There are shared opinions about how young people's participation in politics looks like today. Some studies show that young people's participation in party politics has been drastically reduced. Simultaneously, other studies show how young people are more politically interested today than in a long time. Thus, young people have a strong interest in politics, but participate to a lesser extent in party politics. Then where does young people's doing of politics go? The purpose of this study is to show how societal changes such as increased individualization and digitalization have come to influence how young people do politics today. In order to understand the changes that have taken place in what is considered to be politics and how politics is being practiced today, we need to take a step back and look at the major societal changes that have taken place in late modern society. Through a qualitative study based on interviews, this paper has sought answers to how today's young people are doing politics in late modern society and how it can explain the paradox of declining participation in party politics and at the same time increasing interest in politics. The result showed that young people's doing of politics today has come to be individualized, where much of the doing of politics is based on the individual and everyday life. Therefore, what was previously considered personal and non-political has come to be politicized. This politicization of the unpolitical has been done at the expense of the political which at the same time becomes more unpolitical for the young, and thus the low interest in the political system and to channel its political action through political parties. Digitalization has also contributed to the fact that this individual engagement can be exercised via social media which has become an important political arena for young people today. To a greater extent, the young citizen now wants to be a political actor of their own and to influence themselves directly in relation to society, rather than having their views represented by politicians. In this way, past private acts such as consuming less meat and one's own career choices are largely political actions in late modern society.

Denna studie undersöker ungdomars upplevelse av astrologi och annan spiritualitet i dagens senmoderna samhälle. Syftet har varit att komma åt ungdomarnas livsvärldar och undersöka på djupet hur de upplever astrologi och om det används för att hantera svåra livskriser, där fokuset främst har legat på covid-19-pandemin. Grunden till vårt syfte kommer från ett intresse för att undersöka hanteringen av coronapandemin på individnivå, där vi är särskilt intresserade av att undersöka om spiritualiteten har någon plats i ungdomars sätt att hantera svåra livskriser i det senmoderna samhället. Studien har sin teoretiska utgångspunkt i Giddens teorier om det senmoderna samhället, ontologisk trygghet och självets reflexiva projekt. Vidare har den tagit stöd i sekulärt existentiellt meningsskapande coping. Utifrån en hermeneutisk metodansats har tio semistrukturerade intervjuer hållits med ungdomar mellan åldrarna 18 till 25. Studiens resultat presenterar en huvudtolkning som belyser att dagens ungdomar tenderar att ta det som det kommer och lita på att situationer löser sig. Deras tillvägagångssätt för att klara av att finna sig i det varierar, men vi menar att astrologin och spiritualiteten ändå har en märkbar närvaro på ett eller annat sätt.

How did the conformist “organization man” of modern welfare society turn into the restless and flexible market-rational individualist of late-modernity? And what role did technology play in this transformation? Drawing from inquiries like these, this doctoral thesis deals with topics such as technology, culture, and the production of social consciousness. The aim of the study is to elucidate the historical emergence of late-modern reason, visible in the socio-material process of automation. The study takes two mundane technical innovations as starting points to investigate dominant social values and rationalities embedded in, and emerging from material transformations in the production process of two late modern, Swedish organizations. Covering a period of roughly fifty years (1960–2013), the analysis relies on the interpretation of a variety of both contemporary and archived sources, including interviews, observations, witness accounts and archived material in the form of staff magazines, newspapers, photographs and official documents. While following a hermeneutical tradition of European ethnology the study is also an attempt to enrich its synchronous cultural analysis of everyday life with theory grounded in historical (dialectical) materialism. Along this line of thought the thesis suggests that many of the qualities, values and everyday experiences attributed to late-modernity, such as “flexibility”, “creativity” and “flat organizations” depend on the reification and embedding of modernist social forms, ideas and relations, such as instrumental rationality, routine labour and bureaucratic taxonomy into the material foundation of daily life.

In this thesis I reframe theories of love-relationships in late modernity (by Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman and Ulrich Beck & Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim) in relation to a general framework of discursive theory (inspired by Michel Foucault). I suggest that current developments and contradictions in the field of love-relationships with advantage can be understood in terms of discourse and discursive conflict. Utilizing the discursive framework, I conceptualize two conflicting discursive regimes (as romantic love and individualized freedom), and their components. With these components in mind, I explore how contradicting discursive components are problematized in established risk-discourse, using cases of popular culture as illustrative reference. Risk-discourses force short-term practical solutions, and put pressure on further discursive change by inducing anxiety and cognitive dissonance. Future discourse will have to adapt to several conditions, including the (in)compatibility of discursive components, how well practical strategies work out, how social interaction is organized, and how discursive deconstruction unavoidably have consequences for the fundaments of love itself. / I uppsatsen omtolkar jag senmodernitetsteorier om kärleksrelationer (av Anthony Giddens, Zygmunt Bauman och Ulrich Beck & Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim) till ett generellt diskurs­teoretiskt ramverk (inspirerat av Michel Foucualt). Uppsatsen redogör för hur samtida utvecklingar och motsättningar inom fältet kärleksrelationer med fördel kan förstås i diskursteoretiska termer. Med hjälp av detta ramverk utvecklar jag två diskursiva regimer och deras respektive komponenter (konceptualiserade som romantisk kärlek och individualiserad frihet). Med dessa komponenter i åtanke granskar jag hur konflikterande komponenter problematiseras genom etablerade riskdiskurser, med fallstudier av populärkultur som illustrativa exempel. Jag menar att att dessa riskdiskurser driver fram kortsiktiga praktiska lösningar, och orsakar ångest och kognitiv dissonans vilka motiverar ytterligare diskursiva förändringar. Kommande diskursiva förändringar måste förhålla sig till flertalet omständig­heter inklusive diskurskomponenternas (in)kompabilitet, huruvida praktiska lösningar är hållbara, hur social interaktion organiseras i allmänhet och hur diskursiv dekonstruktion oundvikligen får konsekvenser för kärlekens fundament.

