Living in the countryside can be complex and is often a matter of daily movements in order to make all activities fit into one’s life. The structure of everyday life is also about the interplay between political decisions and physical structures. This thesis shows the consequences of change to the rural landscape for daily life. In this case, the change was brought about by the closure of two rural schools in Ydre, Sweden. The aim of this thesis is to analyse the meaning of rural schools in the development of local society and identity, and how such meaning is based on people’s time-spatial everyday stories. The study focuses on how households interpret change and the problems that arise from the closure of rural schools. Studying this is accomplished through interviews with twelve households with schoolchildren of varying ages and is based on a time-geographical perspec-tive. In the spring of 2009, qualitative interviews were carried out concerning rural life and the possible effect of closure-threatened schools on their daily lives. In the autumn of 2009, the schools were closed, and the same families were visited and the household studies fol-lowed up with further interviews. Thus, the study investigates local circumstances, how householders adapt to structural changes, how this creates patterns in their everyday lives and activities, and how schools and private life are connected.  One conclusion here is that the householders are concerned about their local community. They highlight the importance of the rural school, which they consider exclusive and not just a resource for the children but the community as a whole. Thereby, they highlight their hope that their area is seen as attractive by visitors; by people looking for somewhere to settle down; and also by themselves, the inhabitants. A school is not just a place for teaching; it is also an important place where parents can meet; it is a part of social life; and it is a place where social networks are created and decisions about everyday life are made. Through stud-ies of the school closures and people’s everyday experiences, some of the complexities of countryside life and problems appear in a more human-centred and everyday perspective.

Few health studies of psychological stress have examined individual socio-environmental stressors in the field at a daily path scale. An individual's conception of a stressful experience is inextricably linked to the process of cognitive appraisals, which are the meanings assigned to social situations and environments. Directly assessing individual stress exposures in the field as they are experienced requires mobile measures that are people-based, rather than using place- or activity-based proxies. The integration of time geography and psychology's theory of daily hassles/uplifts allow for the measurement of stressors from a geographic perspective. This study advances research on socio-environmental health exposures by (1) focusing on measuring a cognitive health exposure; (2) using mobile methods to acquire quantitative and qualitative field data; and (3) geo-referencing physiological responses to examine daily path patterns and commonalities in stress exposure. In this study, spatiotemporal paths linked with physiological measurement are combined with individual narratives on stress, place, and social situations to examine socio-environmental factors that influence stress exposures. Mobile measurement tools include wristwatch Global Positioning System (GPS) units with synched heart rate monitors and digital audio recorders. Stress as operationalized in this study is a negative cognitive appraisal and related physiological reaction to internal dialogues and the surrounding socio-environment assessed through heart rate reactivity (HRR) and individual accounts. Measuring geographically referenced physiological responses and personal accounts is a novel field approach that captures the acute stressful episodes that are a part of daily life. Results show that there is a difference between measuring stress through a static metric like the Student-Life Stress Inventory (SSI) and assessing stress with mobile self-report and monitored measures. The negative correlation between HRR and SSI total score appears to highlight the divide between fundamentally different measurement methods for stress exposures; active versus passive. Regardless of the relation with previous psychometrics the mobile measures used in this research produced a 75 percent concordance between the participants self-reported stress episodes and monitored heart rate (HR) logs. HRR episodes that build in intensity and then ebb toward the end are more common than those that have an abrupt beginning and ending point. The incorporation of ethnographic audio diaries and the participant survey provided insight about the influence of academic pressures on socio-environmental contexts relating to stress experiences.

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Many rural village schools have closed over the years, both in Sweden and internationally, because of urbanisation, centralisation and the quest for efficiency. This study shows the impact of two school closures in the rural area of Ydre, south-east Sweden, and describes the reactions of children and families concerned. The aim is to analyse what rural village schools mean for everyday life and how such meaning is based on time-spatial everyday stories. How the children and families view the school closures emerges in the time-geographic perspective, on their own terms, given their opportunity to demonstrate how they use different time-space components. This was studied by interviewing and sketching mental maps with 28 pupils of various ages, and by interviewing and drawing up weekly time schedules with 12 families. This also enabled the analyses to be extended, using the time-geographic conceptual framework, and in particular the interplay between structural changes and individuals’ day-to-day lives, and the interconnections between school and private life, to be clarified. One conclusion is that a school is no mere teaching venue. It is also a key meeting place for children, part of community life and a space for social networking and daily decision-making: a local community hub for the children and their parents alike. When a local school closes and the pupils need to travel further for schooling elsewhere, it affects their travel and activity patterns and social networks. Children’s drawings express their perceptions of place, time and distance. This study shows that the locations where children spend time and have their social networks, as well as how and how often they travel on particular routes, are crucial for their assessment of distance, both temporal and spatial. Describing the value of the closure-threatened school, parents express concern about their local village. They stress the importance of the village school, which they regard as excellent, unique and a resource for the family, but also for the community as a whole. Thereby, they highlight their hope that their community will be attractive to visitors, and also to themselves, the residents. The threats of closure upset them and provoke discussions on how to sustain a living countryside. Studies of children’s and families’ experience of school closures pinpoint the complexity of rural life and show it in a more human-centred, everyday light. Since children are absent from the municipal closure procedure, views of children’s participation are also discussed.

