What’s Hiding in the Woods of the Swedish North? – About nature, humans, and exoticism in three contemporary northern Swedish novels – This essay aims at exploring the use of nature and the supernatural in contemporary northern Swedish literature, in the light of the long historical exploitation of the area and the conflicts this caused. The novels that are being examined are Stallo by Stefan spjut, Glupahungern by Andrea Lundgren and Ett föremåls berättelse om obesvar by Mikael Berglund. The essay is underpinned, first and foremost, by theories of ecocritisism and postcolonial ecocritisism in order to explore the relations between humans and environment. In addition to this, theories of time-space relations and movement as well as theories of human-animal relationships and transformations are used. The analysis focuses on movement in time-space, the relationship between bear and child, and human-bear and troll-bear transformations in the novels. The different paths that are chosen by the characters in the novels reveal varying ways in which humans relate to nature, and as a result also relations to, and ideas about, the Swedish north. For example, the nomadic people in Ett föremåls berättelse om obesvar moves according to seasonal change, while the crowns men from the south establish their settlements close to the natural resources they are exploiting, in this case silver, and adjust nature to their own needs. These relationships are also made visible in relation to the non-human animals as well as non-human animal transformations in the novels: for example the troll-bear transformations in Stallo elaborates the idea of northern Sweden as a wilderness, whilst Glupahungern rather use this idea of northern Sweden in order to criticise the anthropocentric norm. In conclusion, all three novels relate in different ways to the history of, and ideas about, the Swedish north, which in turn are closely connected to stories about nature and the supernatural. The novels display a critical relationship towards historical events, as well as present day ideas and approaches to northern Sweden, nature and animals.

Summary This essay examines how Joseph Conrad's novella Heart of Darkness and Hunter S. Thompson's novel The Rum Diary portray´s the effects of colonialism and neocolonialism in Africa and Puerto Rico. Using postcolonial theory, the essay shows how Conrad's and Thompson´s complex images of the Europeans and Africans, Westerners and Puertoricans stand in contrast to orientalistic and racist images of the colonial natives. The thesis discusses responsibility and guiltissues in the colonial states and analyses how Conrad and Thompson raise questions about these topics when they chose to portray the suffering among the colonial natives. Furthermore, the essay discusses how Conrad's and Thompson's many images of violence can be seen as images of a brutal reality carried out in countries marked by colonialism. Based on intertextual literary theory, and in the light of the literary journalistic genre ""new journalism"", in which Thompson was active, the essay markes out The Rum Diary's intertextual references to Conrad's Heart of Darkness. The essay argue that The Rum Diary's intertextual references to Heart of Darkness indicate to the reader that the novel belongs to a certain genre, and by this; link the novel to a literary system, codes and traditions already constructed by Conrad. The Rum Diay, that portrays the neocolonial era in the 1950's in the former U.S's colony Puerto Rico, is therefore to be understood in the light of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, even though it portrays an earlier era of colonialism. / Sammanfattning Sammanfattningsvis behandlar uppsatsen skildringar av kolonialismens och neokolonialismens verkningar i Joseph Conrads novell Heart of Darkness och i Hunter S. Thompsons roman The Rum Diary. Med utgångspunkt i den postkoloniala litteraturteorin och mot bakgrund av den historiska bilden av den koloniala världen granskar uppsatsen bland annat hur Conrad och Thompson valde att skildra kolonialistiska och neokolonialistiska maktstrukturer och samhälleliga missförhållanden. Uppsatsen granskar även kolonialismens orientalistiska och rasistiska bild av utomeuropén kontrasterat de respektive verkens komplexa skildringar av européer och afrikaner, västerlänningar och puertoricaner. Uppsatsen berör även frågan om västvärldens ansvar och skuld inför koloniernas och de forna koloniernas inhemska problematik samt belyser Conrad och Thompson framställningar av lokalbefolkningens lidanden. Vidare granskar uppsatsen våldets betydelse för kolonialismens etablering och hur de respektive verkens våldsskildringar kan ses berätta om en våldspräglad realitet i de länder som är märkta av kolonialismens verkningar. Uppsatsen belyser också The Rum Diarys litterära beröringspunkter och direkta referenser till Conrads Heart of Darkness med utgångspunkt i den intertextuella litteraturteorin och mot bakgrund av den litterära journalistiska genren ”"new journalism"” inom vilken Thompson var verksam i. Uppsatsen argumenterar för att Thompsons avsikt med de intertextuella referenserna var att indikera för läsaren om verkets genre, textens mening och sammanlänka det egna verket med det system, de koder och den tradition som Conrad sedan tidigare utstakat. Uppsatsen avslutats med ett intertextuellt perspektiv som med flera exempel visar hur The Rum Diary refererar till Conrads litterära produktion.

