Syftet med studien av denna New Age grupp var att behandla begreppet helhet. Den allmänna frågeställningen var hur detta helhetsbegrepp skapades. I en mer avgränsad frågeställning blev utgångspunkten erfarenhet, kunskap och insikt och på vilket sätt detta skapade en koppling mellan den immateriella och materiella världen. I det undersökta materialet ingick litterära källor för bakgrund och referens, men studien grundar sig på intervjumaterial som dock inte presenteras i sin helhet. Materialet har delats upp i tre kategorier som kan spegla synen på den immateriella och den materiella delen av respektive uppfattning, till detta har även ett etiskt perspektiv infogats, detta för att möjliggöra studiet av de faktorer som påverkar sambandet mellan den immateriella och materiella världen. Resultatet av studien visar att reinkarnationsidén var en bärande faktor, där en orientering kring begreppen erfarenhet, kunskap och insikt hade en avgörande betydelse för reinkarnationstanken, vilket även skapade en sammanlänkning av den materiella och immateriella världen. Dessa begrepp var centrala element i skapandet av den helhetssyn man har på tillvaron.

Denna studie handlar om variation i skriven meänkieli med fokus på variation i ett specifikt drag, h i efterstavelsen (t.ex. saunhaan > sauhnaan 'till bastun'). Tidigare forskning har visat att detta språkdrag påträffas med omfattande variation efter ett särskilt mönster i talspråket (t.ex. Mantila 1992, 2010; Vaattovaara 2009). Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka om, och i vilken omfattning, det mönster som beskrivits för det talade språket också påträffas i skriven text på meänkieli. Studien föranleds av det faktum att meänkieli för närvarande befinner sig i en standardiseringsprocess. h i efterstavelsen i talat språk utgör ett komplext system, som kan uppfattas av vanliga språkanvändare som ”svårt att beskriva”. Hur som helst har tidigare forskning indikerat att användningen av h i talat språk är ganska systematiserat och ett mönster för variationen har utvecklats i en bestämd riktning över tid. Med tanke på denna studie är det av intresse att undersöka om mönstret är liknande i skriftlig form, det vill säga om de enskilda författarna i den undersökta korpusen använder sig av ett liknande system för h i sina litterära verk. Studien har inte som syfte att diskutera språkplanering eller principer för standardisering, utan syftet är att skapa en helhetsbild av språklig variation i användningen av h i skriftspråket. Korpusen består av 43 böcker av 18 olika författare från tre olika decennier (1980–2000). Från varje publikation är de första 5250 orden excerperade om verket innehåller fler ord (barnböckerna, som är kortare och till antalet 18, har excerperats i sin helhet.) Studiens primära fokus besvaras med hjälp av frågorna huruvida det förekommer variation mellan de olika författarna, och vilken typ av variation som förekommer inom de texter varje enskild författare skrivit, även över tid betraktat. Syftet med studien är att avslöja om variationsmönster eventuellt sprider sig, eller om mönstret indikerar lika användningssätt mellan de enskilda författarna. Enligt sociolingvistiska teorier om språklig förändring borde en s.k. undersökning i verklig tid över flera decennier visa huruvida en pågående förändring är på gång. Hypotesen för denna studie (huvudsakligen på basis av Mantila 2010) är, att ett liknande system som påträffas i talspråket också påträffas i skriven form. h i efterstavelsen har en historisk utveckling med många förändringar och är ur ett morfologiskt och fonologiskt perspektiv ett mångfacetterat språkdrag. Studien fokuserar enbart på de sex olika lingvistiska positioner där den metatetiska varianten av h i efterstavelsen kan förekomma, vilket alltid sker i samband med en tonande konsonant exempelvis på följande sätt: 1. Stockholmhiin > Stockholhmiin 'till Stockholm', 2. koulhuun > kouhluun 'till skolan', 3. korjaamhaan > korjaahmaan 'för att städa', 4. Pajalhaan > Pajahlaan 'till Pajala', 5. istumhaan >  istuhmaan 'för att sitta', 6. ymmärtänheet > ymmärtähneet 'har förstått'). Tidigare forskning har ansett denna specifika variant av h med metates vara ”ett varumärke för Tornedalen” och språkdraget har visat ett tydligt mönster för variation i Tornedalen. I denna studie speglas variationen av h‑metatesen i litteraturen på meänkieli mot tidigare forskningsresultat rörande talspråk, där språkdraget undersökts både i svenska och finska Tornedalen. Bengt Pohjanen (med det största antalet utgivningar), tillsammans med tre andra författare har undersökts närmare. Ett intressant resultat är att det förekommer relativt omfattande variation mellan dessa författare, samtliga bördiga från en och samma kommun, nämligen Pajala. I motsats till vad som hävdas i traditionell sociolingvistik stämmer inte här antagandet att författarnas härkomst skulle vara en styrande faktor i författarnas språkliga val. Det allra viktigaste resultatet i studien är att enskilda böcker har under de tre undersökta decennierna visat ett överraskande resultat i fråga om variation under 1980- och 1990-talet, men under 2000-talet har det mönster som påträffats i talat språk systematiserats och tagits i bruk på ett enhetligt sätt i litteraturen på meänkieli mer eller mindre hos samtliga författare. I positionerna 1–4 sker metates systematiskt i mellan 85 – 98 % av fallen, medan den i positionerna 5–6 endast påträffas i 0,8 – 1,4 % av fallen. / This study deals with variation in written Meänkieli, focusing on the variation of one specific feature, h in non-initial syllables (e.g. saunhaan, sauhnaan 'into sauna') which has been found to be rich in variation in spoken language according to earlier research (e.g. Mantila 1992, 2010; Vaattovaara 2009). The aim of this study is to investigate if, and to what extent, the variation patterns found in the spoken variety correspond to literature written in Meänkieli. The study is motivated by the fact that Meänkieli is currently undergoing standardization process. The variation of h in non-initial syllables forms a complex system in spoken language which, as a folk belief, is “difficult to describe”. However, earlier research has indicated that in the spoken language the use of the h is linguistically quite systematically structured and the variation patterns have developed in certain direction across time. In the interest of the present study is to investigate if the pattern is similar in the written form in the chosen corpus, that is, if the individual authors are implementing a similar system in their literary work. The principal aim of this study is not to deal with language planning and principles of language standardization but to form an overall picture of linguistic variation in the use of h in written language. The data consist of 43 books from 18 authors, and from three decades (1980–2000). From each publication, the first 5250 words are extracted into analysis, if the word count exceeds this number (children’s books, 18 included in the corpus, typically do not). The main interest of the current work lies in the question whether or not there is remarkable variation found between the different authors, and what kind of variation may appear within the texts authored by each individual author or across time. The aim of the study is to reveal if the variation patterns possibly scatter, or if the patterns indicate agreement between the individual authors. According to sociolinguistic theories of linguistic change, the so called real time investigation across the decades should indicate if there is an ongoing change. The hypothesis of the research (mainly on the basis of Mantila 2010) is that the variation pattern similar to spoken language is being adopted also in written forms. Since the h in non-initial syllables is both from the point of view of historical development as well as morphological and phonological conditions a very rich feature, this study focuses only on the six linguistic environments concerning the metathetic h variant (e.g. 1. Stockholmhiin > Stockholhmiin 'to Stockholm', 2. koulhuun > kouhluun 'to school', 3. korjaamhaan  > korjaahmaan 'to clean', 4. Pajalhaan > Pajahlaan 'to Pajala', 5. istumhaan >  istuhmaan ' to sit', 6. ymmärtänheet > ymmärtähneet 'have understood'), which always involves a voiced consonant. Earlier research has regarded this particular variant as “the trademark of Torne Valley” which has, on the present Finnish and Swedish side of the area, shown a clear pattern of variation. In this study, the variation of the metathetic h in Meänkieli literature is mirrored against earlier findings from the Torne Valley spoken data. Bengt Pohjanen (with the largest number of publications) together with three other authors have been investigated in more detail. An interesting finding is that there is relatively much variation among authors from one municipality, Pajala. Against the traditional sociolinguistic expectations, the origins of the authors is not a governing factor in linguistic choices. The main outcome of the whole analysis is that during the three decades investigated, individual books have indicated unexpected variation in the 1980s and 1990s, but by the 2000’s the same variation pattern found in spoken language has been more systematically and strongly adopted also into written Meänkieli by more or less all of the authors: in the phonotactic positions 1–4 the metathesis is systematic (85–98 %) while in the positions 5–6 only 0,8 to 1,4 %.

