This study examines a Greek civil society organization, which is struggling to cope with the precarity caused by the environment of crisis. By looking into the austerity that prevails in Greece, I aim to discuss the connection between the Greek society and the organization, as both of them are struggling with the consequences of the crisis which brings them into a precarious position. The methods used during the fieldwork were mainly participant observation in the space of the organization, and interviews as well as informal conversations with the members and recipients of the Solidarity Association. By analyzing their discourses introduced in the thesis through ethnographic stories, I claim that the interplay between precarious labor and precarious life transforms the organization into a space of silence. I suggest that this deadening of life should not only be seen as an outcome of the long period of living under harsh conditions, but also as one of the factors which brings the organization into dissolution. By looking at the disintegration of the Solidarity Association, I discuss that its solidarian culture turns into a philanthropic one due to individualistic behaviors which I argue are one of the outcomes of people’s precarious living. This thesis focuses more on what precarity does rather on what it is and it should be seen as a contribution to the understanding of the influence that precarity has on an organization placed in the context of contemporary austerity-ridden Greece.

<p>I denna essä behandlas ämnet internationell adoption. Jag gör en hermeneutisk och holistisk undersökning av det internationella adoptionsfenomenet genom att ställa en dominerande diskurs i relation till en motdiskurs. På grund av ämnets omfattning kommer jag att ha Sverige som utgångspunkt för diskussionen. Det land varifrån den internationella adoptionen sker är i denna undersökning Sri Lanka.</p><p>Med frågeställningen "Hur konstrueras en diskurs?" undersöks de aspekter den internationella adoptionsverksamheten är sammansatt av.</p><p>Jag vill påvisa den internationella adoptionsverksamhetens hegemoniska/diskursiva status och belysa den vetenskapliga och rationella praxis den är i besittning av. Den internationella adoptionsdiskursen är en konstruktion som skapar en föreställning att Sri Lankas mödrar utlandsadopterar sina barn pga fattigdom. Rådande forskning om internationell adoption är mycket ensidig. Jag har därför försökt att ge en så kontextualiserad bild som möjligt.</p>

<p>In 1991, women from Dubagunta, Nellore District in the state of Andhra Pradesh forced the liquor traders to leave the area. This incident is believed to have been the origin of the Anti-Liquor Movement, which finally led to alcoholic beverages being prohibited in the state. The main participants in the early struggle were unprivileged, rural low-caste women. They were supported by voluntary organisations and later by politicians from the opposition parties.</p><p>The study presents an analysis of the process whereby the political and private endeavours of individuals were integrated into a broader social movement. It discusses discourses on gender and household relations in rural Andhra Pradesh and the involvement of urban activists as organisers, leaders and translators of the struggle. The attention is on how politicians, representatives of the state administration, and liquor traders either sided with the temperance movement or worked against it, and on the blurred boundary between 'friend' and 'foe'. It demonstrates how the media coverage and the gathering of participants in collective activities - such as demonstrations, meetings, sit-ins, and protest travelling - were vital for the formation of an 'imagined community' of protest.</p><p>The Anti-Liquor Movement of Andhra Pradesh is shaped by global processes. The Indian economy opened up to global market forces in the 1980s and at the same time local activists became involved in transnational debates on feminism, Gandhianism, and Marxism. Even so, as the study reveals, the movement as such was mainly confined to Andhra Pradesh.</p>

<p>The study is divided into three parts – the development of wage labour towards becoming the dominant norm in society, how this norm is challenged in a specific geographical context, and lastly a study of two unemployed individuals and their everyday activities, what and especially why certain behaviour occurs. The main purpose with the text is to study unemployed people in a specific geographical context in a overall society where wage labour is thought to be the norm. Questions that is being asked is how the unemployed individual works in a society where wage labour is the dominant activity for the day. This is connected to a study of Möllevången, a district of Malmö, where the wage labour norm can be thought of as being challenged. Employment and unemployment is categorised as part of the same activity, in a perspective they share the same functions, the demand for spending time in the system and they constitute, in principle, the only ways of earning a living, the wage or unemployment benefit, which both comes with similar demands towards the individual.</p>

<p>This essay will focus on drug addicts and their relations to the majority society in Sweden. The concepts of “subculture” and “stigmatization” applied to drug addicts are central in the analysis. The essay is based on interviews with two different groups of informants: one consisting of drug addicts and the other of non-addicts. The essay describes, analyses and interprets the informants’ ways of relating to society and the observed tendencies of being a part of a subculture as well as obejcts of stigmatization, both individual and structural.</p>

