presented, pupils can potentially begin to reflect on themselves and their picture of the Other.

This dissertation builds on the current anthropological studies of care relations in practice. It draws inspiration from science and technology studies (STS) and postfeminist technoscience. A qualitative ethnographic approach grounds the empirical data collection and analysis. This entails ethnographic fieldwork with senior home care in the United States and Sweden during 2007–2008 and 2011–2012. Analytical attention centers on how movements situate various tensions of senior home care in practice. Four interrelated published works comprise the main thematic chapters. Each article exemplifies how human and nonhuman relations move and mediate care. They develop several heuristic terms that advance ideas about how older people, aging bodies, technologies, spaces, and times that tinker each other through movements of care in practice. The comprehensive summary frames these articles with an overview of the primary thematic orientations and methodological concerns. A discussion of the main contributions and implications of the dissertation concludes the work.

This study revisits the effect of duration by residence in relation to smoking during pregnancy. It contributes to the literature by incorporating a health inequity perspective, and discusses whether immigrants tend to converge with Swedish women’s smoking. The study is based on Swedish Medical Birth Register and includes 1 1864 52 pregnancies between 1991 and 2012. Logistic regression was performed to attain crude and adjusted Odds Ratios and 95 % confidence intervals. Immigrants’ are divided by categorizing countries of origin depending on levels of Human Development (IHDI). Overall immigrant women show low levels of smoking during pregnancy when they arrive to Sweden, by duration of residence levels of smoking increase and converge with smoking patterns of Swedish women. I found that there are differences in smoking patterns depending on IHDI of the country. Immigrant women of higher categories of IHDI show higher levels of smoking although the increase of smoking is higher among immigrant women from categories of lower IHDI. However, immigrant women’s smoking during pregnancy is affected by duration of residence, and the increased smoking is associated with health inequalities related to their country of origins IHDI, and by socioeconomic inequalities in Sweden.

This thesis explores organizational features, which facilitate counterinsurgency operations on a company level. The framework used is the infantry company. Two factors were found through literature studies to be extra important for conducting successful counterinsurgency operations: intelligence and presence. Regarding intelligence, the results show beneficial effects from organizing a company level intelligence cell. The recommended size is three individuals. The next factor, presence, originates from the concept of maintaining a persistent presence as opposed to conducting raids in the assigned area of operations. Here, a force structure of four subordinates at both company and platoon level was found to be effective. Further, a Swedish and an Austrian European Union Battlegroup company was studied and compared to each other from the previously found aspects. Next, the two companies receive suggestions for how to reorganize themselves with the already existing personnel and equipment available. In the final part, the thesis discusses the structural rigidity of military organizations evident in the lack of organizational adaption to counterinsurgency even though such operations have been conducted in the past, present and most certainly will be a part of the future. / <p>Erasmus</p><p>Received award for best thesis.</p>

Bilingualism and multilingualism are phenomena dominantly present in today’s globalized world. Sweden is not an exception and its international character is apparent in all domains, such as politics, business and education. English is perceived more as a second language rather a foreign one, taking into consideration the numerous bilingual and international schools of the country that promote the acquisition of Swedish and English from an early age. Teaching in bilingual classrooms may cause challenges due to students’ different linguistic abilities and background and thus, teachers are responsible to maintain a balance between both languages. The particular study has a two-fold aim; at first place, it analyzes theories of bilingualism that are directly related to pedagogical and teaching practices as well as the relation between bilingualism and brain functions. The purpose is to identify how these theories are reflected into everyday classrooms through teachers’ methods. The second part of the research is the examination of the contextual background of Sweden in terms of linguistic hierarchy, the aims of society to bilingual education and laws regarding languages and teacher training. The purpose is to outline the extent to which this background is applied into actual contexts. Therefore, the third part is the empirical study that is a comparative case-study through a qualitative approach into two bilingual schools in Sweden. The central focus is on teachers’ opinions about challenges, teaching methods and personal reflections and the identification of differences and similarities. The critical analysis of the three main parts enables the researcher to reach conclusions where certain points and issues are outlined along with possible solutions. The goal of the study is not the generalization of data but a focus on individuals and reflection of real situations that sets the basis for research in larger scales.

No description available.

