The overarching theme of the thesis concerns the terminology aspect of searchability in digitalised archival data. The aim of the work is to analyse material from two archives (The Institute for Language and Folklore (ISOF) and The Nordic Museum) on the subject of sprang and the names of that technique during the 20th century in a Swedish rural setting. The questions posed to the material concern geographic occurrence, descriptions, confusions due to homonyms, and the origins of names. The theoretical foundation is based in relationships like ideology, gender, and power. The idea of nationalism through symbols like names is used to analyse the material. The method is archival research, based in the two archives and a small case-study of the names used for sprang objects in the database digitaltmuseum.se (containing several Swedish museum collections). Key words are used in the search and in total twenty-six hits are examined. The material is categorised in geographic position, names used, and whether it is sprang or not.  The study finds an occurrence of sprang in a rural context later in time, and further north in geography than the literature on the subject would suggest. The case study shows that some confusion in terminology exists between museums, and sometimes within the collection of a single museum. The study suggests that technical terms should be preferred by institutions rather than rural, folkloric, names.

In the following essay, I examine the ecocritical aspects of the writings of Thomas Tidholm, Swedish poet and children’s author. I argue for the existence of “green threads” that permeate the authorship, and analyse them through three thematic chapters where several of Tidholm’s texts, for children and adults, are juxtaposed in order to expand, contrast and deepen one another. The themes are: approaching the other, language and humanity and parts and unity. In my analysis I show that Tidholm continues to return to these themes throughout many different texts, exploring the difficulties and possibilities in human relationships to each otherand to nature. I conclude that even though Tidholm questions whether we truly can come close to, communicate with and fully understand others (humans or otherwise), he seems to hold the conviction that it is vitally important that we try. While the essay belongs in the field of ecocriticism, my working approach has been that of ordinary language philosophy as defined by literary scholar Toril Moi, following the works of Wittgenstein, Austin and Cavell. Thus, the essay is written in a spirit of acklowledgement rather than scepticism – my aim has been to bring out important aspects of the texts and show that, when read together, those aspects are enhanced. I find this especially important since the readerships of poetry and picture books do not always overlap. Furthermore, I suggest that Thomas Tidholm can be seen as a contemporary thinker whose ideas question and seek alternatives to the individualism of capitalist modern society. Keywords: ecocritisism, Thomas Tidholm, nature, environment, language