Ideas about "exercise" and "health" have varied over time and across cultures. With the recent Euro-American fitness trend, a growing number of Swedes now take part in some kind of physical activity at Gyms or Fitness Centers. By applying a phenomenological and constructivist approach, the aim of this ethnographic study is to examine the non-profit but also commercial culture of and around this form of exercise. The focus is on how meaning is created, transformed, embodied, and perceived by gym goers as truth, science, knowledge, or even myth. There are two central overlapping concerns in this thesis, both dealing with the interrelation between categories, and status positions. The first part of the thesis deals with the social aspects of movement, such as the definition and categorization of self and others as different types of gym-goers. Related to this are also what is termed critical norms of interpretation of aims and reasons for exercise, such as gaining strength or aesthetic improvement. The other central concern is more specifically focused on the body itself and deals with ideas about exercise, diet, substances, and physiology, that is, how to exercise and how the body works. "The body is made to move", was a common saying at Gyms and Centers, meaning that the human body is physically built to be active. But the techniques and practices of how this movement is performed vary and are sometimes even contradictory. Here sources in the distribution of ideas about the body and body movement are brought out: the Internet, informal and formal instructors in the Gym, as well as gym machines. The method has been participant observation and in-depth interviews with gym goers and instructors at Gyms and Fitness Centers in two middle size towns in Sweden mainly during a year in 2004-2005. Rather than taking sides in the debate on how to exercise, this thesis raises wider questions about the authority to define reality.

In 1991, women from Dubagunta, Nellore District in the state of Andhra Pradesh forced the liquor traders to leave the area. This incident is believed to have been the origin of the Anti-Liquor Movement, which finally led to alcoholic beverages being prohibited in the state. The main participants in the early struggle were unprivileged, rural low-caste women. They were supported by voluntary organisations and later by politicians from the opposition parties. The study presents an analysis of the process whereby the political and private endeavours of individuals were integrated into a broader social movement. It discusses discourses on gender and household relations in rural Andhra Pradesh and the involvement of urban activists as organisers, leaders and translators of the struggle. The attention is on how politicians, representatives of the state administration, and liquor traders either sided with the temperance movement or worked against it, and on the blurred boundary between 'friend' and 'foe'. It demonstrates how the media coverage and the gathering of participants in collective activities - such as demonstrations, meetings, sit-ins, and protest travelling - were vital for the formation of an 'imagined community' of protest. The Anti-Liquor Movement of Andhra Pradesh is shaped by global processes. The Indian economy opened up to global market forces in the 1980s and at the same time local activists became involved in transnational debates on feminism, Gandhianism, and Marxism. Even so, as the study reveals, the movement as such was mainly confined to Andhra Pradesh.

The study is divided into three parts – the development of wage labour towards becoming the dominant norm in society, how this norm is challenged in a specific geographical context, and lastly a study of two unemployed individuals and their everyday activities, what and especially why certain behaviour occurs. The main purpose with the text is to study unemployed people in a specific geographical context in a overall society where wage labour is thought to be the norm. Questions that is being asked is how the unemployed individual works in a society where wage labour is the dominant activity for the day. This is connected to a study of Möllevången, a district of Malmö, where the wage labour norm can be thought of as being challenged. Employment and unemployment is categorised as part of the same activity, in a perspective they share the same functions, the demand for spending time in the system and they constitute, in principle, the only ways of earning a living, the wage or unemployment benefit, which both comes with similar demands towards the individual.

I denna essä behandlas ämnet internationell adoption. Jag gör en hermeneutisk och holistisk undersökning av det internationella adoptionsfenomenet genom att ställa en dominerande diskurs i relation till en motdiskurs. På grund av ämnets omfattning kommer jag att ha Sverige som utgångspunkt för diskussionen. Det land varifrån den internationella adoptionen sker är i denna undersökning Sri Lanka. Med frågeställningen "Hur konstrueras en diskurs?" undersöks de aspekter den internationella adoptionsverksamheten är sammansatt av. Jag vill påvisa den internationella adoptionsverksamhetens hegemoniska/diskursiva status och belysa den vetenskapliga och rationella praxis den är i besittning av. Den internationella adoptionsdiskursen är en konstruktion som skapar en föreställning att Sri Lankas mödrar utlandsadopterar sina barn pga fattigdom. Rådande forskning om internationell adoption är mycket ensidig. Jag har därför försökt att ge en så kontextualiserad bild som möjligt.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka hur de roller som vi hör under sändningstid i radio är konstruerade och om det sker en förhandling om hur dessa roller upprätthålls under programmets tid. Uppsatsen ämnar reda ut vad som synliggörs när ett dramaturgisk perspektiv används under en observation på ett radioprogram. Finns det ett samspel inom redaktionen som vi som lyssnare inte ser? I denna uppsats vill jag försöka se om det finns några outtalade rangordningar inom gruppen och hur dessa kommer till uttryck. Vidare syftar studien till att titta på hur pass fria programledarna är i sina roller och försöka utreda om det är mer styrt än vad vi som lyssnare uppfattar. Går det att se en skiftning bland rollerna beroende på vilken gäst som kommer? Och hur yttrar sig denna? Fokus i studien kommer att ligga på hur de befintliga roller som vi som lyssnare hör uttrycker sig under musiktid, och detta kommer att analyseras med Erving Goffmans dramaturgiska modell för socialt handlande. Frågeställningar: Vilka roller finns det inom det observerade radioprogrammet? Hur yttrar sig rollerna under sändningstid? Förändras rollerna beroende om det är On air eller Off air och hur yttrar sig förändringen i så fall? Hur yttrar sig samspelet inom gruppen?