This thesis seeks to understand how the restrictive immigration policies – taken by the Swedish Government in 2015 as Europe was facing a huge stream of people seeking refuge – could be justified when research demonstrates that Sweden’s national identity is based on humanitarianism and asserts that Sweden has a great commitment to human rights. The nationalistic act seemed paradoxical – however, previous research displays a disputed understanding of the relationship between the humanitarian discourse and the nationalistic discourse. The thesis uses discourse theory to trace how the Swedish Government through its representation of the decision to tighten immigration constructs and reproduces the Swedish national identity. The empirical analysis displays a shift in the focus of Swedish immigration policy from an international (humanitarian) one to a national one. Even though it is not possible to fully assert an identity change the analysis indicates an identity crisis – the analysis demonstrates how humanitarian values acquires meaning within a nationalistic discourse. The thesis also demonstrates how the Swedish Government represents immigration as a contradiction to the Swedish welfare state. The decision to tighten immigration appears as a measure taken in order to rescue the national identity and its main feature – the welfare.

The aim of this study was to examine opinion texts and news articles concering the debate about whether or not Sweden should join Nato. The question about a Swedish Nato membership has been dead for quite a while, but a study from the SOM-institute in 2015 showed that for the first time in decades a majority of the swedees was in favour of joing Nato.   This study uses a quantative method to examine several aspects of the debate and reporting in the following news papers: Aftonbladet, Dagens Nyheter, Sydsvenskan and Svenska Dagbladet. The research goes into bias, the general charateristics of the reporting and how Russia is portrayed. Russia has lately been viewed as an antagonist of Nato. Therefore, it was deemed probable that the portraying of Russia could have an impact on the way swedes percieve Nato.   The results of the study shows that the majority of the text published in relation to the topic were opinion texts. There was a general pattern were the political colour of the newspaper had some effect on the published material, but not enough that it could be deemed as being biased biased.   Russia were often portrayed in a negative tone and was also often portrayed as being a threat to other european countries.

Previous research has found that hand preference can be detected reliably in infants as young as 6 months of age through the use of reach-grasp tasks. While many studies have targeted their efforts at discerning hand preference in infants younger than 12-months of age, a lack of knowledge about hand preference during the ages of 1-2 years remain. The aim of the present study was to investigate whether 12-month-old infants demonstrate a clear hand use preference during unimanual reaching and grasping. Participants consisted of 54 healthy, full term 12-month-old infants (+2/-2 weeks). Goal objects were placed at a reachable distance, in front of the infants and randomly allocated to either left, midline or right positions. Infant hand choices and the success of each grasp were coded offline from video recordings made of the reach-grasp sessions and an overall lateralisation index (LI) was calculated later for each infant. The results demonstrated that the 12-month-old infants were generally right-preferred. Additionally, almost double the frequency of grasps were accounted for by right hand grasps. Further, a significant right hand preference was found when children reached across the midline to grasp objects. The findings imply that hand preference may be readily observed in the prehension activities of 12-month-old infants, and particularly prominent when reaching across the midline.

The biting midges (family Ceratopogonidae) is one of the most species rich amongst the biting flies (Diptera) and has been recorded from most parts of the world. The species are mostly known for their capability to act as vectors for several important diseases, which have helped in shaping the focus to one of its genera, Culicoides Latreille, 1809.   This thesis gives an overview of the knowledge of the Swedish diversity, in the first paper (paper I) with a closer look at the species of Dasyhelea Kieffer, 1911 where all twenty species found in Sweden are presented with their associated localities, and two new species are described.  In the second paper (paper II) the biting midge diversity of Sweden is presented based on specimens collected from several localities. All these individuals were barcoded using the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene (COI). The analysis included 773 specimens that were assigned into 214 barcoding clusters (BINs) and sorted into 164 groups based on their morphology. The third paper (paper III) broadens the scale were the evolutionary relationships within the family are investigated by applying five protein coding genes (COI, CAD, TPI, AATS and PGD) and specimens from different parts of the World. The analysis recovers Ceratopogonini, Forcipomyia Meigen, 1818 and Bezzia Kieffer, 1899 as paraphyletic and Palpomyia Meigen, 1818 polyphyletic. In the last and fourth paper (paper IV) the family is used as a model organism together with Hymenoptera for an alternative analysis method for reducing the impact of saturation and long-branch attraction using non-synonymous coding (e.g. Degen1) on only parts of a dataset. The effectiveness of the method is compared to the removal of the faster evolving third codon position. The result yields a higher number of supported nodes as well as a higher median of support for the method as well as an ability to reduce long-branch attraction artifacts. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript. Paper 4: Manuscript.</p><p> </p>