The main objective of this thesis is to analyze places and everyday paths of specific actors, that are generated through their repetitive routine activities. These activities are influenced by certain higher order rules - so-called pacemakers, which are dealt with in the thesis. Part of the thesis not only presents some space-time concepts, but also applies them in practice. The work proceeds from a basic concept of a place being structured through life actors themselves who create such place. These concept pacemakers play an important role, controlling the course of everyday life of the localized place, as well as the course of an ordinary day in the life of the actor. The institution of primary school becomes the main pacemaker and represents a linking element of all parts. In connection with the ongoing process of suburbanization and the reality of changing lifestyle and demographic composition in the neighborhood of cities, one may observe here certain indication of current changing supralocal influence of primary school pacemakers in Pilsen and its suburbs. The paper also focuses on the analysis of a particular place, the municipality where the individual pacemakers manifest and create the polyrythmicity of place through localized rhythms. Moreover, it also places focus on pacemakers operating...

People with intellectual disability are living longer, which creates new demands for the support and care of this target group. Participation and autonomy at all ages, regardless of functional capacity, are cited in legislation and among the key objectives of disability policy. As a group, older people with intellectual disability have previously been almost invisible in both policy documents and research. Information regarding this group is thus limited, and more systematic knowledge is needed about older people with intellectual disability, their daily lives, and especially their opportunities for autonomy. The purpose of this thesis is to learn more about the role of influence and autonomy in everyday life from the perspective of older people with intellectual disability living in group homes. This will be achieved by studying situations in which opportunities and obstacles arise for these residents to exercise their autonomy in daily life, and identifying and analysing how autonomy is expressed in the meeting between residents and staff. The study applies an ethnographic approach, using methods including field studies with observations and videotaped meetings between residents and staff. The sample consists of residents aged 65 and over and staff at three group homes for people with intellectual disability. One resident at each group home is followed in greater depth. The analysis uses the time-geographic concepts of project, activity and restrictions in order to clarify where and when different projects are carried out, as well as who has the power to determine what is to be carried out. Interaction analysis is used to analyse the videotaped meetings between residents and staff. The analysis is based on Goffman’s interaction order and interaction rituals, theories about turntaking, both verbal and non-verbal, and theories about power and counter-power. In accordance with Goffman’s framework concept, the starting point is the concrete framework that reflects spatiality, which in turn becomes a way to place the more abstract framework of the situation into a specific context. Two major projects were identified: Sleep and Rest and Meals. The analysis reveals projects that are governed by the resident’s own preferences (individual projects) and projects that are governed to a greater degree by the staff’s objectives and opportunities (institutional projects). Some guidance also derives from municipal decisions and guidelines (organizational projects). Many projects were carried out based on staff decisions and objectives, but in actual practice many projects failed to get off the ground. Some projects were at risk of failure until something happened or someone intervened and thereby rescued the project so that it could be implemented. The interactional analysis perspective shows how autonomy is constructed in the meeting. Autonomy is situation-bound, and shifts more on the basis of context than in relation to specific individuals. The study includes decision situations mainly between autonomy and its opposite, paternalism, which are viewed as extremes on a continuum. However, certain factors lead to stronger autonomy in certain situations. When a resident can define the situation, they also have greater power to determine the outcome. In situations characterized by paternalism, the staff have a preferential right of interpretation and the power to decide, both on the basis of their knowledge and because of the asymmetrical interdependence that characterizes the resident-professional relationship. Such situations are also governed by the rules and procedures of the group home to a greater degree than those situations in which the resident exercises autonomy. The thesis discusses strategies that could increase the residents’ opportunities for autonomy. Greater communication skills among staff can be viewed as a step on the path toward greater autonomy for the residents. Staff have the potential to eliminate obstacles, to strengthen inadequate skills or create new ones by providing choices and assistive devices, and to exercise an affirmative approach.