The aim of this study was to investigate how the view of colonialism, the colonialists, and thenative people in Swedish textbooks, has changed over the years. The study investigates, in aqualitative content analysis, three books from the early 20th century and four books from the early 21st century. The literature is analysed and compared with the aim of highlighting the changes and differences, as a pervading foundation. The theoretical aim of this study is made with the theory of “others” that has had a major impact on the idea of modern colonialism and imperialism. The study found that the older textbooks are written with a more “story telling” approach, basing the reflections of history upon single individuals, focusing on great stories and events. The more recent textbooks have a more analytical approach, raising the issues connected to thetopic of modern colonialization and reflecting over the changes in society it has resulted in. The conclusion is drawn that, in all textbooks, old as new, there is a clear division of “we” and“them”. The difference is that “we” and “them” have been shifted, from dividing the colonising Europeans and the native populations in the older books, to consider “we” as the group of peoplejudging the acts and mindsets of our ancestors and “them” as the colonialists representing anold, outdated state of mind. Keywords: Modern colonialism, postcolonialism, imperialism, Swedish textbooks in history, theory of “Other”, Orientalism. / Syftet med denna studie var att undersöka hur synen på kolonialismen, kolonisatörerna och ursprungsbefolkningen i svenska läroböcker inom historia har förändrats över tid. Studien undersöker i en kvalitativ litteraturstudie tre läroböcker från tidigt 1900-tal och fyra läroböcker från tidigt 2000-tal fram tills idag. Litteraturen är analyserad och jämförd, med fokus på att lyfta förändringar och skillnader som en genomgående struktur. Den teoretiska angreppspunkten har skett utifrån teorin om ”den andre” som har haft en stor påverkan på hur vi ser på den moderna kolonialismen och imperialismen idag.  Studien kunde klarlägga att de äldre läroböckerna är skrivna med en mer berättande struktur, som baserar sin historieförmedling på enskilda aktörer med ett tydligt fokus på stora berättelser och händelser. De mer moderna läroböckerna har en mer analyserande ingång där de lyfter den problematik som är nära sammankopplad med den moderna kolonialismen, och vad förändringarna i samhället har haft för påverkan på dessa.  Slutsatsen visar på att alla läroböcker, ny som gammal, framställer en tydlig ”vi och dem”-känsla. Förändringen ligger framförallt i att ”vi och dem”-känslan har förflyttats från att särskilja de europeiska kolonisatörerna från ursprungsbefolkningen, till att istället fokusera på ”vi” som den grupp som fördömer de tankar och handlingar som genomförts av våra förfäder, och ”dem” som kolonisatörerna som representerar en gammal och utdaterad samhällsuppfattning. Nyckelord: modern kolonialism, postkolonialism, imperialism, svenska läroböcker i historia, teorin om ”den andre”, orientalism.

Rapa Nui (Easter Island) is an island in the Pacific Ocean which has been colonised over a long period of time. Colonisers have exploited the island through looting and trading Rapanui (the Indigenous people) human skeletal remains. Around ninety percent of the stolen Rapanui human skeletal remains have been located at museums and collections around the world on Rapanui initiative. Through the Rapa Nui Ka Haka Hoki Mi Ate Mana Tupuna Repatriation Program the Rapanui are now working on the return of the alienated human skeletal remains to the Island. This thesis is an analysis of semi structured interviews with inhabitants on Rapa Nui involved in repatriation and ethics of human skeletal remains. It has been carried out through a qualitative method using semi-structured interviews together with participant observation. The thesis is part of Martinsson-Wallin´s STINT-project ‘Sustainable Visits in Rapa Nui – Glocal Perspectives’. Based on the interviews, the analysis and results are divided into five themes: I) treatment of human skeletal remains, II) what laws exists in treating human skeletal remains, III) the possibility to narrow laws and concretize ethical perspectives before and during a repatriation, IV) theories in post-colonialism and V) recurrent issues between the law of the Indigenous peoples and the national law. Comparison with other cases of repatriation such as Sámi follows in Chapter 7. The results of the analysis show that according to the Rapanui, archaeological artefacts and human skeletal remains should be repatriated. Today the involved parties, the Rapanui and the institutions that are keeping collections from Indigenous cultures, are more willing to redress previous events. Such as, colonialization, violence, and social inequality but there is still a lot of respect and understanding that must be developed within several actors.

Denna uppsats undersöker musikvideon Apeshit, av The Carters, som spelades in på Louvren och hur den tar upp frågor om svart representation. Syftet med studien handlar om att bidra med kunskap om hur representation visualiseras samt dess effekter. En ytterligare ambition handlar om responsen videon fick, som bland annat resulterade i Louvrens guidade tur Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s Louvre Hightlights. Studien har till syfte att analysera detta utifrån svart representation och demokratisering. Genom ett postkolonialt perspektiv med fokus på Stuart Halls kulturella hegemoni och Richard Dyers vithetsbegrepp har studien kunnat ge uttryck i dessa frågor om svart visuell representation. Som metod har uppsatsen använt sig av en formal- och kontextanalys för att uttolka musikvideons underliggande budskap. Studiens slutresultat belyser de medel som använts i musikvideon för att lyfta frågor som berör svart representation och rasism.

