It is seemingly accepted that a democracy functions better with a reasonably informed citizenry. As we cannot acquire knowledge about a complex reality on our own, democratic societies operate through a set of institutions of which two are attributed the explicit task to assist citizensa legitimate pathway to knowledge. These institutions include news media and science. Evidence from recent years indicates that more and more elected politicians across the democratic world engage in attacks towards these institutions, with the deliberate aim to undermine their legitimacy. Because the functionality of news media and science essentially relies on their legitimacy, this trend has raised societal concerns in parallel with scholarly interest. While recent research has made important contributions to better understand political attacks towards institutional knowledge providers, several dimensions are still understudied. This thesis addresses such dimensions. Using quantitative content analysis, the research conducted in this thesis explores prevalence, party distribution and expressions of delegitimizing criticism (characterized by a presence of incivility and/or absence of reasoning) towards news media and science(conceptualized as epistemic authorities) among tweeting Members of Parliament (MP) in Sweden. The study analyzes single tweets by all Swedish MPs represented in the national parliament (and on Twitter) over a one-year study period (31st of October 2020 - 31st of October 2021) (N = 1828). Results from the exploration show that Swedish politicians engage in delegitimizing evaluations of epistemic authorities in a small and concentrated scale. Findings are several; Swedish politicians are remarkably more hostile towards the news media than towards science;one party affiliation contribute to more than half of all delegitimizing evaluations; delegitimizing criticism takes on several expressive forms but addresses to a large extent dimensions surrounding poor quality and partiality. The conducted study contributes to research about political hostility towards institutional knowledge providers in empirical and theoretical regards and provide entrances for further discoveries. A special request for futureresearch is to engage in more in-depth and detailed assessments of dimensions having been explored, for example by mixing in qualitative methods.

Für die Konzeption sozio-technischer Systeme zur wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisgenerierung ist das Wissen über die spezifischen Inhalte und Bedingungen der Arbeit einer Fachgemeinschaft essenziell. Im Kontext der Automatisierung von Wissensproduktion ist unklar, welche fachspezifischen Faktoren die Möglichkeiten einer Arbeitsteilung zwischen Mensch und Maschine beeinflussen. In der vorliegenden Arbeit wird eine grundlegende Voraussetzung für die Automatisierung von Forschungsprozessen, nämlich die Formalisierbarkeit typischer Handlungen und Wissensbestände, hinsichtlich ihrer fachspezifischen Bedingungen untersucht. Dafür wurde ein qualitativer Vergleich der Evidenzkonstruktion zweier Fachgebiete, der Editionsphilologie und der Klimaforschung, durchgeführt. Um deren Forschungsprozesse systematisch vergleichen und Zusammenhänge zwischen den Eigenschaften eines Forschungsprozesses und den Möglichkeiten seiner Formalisierbarkeit empirisch untersuchen zu können, wurde ein Vergleichsrahmen entwickelt, der auf dem wissenschaftssoziologischen Konzept der epistemischen Bedingungen beruht. Die fachspezifischen Bedingungen des Forschungshandelns stellen einen Erklärungsansatz für Varianten der Wissensproduktion und damit auch für unterschiedlich formalisierbare Forschungsprozesse dar. Es konnte gezeigt werden, dass insbesondere der Grad an Kodifizierung des Wissens einen wesentlichen Einfluss auf das Auftreten bzw. die Abfolge unterschiedlich formalisierbarer Handlungstypen und Wissensbestände hat. Der Anteil persönlicher Perspektive in der Evidenzkonstruktion und der Grad der Zerlegbarkeit eines Forschungsprozesses sind ebenfalls wichtige Faktoren für die Möglichkeiten der Delegation von Handlungen an Maschinen. Desweiteren konnte gezeigt werden, dass selbst bei einem hohen Formalisierungsgrad das informelle menschliche Handeln das wesentliche Komplement automatisierter Abläufe darstellt und dass die Formalisierbarkeit einer zeitlichen Dynamik unterliegt. / Knowing about the field-specific content and conditions of work in a scientific discipline is essential for the design of socio-technical systems used for the production of scientific knowledge. In the context of automated knowledge production, it remains unclear which field-specific factors influence the possibilities to distribute labour between humans and machines. This study analyses a fundamental prerequisite for the automation of research processes, namely the possibility to formalise typical actions and knowledge, with regard to its field-specific conditions. A qualitative approach is used to compare the construction of evidence in two scientific fields, textual studies and climate research. In order to systematically compare research processes and to empirically investigate correlations between the properties of a research process and the possibilities of its formalisation, a comparative framework based on the sociological concept of epistemic conditions was developed. Field-specific conditions of doing research represent an explanatory approach for variants of knowledge production and thus for variant degrees of formalised processes. Results show that the degree of codification of knowledge has a significant influence on the occurrence and on the sequence of types of action and of knowledge resources with variant degrees of formalisation. In addition, the role of personal interpretation in problem formulation and construction of empirical evidence and the degree of decomposability of a research process are decisive factors for being able to delegate actions to machines. Furthermore, the study shows that a high degree of formalisation requires informal human action to complement automated processes and that formalisability is subject to temporal dynamics during research processes.

