Disney’s princesses and heroines have long captured the minds and hearts of young girls with their magical dress. This thesis researches the fashion symbols in a chosen set of animated movies and relate this to children’s reception, sexuality and gender issues and narrative identities. A semiotic analysis of the movies and relating them to read literature will shine a new light on this subject.

The discourse on Norrland (literally ‘North land’ in English) as essentially ‘different’ has been(re)produced in literature, politics and science for as long as the idea of ‘Norrland’ has existed. Thus,when investigating the discourse that constructs the identity of Norrland in opposition to a Swedishnational identity, it is important to connect these representations to their contemporary (andchanging) political-economic contexts. The aim of this thesis is to analyze contemporaryrepresentations in news, film, advertising and interviews to show how representations constructstereotypes informed by neoliberal ideals and internationally familiar stereotypes of a traditionalintransigent population positioned in Norrland and a modern and progressive population in theurban South. The findings in this thesis can be summarized as follows. First, Norrland has beenconsistently reproduced, resisted and reworked through various discursive networks and practicesover centuries, as simultaneously authentic and obsolete. Drawing on these discourses makes therepresentations of Norrland in the news become part of a wider discursive network that representsNorrland as an ‘internal other’ within Sweden. Secondly, discourses on Swedish modernity and onneoliberal growth and competition reproduce Norrland and its people as inferior to the rest ofSweden. These representations are reworked and resisted and result in ‘real’ material effects in, forinstance, the news media, place marketing and film. Thirdly, in order to resist these representationsand become part of the ‘modern’, progressive world, places and people need to adjust to neoliberalideals of competitiveness and growth. And, finally, people’s identities are affected by theseneoliberal ideals as they have to relate and react to the representations of different places andpeople and the discourse on the urban as progress. This results in different strategies in theconstruction of narrative identities. I conclude by arguing that these representations serve not onlyas contrasts but also as strategies in the quest to scapegoat certain groups for problems that initiallyoriginated in unequal opportunities and structures of power related to, for instance, ethnicity, class,gender and disabilities – something that is exacerbated by neoliberalist policies and ideologies. Themore pressure is put on individuals and places to produce constant growth, the more certain peopleand places are viewed as ‘unproductive’ and problematic. The problems of depopulation anddiminishing job opportunities in the inland areas of Norrland are thus blamed on the population through the representations of Norrland as an internal ‘other.’ / Away from the periphery – migration, livelihood strategies and place discourse in the periphery of Norrland

This study brings into focus the issue of reproduction and transformation ofcultural authority in the so-called post-Soviet context. It seeks to examine howintelligentsia may be presented and what empowering narratives it may articulatein a concrete locality, namely, in the post-1991 West Ukrainian city of L’viv. Theauthor argues that claims for cultural authority stemming from the socio-culturallocation of intelligentsia are decisive in discussions about Ukrainian nationalidentity and cultural development, which gained momentum after independence.Despite significant discursive transformations, after 1991 intelligentsia is stillpresented as the essence of the nation, as its typical and brightest representativeswho assume the right to speak for the whole nation and to extrapolate own valuesand choices to it. The debate focused on the issues of ‘the national’ actualizes a very significantissue of whose class vision is to become a winning concept for the Ukrainiannation-building. Post-Soviet ‘normalization’ in L’viv implies that cultural patternstypical of the privileged and educated urbanites have been rehabilitated andpresented as both nationally authentic and culturally superior ones. In the post-1991 L’viv the representations embedding the urban community into variouslocal, regional, national, and supranational symbolic contexts resonate with effortsof the intelligentsia to (re-)gain control over reproduction of their own socialpositions and cultural narratives about the nation. This study suggests that analysisof the nation-building processes in Ukraine should pay more attention to symbolicrepresentations of cultural authority which are exploited by local actors runningtheir empowering projects. / Denna studie tar upp frågor om sociokulturell reproducering och omvandling avkulturell auktoritet i en postsovjetisk kontext. Studien undersöker de sätt på vilkaen intelligentia kan representeras och de maktanspråk som den genom berättelserartikulerar i den västukrainska staden L’viv efter självständigheten 1991.Författaren hävdar att de anspråk på kulturell auktoritet som intelligentianuttrycker har principiell betydelse i de diskussioner som förs kring ukrainsknationell identitet och nationens kulturella utveckling. Trots betydande diskursivaomvandlingar som intelligentian genomgått har den behållit sin position somnationens centralfigur. Intelligentian representeras som nationens mest typiskaoch framstående representant med rätt att tala i hela nationens namn, vilket gör attden också kan överföra sina egna värderingar och åsikter till sina landsmän. Diskussioner om det nationella temat sätter mycket betydelsefulla frågor ifokus, inte minst de som handlar om vilkas klassvisioner som kommer att fågenomslag i det ukrainska nationsbyggandet. Den postsovjetiska”normaliseringen” i L’viv har inneburit att de kulturella mönster som är typiskabland privilegierade och högutbildade stadsbor har återupprättats, ofta framställdasom nationellt genuina och kulturellt överlägsna. I det postsovjetiska L’viv ärsymboliska representationer av urbansamhället färgade av olika lokala, nationellaoch supranationella symboliska kontexter. Dessa kommer väl till pass iintelligentians försök att (återigen) kontrollera reproducering av sina socialapositioner och de kulturella berättelserna om nationen. Avhandlingen sätterdärmed fingret på hur kulturell auktoritet utnyttjas av lokala aktörer som strävarefter ett socialt och politiskt övertag samt uppmärksammar betydelsen avsymboliska framställningar i analyser av nationsbyggandeprocesser i Ukraina.