<p>This study addresses the question of change in household structure and the reproduction of “life from day to day”. It is based on structuration theory, time-geography and Allan Pred’s theory of place as historically contingent process. Large households are viewed as tokens of the early modern era, and the appearance of small households can therefore be seen as signs of modernisation. But the decline in size of the average household was not dramatic, it went from 3.53 people per household in 1760 to 3.31 people in 1830. By the composition of different occupational groups in the city in 1760 and 1830, it is evident that the decline of the textile industry, the low activity in the building trades and the decrease of residential sailors – and the subsequent rise of petty trade and traditional handicrafts – gave a strong influx of traditional elements to the evolution of the household. In contrast to this there were a number of “new” or more modern elements that can be seen as precursors to the structure of daily life in the modern era. One of these was a rising number of households which were small and headed by people who earlier in history would have been household members – and not heads of households. The structure of daily life and its reproduction from day-to-day is also analysed in the study. This pattern was both affected by certain changes in the overall household structure, and by two phenomena that directly had an impact on the recreation of life from day to day. The first of these was the “food money”, a substitution of money for the right to food in the employers house, and the second was a move from the right to lodgings in the employers’ home to the need of living quarters elsewhere. Both of these phenomena acted on the “structure of daily life”, and helped to alter the focus of daily life, that is to turn it away from the productive households and put more attention on the streets and on the households that only served as reproductive units.</p>

Information and communication technologies (ICT) such as cell phone and the Internet have extended opportunities of human activities and interactions from physical spaces to virtual spaces. The relaxed spatio-temporal constraints on individual activities may affect human activity-travel patterns, social networks, and many other aspects of society. A challenge for research of human activities in the ICT age is to develop analytical environments that can help visualize and explore individual activities in virtual spaces and their mutual impacts with physical activities. This dissertation focuses on extending the time-geographic framework and developing a spatio-temporal exploratory environment in a space-time geographic information system (GIS) to facilitate research of human interactions in both physical and virtual spaces. In particular, this dissertation study addresses three research questions. First, it extends the time-geographic framework to assess the impacts of phone usage on potential face-to-face (F2F) meeting opportunities, as well as dynamic changes in potential F2F meeting opportunities over time. Secondly, this study extends the time-geographic framework to conceptualize and represent individual trajectories in an online social network space and to explore potential interaction opportunities among people in a virtual space. Thirdly, this study presents a spatio-temporal environment in a space-time GIS to facilitate exploration of the relationships between changes in physical proximity and changes in social closeness in a virtual space. The major contributions of this dissertation include: (1) advancing the time-geographic framework in its ability of exploring processes of virtual communication alerting physical activity opportunities; (2) extending some concepts of the classical time geography from a physical space to a virtual space for representing and exploring virtual interaction patterns; (3) developing a space-time GIS that is useful for exploring patterns of individual activities and interactions in both physical and virtual spaces, as well as the interactions between these two spaces.

Technology used for real-time locating is being used to identify and track the movements of individuals in real time. With the increased use of mobile technology by individuals, we are now able to explore more potential interactions between people and their living environment using real-time tracking and communication technologies. One of the potentials that has hardly been taken advantage of is to use cell phone tracking information for activity-based transportation study. Using GPS-embedded smart phones, it is convenient to continuously record our trajectories in a day with little information loss. As smart phones get cheaper and hence attract more users, the potential information source for self-tracking data is pervasive. This study provides a cell phone plus web method that collects volunteer cell phone tracking data and uses an algorithm to identify the allocation of activities and traveling in space and time. It also provides a step that incorporates user-participated prompted recall attribute identification (travel modes and activity types) which supplements the data preparation for activity-based travel demand modeling. Besides volunteered geospatial information collection, cell phone users’ real-time locations are often collected by service providers such as Apple, AT&T and many other third-party companies. This location data has been used in turn to boost new location-based services. However, few applications have been seen to address dynamic human interactions and spatio-temporal constraints of activities. This study sets up a framework for a new kind of location-based service that finds joint-activity opportunities for multiple individuals, and demonstrates its feasibility using a spatio-temporal GIS approach.

This study addresses the question of change in household structure and the reproduction of “life from day to day”. It is based on structuration theory, time-geography and Allan Pred’s theory of place as historically contingent process. Large households are viewed as tokens of the early modern era, and the appearance of small households can therefore be seen as signs of modernisation. But the decline in size of the average household was not dramatic, it went from 3.53 people per household in 1760 to 3.31 people in 1830. By the composition of different occupational groups in the city in 1760 and 1830, it is evident that the decline of the textile industry, the low activity in the building trades and the decrease of residential sailors – and the subsequent rise of petty trade and traditional handicrafts – gave a strong influx of traditional elements to the evolution of the household. In contrast to this there were a number of “new” or more modern elements that can be seen as precursors to the structure of daily life in the modern era. One of these was a rising number of households which were small and headed by people who earlier in history would have been household members – and not heads of households. The structure of daily life and its reproduction from day-to-day is also analysed in the study. This pattern was both affected by certain changes in the overall household structure, and by two phenomena that directly had an impact on the recreation of life from day to day. The first of these was the “food money”, a substitution of money for the right to food in the employers house, and the second was a move from the right to lodgings in the employers’ home to the need of living quarters elsewhere. Both of these phenomena acted on the “structure of daily life”, and helped to alter the focus of daily life, that is to turn it away from the productive households and put more attention on the streets and on the households that only served as reproductive units.