This thesis addresses key issues of scientific realism in the philosophy of biology and chemistry through investigation of an underexplored research domain: olfaction theory, or the science of smell. It also provides the first systematic overview of the development of olfactory practices and research into the molecular basis of odours across the 19th and 20th century. Historical and contemporary explanations and modelling techniques for understanding the material basis of odours are analysed with a specific focus on the entrenchment of technological process, research tradition and the definitions of materiality for understanding scientific advancement. The thesis seeks to make sense of the explanatory and problem solving strategies, different ways of reasoning and the construction of facts by drawing attention to the role and application of scientific representations in olfactory practices. Scientific representations such as models, classifications, maps, diagrams, lists etc. serve a variety of purposes that range from the stipulation of relevant properties and correlations of the research materials and the systematic formation of research questions, to the design of experiments that explore or test particular hypotheses. By examining a variety of modelling strategies in olfactory research, I elaborate on how I understand the relation between representations and the world and why this relation requires a pluralist perspective on scientific models, methods and practices. Through this work I will show how a plurality of representations does not pose a problem for realism about scientific entities and their theoretical contexts but, on the contrary, that this plurality serves as the most reliable grounding for a realistic interpretation of scientific representations of the world and the entities it contains. The thesis concludes that scientific judgement has to be understood through its disciplinary trajectory, and that scientific pluralism is a direct consequence of the historicity of scientific development.

This study deploys the decolonial epistemic perspective in an attempt to unmask the spectre of xenophobia. The decolonial epistemic thinking is in turn predicated on three important concepts, namely coloniality of power, coloniality of being and coloniality of knowledge. The study is focused on understanding the dynamics of the violent May 2008 attacks that took place in Alexandra and Yeoville. It problematised the use of the term xenophobia. The term occludes rather than enlightening the complex phenomenon of violence. Such violence has consistently and systematically engulfed people living in poor predominantly black areas of residence such as Yeoville and Alexandra. The study also used empirical evidence collected from the field to support its central arguments. What has been understood as xenophobia is in actual fact, part of the manifestation and outcome of abject living conditions of the poor. This study argues that what manifests itself as xenophobia is an additional element to various forms of violence taking place in locales such as Alexandra and Yeoville, places that decolonial theorists term ‘zones of non-being,’ where violent death is a constitutive part of human existence. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Cette thèse porte sur l’introduction des politiques de transfert de revenu au Brésil. L’objectif central de la recherche est de comprendre comment ces politiques se sont imposées dans le cadre des réformes de la protection sociale brésilienne pendant les années 1990, notamment à partir de 1995 et comment elles ont engendré un changement paradigmatique de troisième ordre de la politique nationale d’assistance sociale. Nous posons deux hypothèses de recherche : la première est que l’introduction de telles politiques au Brésil fut le résultat du rôle historique des intellectuels engagés dans la défense du revenu minimum en tant qu’alternative au modèle de protection sociale brésilien. Cette défense du revenu minimum fut soutenue par des intellectuels, des communautés épistémiques et par des politiciens qui ont inscrit le débat sur le revenu minimum à l’agenda politique brésilien. La deuxième hypothèse suggère que la convergence d’idées, d’institutions et d’intérêts a favorisé l’adoption de ces politiques. Cette convergence d’idées, d’institutions et d’intérêts repose sur le rôle de plusieurs acteurs tels les intellectuels, le président Cardoso et d’autres politiciens qui se sont mis à la défense du social au Brésil depuis 1999, des institutions parlementaires brésiliennes et des organisations internationales, notamment le FMI, la Banque mondiale et la Banque interaméricaine de développement – BID. Nous proposons l’approche des trois i pour rendre compte de ce changement. L’apprentissage social, les processus de diffusion et de lesson-drawing sont les facteurs à l’origine de la formation de la convergence autour des