This study aims to examine, using a late modern perspective, the anti­vaccination discourse in Sweden. The study contributes to a better understanding of what is communicated in the discourse, the truths that are presented and how legitimacy is created. Through a broadened understanding of the way this resistance operates in digital media, we are given a better understanding of how authorities can respond to the increased vaccination resistance on these platforms. The theories used in this study is Ulrich Beck's theories of the late modern risk society, Henry Jenkins theory of participatory culture and media convergence and Michel Foucault's theory of power/knowledge and truth effects. The method used for this study is a discourse analysis inspired by Michel Foucault. The premise regarding the choice of material for the study was to adopt a position of a person seeking information regarding vaccine. Thus, a search at Google.com was made. The result showed that the authorities were under­represented in the hit lists in all the searches, and sometimes even completely absent. The results also show that the anti­vaccination discourse is characterized by a strong distrust of authorities, science and pharmaceutical companies. Further, truths about societal actors systematic cover­up of the vaccine's actual content and effects is revealed in the discourse. Moreover, there is a focus on the truths about vaccines. The vaccines are said to be ineffective, dangerous because of its toxic content and causing serious side effects. Furthermore, the diseases that we are vaccinated against is said to be harmless and natural. Overall, the anti­vaccination discourse presents a very critical view of the entire vaccine industry. Finally, this resistance must be faced and dealt with by the authorities to prevent serious social consequences due to decreased vaccination coverage.

Detta examensarbete undersöker de svenska riksdagspartiernas valprogram för att analysera de diskursiva uttrycken gällande utbildningspolitik med särskilt fokus på skolans syften. Uppsatsens utgångspunkt är att samhället befinner sig i en tid som kan benämnas som ett senmodernt samhälle, varvid den inriktar sig på valprogram för tiden 1998-2018. I analysen används en kritisk diskursanalys för att analysera texterna närmare och i uppsatsen tillämpas teorier om skola och senmodernitet av Zygmunt Bauman, Gert J.J. Biesta samt Tomas Englund. I analysen har synliggjorts att den senmoderna skolan främst präglas av tre tydliga. diskurser som möts i de svenska riksdagspartiernas valprogram. Främst syns begrepp ommätning och resultat , nostalgi och tillbakagång till det gamla samt ett klassiskt liberalt frihets- och förnuftsideal i texterna. / This master thesis examines the electoral manifestos of the Swedish parliamentary parties in order to analyze the discursive expressions regarding education policy, with a particular focus on the purpose of education. As the thesis finds its starting point in the concept of late modernity, it focuses on the electoral programmes from the time period of 1998-2018. The analysis uses a critical discourse analysis to analyze the texts in closer detail. Theories on school and late modernity by Zygmunt Bauman, Gert J.J. Biesta and Tomas Englund form the theoretical framework. The analysis establishes that the late-modern school is primarily characterized by three clear categories of discourse which intersect in the electoral programmes of the Swedish parties. Primarily, notions of measurement and results are visible in the texts, along with nostalgia and a desire to return to the past, as well as a classical liberal ideal of freedom and reason. / <p>Examensarbetet är en del av den samordnade lärarutbildningen mellan Lunds universitet och Högskolan Kristianstad. </p>

Studiens syfte är att undersöka hur Jacques Werup förhåller sig till platsen i diktsamlingarna 48 dikter från Österlen och Septemberljus. Undersökningen utgår från Werups tydliga förankring i den skånska poesitraditionen, där Lawrence Buells ekokritiska platsbegrepp utgör ett ledsagande perspektiv för analysen. Werup gör upp med en skånska pastoral tradition genom att belysa senmodernitetens följder i sin poesi, vilket leder honom mot en poesi där samhällets mobila karaktär kommer till uttryck på ett mer autentiskt sätt. Genom sin icke-idylliserande poesi försöker Werup gestalta en upplevelse av platsen som svarar mot vårt senmoderna samhälle. / The aim of the study is to investigate how Jacques Werup relates to place in the poetry collections 48 dikter från Österlen and Septemberljus. The investigation is based on Werup's clear connection with the Scanian poetry tradition, where Lawrence Buell's ecocritic concept of place leads the analysis. Werup makes up with a Scanian pastoral tradition by highlighting the consequences of late modernity in his poetry, which leads him towards a poetry where the mobile nature of society is expressed in a more authentic manner. Through this non-idyllic poetry Werup tries to portray an experience of place in line with our late modern society.