The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the relationship between women’s organising and established politics in three Swedish municipalities, and by way of this analysis study the construction of gender power orders. In the analysis, special emphasis is put on women’s agency. By posing questions to activists and local politicians concerning their opinions about women’s organising, the positions of women in established politics, and the concept of gender-equality, the ambition is to illuminate constructions of local gender power orders. The analysis is mainly based on interviews with activists, local politicians, and local administrators in the municipalities of Berg, Kiruna, and Robertsfors. Theoretically, the dissertation is influenced mainly by feminist theory of gender power relations and women’s agency, for example the work of Maud Eduards, and the theories about power and resistance developed by Michel Foucault. Carol Bacchi’s “What’s the problem?” approach is used when analysing the opinions of activists and politicians regarding the issue of gender-equality. In this approach, the way of constructing problems is the key, not “the problem” as such. The point is to constantly question phenomena that are defined as natural or self-evident, or, in other words, to deconstruct dominating discourses. When the interviews with the politicians were analysed with the ambition of discerning a dominant discourse of gender power, five limiting principles became visible; essential (in biological terms) differences between women and men, figures and complementarity, reduction, voluntariness, and co-operation. The principle of differences appears to be central, and all the principles place questions of gender-equality on the labour market. The “gap” between activists and politicians regarding the way in which gender is constructed is put forward as the main reason why women’s organising meets resistance from the sphere of local, established politics. This gap is also the central ingredient in the construction of the three local gender power orders, even if there are also other differences between the three. Key words: Women’s organising, women’s movement, gender-equality, rural areas, local politics, gender and politics, feminist theory

When collective action for community is defined as local development or as a struggle for survival different understandings are in focus. Politically, this kind of community action is defined as local development and understood in terms of growth and economics. An economic approach to community action is also emphasised in the EU-programmes that support local development groups and projects. On the other hand local groups describe their activities as a struggle for community and community survival. Inspired by feministic research approaches and with an interest in human aspects and values this study investigates meanings of community action as experienced and expressed by rural inhabitants and activists. The study is based on fieldwork that was carried out in a small rural community in the northern inlands of Sweden: Trehörningsjö. Since the middle of the 1990s, the women in Trehörningsjö have driven collective action to uphold the community. With its point of departure in the community and expanding into the arenas of reserach and politics, the study takes on the form of a reflexive research process in which the researcher's former knowledge and new understandings are made visible and discussed parallel with the interpretations made. The main focus of the study is the activist's demand of voice, visibility and worth. The first chapter presents the local community and provides a background to the study. The chapter includes an account of the reflexive approach that widened the field of research from a local to a translocal study of community action. In chapters two, three, four and five the struggle for community is reflected through fieldwork experiences in Trehörningsjö and other arenas beyond the village. Situated events and instances of collective action such as the fight for the local health care centre, are analysed as symbolic expressions of community values and rural importance. From chapter two and onwards, the study follows the footsteps of the leading female activist in and beyond the community itself; that is, the day-to-day work, meetings, conferences and other places where community action is acted out. The struggle for community is proven to focus on translocal rather than local action. In chapter six the fieldwork experiences - that tell about resistance and a struggle for community values and perspectives - are placed in the wider context of the rural development movement, local development research and governmental rural policy in Sweden. On all these arenas community action tend to be interpreted as local development in line with a growth perspective, rather than as community protests and struggles that expresses other meanings. Chapter seven takes the analyses and discussion further, and relates community struggle to concepts such as civil society and social economy. Anthony Giddens concept of life politics and Alberto Meluccis concept of collective action are used to deepen the analysis on how humane meanings and relation based aspects of community action are made invisible on the political "growht and development" agenda. Community struggle presents a possibility for rural inhabitants to (re)define and reclaim their community and themselves as important and valuable. However, to be able to understand what the concept of community struggle expresses, and demands, it needs to be acknowledged as a form of action that has the potential to challenge established bureaucratic and political defintions, which, in practice, proves to be difficult.