programmes de transfert de revenu. Nous montrerons que l’expérience brésilienne de programmes de transfert de revenu a non seulement engendré un processus d’apprentissage social renversé auprès de la Banque Mondiale mais qu'elle a aussi eu un effet aussi sur les actions de la BID. Nous suggérons que le changement paradigmatique de la protection sociale brésilienne a été amorcé par le gouvernement Cardoso dans un processus d’essais et d’erreurs. Ce processus, qui est à l’origine des réaménagements du programme « Comunidade Solidária », a permis la création du « Projeto Alvorada » et du « Réseau de protection sociale » en 2001. Les programmes de transfert de revenu reliés à l’éducation et aux soins de santé ont été les plus influents dans la construction du consensus qui s’est établi autour des programmes de transfert de revenu comme alternative à l’ancien modèle de protection sociale puisqu’ils procurent le renforcement du capital social en même temps qu’ils fonctionnent comme facteur structurant de la protection sociale. Ce legs du gouvernement Cardoso a permis au gouvernement de Luis Inácio Lula da Silva de consolider le nouveau paradigme avec la création du programme national Bolsa-Família. Le gouvernement Lula a donc bénéficié de l’héritage historique des deux mandats de Cardoso et, ironiquement, a récolté les fruits de l’apprentissage social. Le phénomène du « lulismo » en est la preuve. Par ailleurs, cette thèse met en question la paternité du programme Bolsa-Família puisqu’elle montre la création de ce programme d'abord comme la consolidation du processus d’apprentissage et puis comme conséquence de la création d’un nouveau paradigme pour la politique d’assistance sociale au Brésil qui a eu lieu pendant les deux mandats de Cardoso. / This thesis focuses on the introduction of conditional cash transfer policies in Brazil. The main objective of the research is to understand how these policies have emerged in a context of rethinking social security in Brazil during the 90s, more precisely from 95 and how these changes have caused a third order paradigmatic change in the elaboration of national social security policies. According to the first of two hypotheses presented in this research, the introduction of conditional cash transfer policies in Brazil is the achievement of intellectuals striving to present such policies as a viable alternative to the traditional Brazilian social protection network. Conditional cash transfer policies have been supported by intellectual, epistemic communities and by politicians that brought the debate on minimal revenue on the Brazilian political agenda. On the other hand, the second hypotheses suggests that the adoption of cash transfer policies was made possible by the convergence of ideas, institutions and interests in place. This convergence of ideas, institutions and interests rests upon the many actors in this debate such intellectuals, President Cardoso and other politicians who have been defending the social agenda in Brazil since 1999; Brazilian parliamentary institutions and international organizations such as the IMF, the World Bank and the Inter-american Development Bank – BID. In order to make sense of these changes in Brazil, the iii approach (idea-interest-institution) was used. Social learning, dissemination, lesson-learning and lesson-drawing processes are all factors explaining the convergence of opinions around the idea of conditional cash transfer programmes. It shall be proven that the Brazilian experiment with cash transfer programmes not only became a reversed teaching process with the World Bank, but also had effects on decisions made by the BID. This thesis also suggests that the paradigmatic change in Brazilian social security was initiated by the Cardoso governement as part of an error and trial change process. This process, which would have as a direct consequence the reinvention of “Comunidade Solidária”, also permitted the creation of “Projeto Alvorada” and of the “Rede de proteção social” in 2001. The health and education programmes were the most instrumental in building consensus in support of cash transfer programmes as an alternative to the traditional model of social security, because these programmes reinforce social capital while acting as structuring factors for social security. President Cardoso’s heritage allowed Luis Inàcio da Silva to consolidate the new paradigm in social security with the creation of the national programme Bolsa-Família. The Lula administration directly benefited from the previous government’s two mandates and, ironically, reaped the fruit of his predecessor’s labour. The social phenomena called “lulismo” stands as proof of this. Moreover, this thesis challenges the theory according to which Bolsa-Família is an invention of Luis Inàcio da Silva in showing how this programme was initially created as the result of social learning in Brazil between 1995 et 2002.

