Den negativa demografiska utvecklingen i glesbyden förväntas leda till en avveckling av flertalet samhällen runt om i landet. Det finns ingen universell lösning för att motverka denna utveckling men förståelse för individers motiv för att flytta till glesbygden kan hjälpa regioner att forma strategier för kompetensförsörjning och bromsa de negativa demografiska förändringarna. Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka anledningarna till att individer från andra samhällen har valt att flytta till glesbygdskommunen Pajala samt hur de har integrerats till samhället. De forskningsfrågor som formulerats ämnade att undersöka följande: motiven till varför individerna valt att flytta till Pajala kommun, om det finns några likheter i individernas beskrivning av sig själva, hur väl individer upplever att de integrerats i samhället samt vilka samhälleliga åtgärder som skulle kunna vidtas för att öka kommunens attraktionskraft samt underlätta nyinflyttade individers integrationsprocess. För insamling av data användes semistrukturerade intervjuer som metod och för bearbetning och analys av data genomfördes en tematisk analys. Resultatet indikerade att sociala faktorer utgjorde de mest förekommande motiven till att flytta till Pajala, den mest framträdande personliga egenskapen var “social försiktighet”, undersökningsdeltagarna hade en upplevelse av ett öppet och inkluderande samhälle men trots detta fanns det integrationssvårigheter samt att det på flera områden fanns potential för utveckling av integrationsunderlättande åtgärder och marknadsföring. / Rural areas today face a negative demographic change that results in a disassembling of local communities. There is no universal solution to these demographic changes but an understanding of individual motives for moving to rural areas could help regions to form strategies to ensure the supply of competence and prevent the negative demographic changes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the reasons why individuals from other societies choose to move to the sparsely populated municipality of Pajala and how their integration process has developed. The scientific questions that were formulated were designed to investigate the following: motives to why the individuals had chosen to move to Pajala, if there was any resemblance in how they described themselves, how well they perceived that they have been integrated in the society and what measures that the society could undertake to increase the attractiveness of the municipality and facilitate the integration process. For the collection of data a semi structured interview was used as the method and for processing and analysis of data a thematic analysis was conducted. The results indicate that the most common motive for individuals to move were based on social factors and the most common trait was “social carefulness”. The participants described Pajala as an open and inclusive society but despite this there were difficulties with integration. Potential for development of both integration and marketing were detected.

This interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) study was implemented to explore and describe the initial and long-term motivations of community volunteers within a selected homeless shelter in central Indiana. The settlement house movement of human service delivery was the conceptual framework, which provided guidance and understanding concerning why and how community members provide human services through volunteerism. The research question examined the ways in which long-term volunteers thought about and made sense of their motivations to volunteer initially and over the long term at a homeless shelter. To answer the research question, the IPA methodology was implemented with 6 long-term community volunteers at a selected shelter. This design provided rich qualitative text that was analyzed to develop themes to explain and describe how the 6 study participants made sense of their individual motivations descriptively, emotionally, religiously, and socially. The overarching conclusion was that all 6 participants shared a common theme, which was Evangelical tradition, volunteerism, and social responsibility. This new finding provides a first look at the motivations of community volunteers, previously unknown in academic literature, and indicates a key subgroup of volunteers that may be the focus of future research on assisting community shelters with recruiting and retaining community members for the effort to eradicate homelessness in the United States.