The native people of Sweden have in the last decade or so fallen under the spotlight when it comes to their rights. In the last few hundred years, the Sámi people have experienced what can only be described as colonization, racism, and discrimination from the Swedish state. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the Swedish crown got more invested in the land that has previously been occupied by the Sámi people. The discovery of natural resources in Lappmarkerna along with the drawing of the border between Sweden and Norway/Denmark lead to the mapping of the north. With the drawing of the border came the first legal document, Lappkodicillen, to recognize the Sámi people as an ethnic group. Lappkodicillen concluded that the Sámi had to become citizens of either Sweden or Norway and lost the land that they had held on the other side of the new border. While the intention of the document was to preserve and protect the Sámi people, with time it gave the Swedish crown the opportunity to claim more control over Lappmarkerna and its natives. In the process of colonization, the Sámis’ right to ownership of land was starting to be questioned and the Swedish crown started to claim more and more of it as theirs. This paper analyses the relationship between the Sámi people and the Swedish crown during the years 1670 to 1770,a time when the natives of Sweden lived through both recognition and oppression.

By examining the annual records produced for, and published in, Svenska Missionsförbundet’s annual meeting protocol, this essay aims to analyze how Swedish missionaries located in the Congo Free State created the image of themselves and various people around them from missionary stations in the area surrounding the Congo river.  In its essence, the results of the study show that the missionaries use the missionary stations as fostering institutions, where Congolese boys and young men are taught civilized manners. No matter their effort and achievement though, the notion of racial differences embedded in the missionaries, locks the Congolese men in a subordinate state from which they may not leave.

In this essay, I am analyzing hip hop lyrics from Immortal Technique. The main focus is to connect the context of the lyrics to postcolonial theory. The theory paramount to the analysis has been Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s essay Can the Subaltern Speak? My work aims to provide evidence that Immortal Technique’s rap lyrics contextualize colonial, economic and racist structures of power in a manner that has equal merit as intellectual postcolonial theorizing, and we should therefore ask the question of whether or not including street poetry and rap lyrics in the postcolonial discourse can help solve the problem of representation? The essay’s focus is three formulated key concepts centered around power, ideology and the view of women.

Det litteraturkritiska fältet gör det möjligt att göra en djupgående analys av karaktären kapten Hamilton i Caryl Phillips novell över floden (1993) för att undersöka denna karaktärs rasistiska agerande i kontrast mot dennes etiska och moraliska förhållningsätt som kristen. Denna analys vilar på ett applicerande av postkolonial kritik som tillsammans med andra teoretiska perspektiv så som kolonialism, kapitalism, orientalism och kristen etik undersöker karaktärens tankegångar och ageranden. Denna litteraturanalys visar att kolonialism i kombination med det rasistiska stereotypskapandet verkar vara den bakomliggande faktorn kring kapten Hamiltons uppfattning om öst och väst, européer och "det andra". Dessa faktorer har tillsammans skapat en omdefinition av människan som kapten Hamilton utnyttjar för ekonomisk vinning. Analysen visar att kolonialism och rasism öppnar upp för en omdefiniering av människan som gör henne till en produkt, vilket kan utnyttjas av olika parter oavsett religiös åskådning.

This work is a postcolonial study of educational books for the subject of history for upper secondary school. The purpose is to analyze to which extent the educational books fulfill the demands from the Swedish school curriculum to offer education which supports multiculturalism and international views. The work thereby studies in which way non-European countries are depicted in the educational books, to ascertain whether the books are eurocentric or not. To do so, postcolonial theory has been used to function as a means of analyzing the texts. The method used is text analysis to be able to ascertain attitudes or stances that the authors show with which words they choose to describe non-European countries and cultures. The findings show that both books are eurocentric in the way they portray non-Europeans, however to different extents. Alla tiders historia problematize their use of perspective less than Epos. Alla tiders historia makes use of many choices of language which strongly suggests that pupils reading it might get a view on history that strongly favors European exceptionalism, that is, the view that Europe was exceptional and therefore able to dominate other countries. This view does not allow for a deeper understanding of the multifaceted mechanisms which made possible European conquest. Instead this view allows for a simplistic reduction of history, which does not encourage students critical thinking of why the world is at it is today, and which processes shaped the world. This goes against what the curriculum states should be one of the aims of the subject of history, and the aim for the whole school, which is that students should be prepared to function in and be able to navigate a multicultural society. Lastly, an alternative route is proposed, grounded in Alan Singers proposition for a Global History with a social studies approach.