Text in English / Through an in-depth analysis of selected texts, this study engages with the ways in which Ogun is reimagined by recent selected Nigerian playwrights. Early writers from this country, influenced by their modernist education, misrepresented Ogun by presenting only his so-called negative attributes. Contemporary writers are reconceptualising him; it is the task of this thesis to demonstrate how they are doing so from a decolonial perspective. These alleged attributes represent Ogun as a wicked, bloodthirsty, arrogant and hot tempered god who only kills and makes no positive contribution to the Yoruba community. The thesis argues that the notion of an African god should be viewed from an Afrocentric perspective, not a Eurocentric one, which might lead to violence or misrepresentation of him. The dialogue in the plays conveys how the playwrights have constructed their main characters as Ogun representatives in their society. For example, Mojagbe and Morontonu present Balogun, the chief warlord of their different community; both characters exhibit Ogun features of defending their community. The chosen plays for this study are selected based on different notions of Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron and war, presented by the playwrights. A closer look at the primary materials this thesis explores suggests Ogun’s strong connection with rituals and cultural festivals. These plays exemplify African ritual theatre. Being a member of the Yoruba ethnic group, I have considerable knowledge of how festivals are performed. The Ogun festival is an annual celebration among the Yoruba, where African idioms of puppetry, masquerading, music, dance, mime, invocation, evocation and several elements of drama are incorporated into the performances. The selected plays critiqued in this thesis are Mojagbe (Ahmed Yerima, 2008), Battles of Pleasure (Peter Omoko, 2009), Hard Choice (Sunnie Ododo, 2011), and Morontonu (Alex Roy-Omoni, 2012). No in-depth exploration has previously been undertaken into the kinds of textual and ideological identities that Ogun adopts, especially in the selected plays. Therefore, using a decolonial epistemic perspective, this study offers a critical examination of how the selected Nigerian playwrights between the years 2008 and 2012 have constructed Ogun, the Yoruba god of iron. Such a perspective assists in delinking interpretations from the modernised notions mentioned above, in which Ogun is sometimes a paradoxical god. Coloniality is responsible for such misinterpretation; the employed theoretical framework is used to interrogate these notions. The research project begins with a general introduction locating Ogun in Yoruba mythology, which forms the background to how the god is being constructed in Yorubaland. Also included iii in this first chapter is a discussion on a decolonial perspective, the principles of coloniality, the aims and objective of the study, and the relevant literature review. Thereafter, chapter two focuses on Battles of Pleasure and argues that the play re-imagines Ogun as a god of peace and harvest as opposed to a god of war and destruction. Chapter three discusses how Ododo’s Hard Choice reconceptualises Ogun as a god of justice, in contrast to him being interpreted as a god who engages in reckless devastation of life. Chapter four explores Ogun’s representation in Yerima’s Mojagbe as a reformer who gives human beings ample time to change from their wayward course to a course that he approves. In chapter five, Ogun’s reconception as a remover of obstacles in Roy-Omoni’s Morontonu is examined. The study concludes with a discussion on how Africans should delink themselves from a modernist Eurocentric perspective and think from an Afrocentric locus of enunciation. / English Studies / D. Litt. et Phil.(English)

People who are racialized in Sweden as ‘Asian’—a panethnic category—come from different countries or ethnic backgrounds and yet, often face similar, gender-specific forms of discrimination which have a significant impact on their whole lives. This thesis centres women who are racialized as 'Asian', focusing on how their racialization affects, and is shaped by, their social, professional and intimate relationships, and their interactions with others—in particular, with white majority Swedes, but also other ethnic minorities. Against a broader context encompassing discourses concerning ‘Asians’ within Swedish media, art and culture, Swedish ‘non-racist’ exceptionalism and gender equality politics, the narratives of nine women are analysed through the lenses of the racializing processes of visuality and coercive mimeticism, and epistemic injustice.

This study deploys the decolonial epistemic perspective in an attempt to unmask the spectre of xenophobia. The decolonial epistemic thinking is in turn predicated on three important concepts, namely coloniality of power, coloniality of being and coloniality of knowledge. The study is focused on understanding the dynamics of the violent May 2008 attacks that took place in Alexandra and Yeoville. It problematised the use of the term xenophobia. The term occludes rather than enlightening the complex phenomenon of violence. Such violence has consistently and systematically engulfed people living in poor predominantly black areas of residence such as Yeoville and Alexandra. The study also used empirical evidence collected from the field to support its central arguments. What has been understood as xenophobia is in actual fact, part of the manifestation and outcome of abject living conditions of the poor. This study argues that what manifests itself as xenophobia is an additional element to various forms of violence taking place in locales such as Alexandra and Yeoville, places that decolonial theorists term ‘zones of non-being,’ where violent death is a constitutive part of human existence. / Development Studies / M. A. (Development Studies)

This thesis examines the philosophical notion of selfhood in visual representation. I introduce the self as a modern and postmodern concept and argue that there is a loss of selfhood in contemporary culture. Via Jacques Derrida, Jean-Luc Nancy, Gerhard Richter and the method of deconstruction of language, I theorise selfhood through the figurative and literal analysis of duration, the frame, and the mirror. In this approach, selfhood is understood as aesthetic-ontological relation and construction based on specific techniques of the self. In the first part of the study, I argue for a presentational rather than representational perspective concerning selfhood by translating the photograph Self in the Mirror (1964), the painting Las Meninas (1656), and the video Cornered (1988), into my conception of a cinematic theory of selfhood. Based on the presentation of selfhood in those works, the viewer establishes a cinematic relation to the visual self that extends and transgresses the boundaries of inside and outside, presence and absence, and here and there. In the second part, I interpret epistemic scenes of cinematic works as durational scenes in which selfhood is exposed with respect to the forces of time and space. My close readings of epistemic scenes of the films The Congress (2013), and Boyhood (2014) propose that cinema is a philosophical mirror collecting loss of selfhood over time for the viewer. Further, the cinematic concert A Trip to Japan, Revisited (2013), and the hyper-film Cool World (1992) disperse a spatial sense of selfhood for the viewer. In the third part, I examine moments of selfhood and the forces of death, survival, and love in the practice of contemporary cinematic portraiture in Joshua Oppenheimer’s, Michael Glawogger’s, and Yorgos Lanthimos’ work. While the force of death is interpreted in the portrait of perpetrators in The Act of Killing (2013), and The Look of Silence (2014), the force of survival in the longing for life is analysed in Megacities (1998), Workingman’s death (2005), and Whores’ Glory (2011). Lastly, Dogtooth (2009), Alps (2011), and The Lobster (2015) present the contemporary human condition as a lost intuition of relationality epitomised in love.

Först presenteras metafysisk funktionalism. En Ramseysats för smärta spelar en central roll som en implicit definition av ett mentalt tillstånd över sensorisk input och beteendemässig output. Därefter presenteras reliabilismen som en teori om kunskap. Några allmänna kunskapsteoretiska problem, samt några av reliabilismens problem presenteras. De mest relevanta problem är följande: fallet med en elak demon, klärvoajans samt Mr. Truetemp, och generalitetsproblemet. En formell och schematisk presentation ges för reliabilism som en teori för kunskap, eller möjligen tillskrivande av kunskap, och processreliabilism som en teori för epistemiskt rättfärdigande. Därefter exponeras strukturella likheter mellan funktionalism och processreliabilism. Det får anses plausibelt att det råder ett nära släktskap mellan dessa teorier då Ramseysatser för rättfärdigade trosföreställningar presenteras. Dessa analyseras sedan utifrån möjliga fall. Med ny teoretisk bakgrund prövas reliabilismens problem ånyo inom ett funktionalistisk ramverk. Nya sätt att bemöta problemen presenteras genom en analys av det Kinesiska Rummet. Det svårlösta generalitetsproblemet kan ses som ett frameproblem och hanteras med hjälp av enveloping. / Firstly, a presentation of metaphysical functionalism. A Ramsey sentence plays a central role as an implicit definition of a mental state over sensory input and behavouristic output. A presentation of reliabilism as a theory of knowledge. A summary of some general epistemological problems and some specific to reliabilism; the main ones are the evil demon, clairvoyance and Mr. Truetemp, and the generality problem. A formal and schematic presentation of reliabilism as a theory of knowlege, or possibly knowlege attribution, and process reliabilism as a theory of belief justification. Structural similarities between functionalism and process reliabilism are exposed. A close kinship between these two theories seems plausible because of the possibility to present Ramsey sentences for justified beliefs. These Ramsey sentences are then analysed over possible cases. This new theoretical background, warrents another look at problems for reliabilism. New ways to counter these problems are presented via an analysis of the Chinese Room. The elusive genrality problem is seen as a frame problem and treated using enveloping.