Minnet av minoritetspolitiken i Sverige under 1800-talet och en stor del av 1900-talet harpåverkat den tornedalska identiteten och lämnat efter sig en känsla av utanförskap ochtudelning hos befolkningen. Populärkulturen spelar en betydande roll i att förmedla minnenoch skildra den representerade gruppens identitet och i att påverka identitetsskapandet hosåskådaren. Detta sker i representationens gestaltning samt omfattning, och filmenPopulärmusik från Vittula (Reza Bagher, 2004) är en av få spelfilmer som utspelar sig iTornedalen. Den här studien undersöker representationen av befolkning, miljö och språk iTornedalen samt relationen mellan nationell och regional identitet i filmen och på vilka sättintern orientalism och postkolonialism framträder i materialet. Filmens bildspråk och handlinganalyseras utifrån kritisk diskursanalys, semiotisk bildanalys, filmpoetisk analys samt KristinaBoréus analysfrågor som formats efter denna studies syfte och frågeställningar. Utifrån teorierkring representation, stereotyper och normer, identitet och minne, postkolonialism, internorientalism samt konceptet sårbarhet studeras gestaltningen av identitet i filmen och hur ettkulturellt minne skapas och förmedlas. Analysen visar att filmens narrativ, stil, framställning av karaktärer, val av inspelningsplatsoch språkbruk bidrar till att förmedla en splittring i identiteten hos den tornedalskabefolkningen som kommit till av tvåspråkigheten, känslan av att vara både finsk och svenskoch en paradoxal inställning till den egna kulturen. Gestaltningen av utanförskap, skam ochtraumatiska sårbara minnen i filmen blir en tydlig identitetsskapande effekt. En mobiliseringav konceptet sårbarhet bidrar till identifikation med karaktärerna och därmed Tornedalenskollektiva minne och identitet. De tema som filmen berör, som exempelvis identitetsförlust,utanförskap, diskriminering, exploatering och våld, bidrar till en stärkt individuell ochkollektiv identitet och som genom att delas i filmen blir ett kulturellt minne som förmedlas tillgruppen som representeras, samt till övriga grupper.

Introduction: This thesis investigates how two regional museums, Tornedalens museum in Finland and Norrbottens museum in Sweden handles the cultural heritage of Tornedalen (Torne River Valley) and the tornedalian culture. The aim of the study is to understand how place, cultural heritage and nationality work together regarding visibility and dissemination of knowledge. The focus of this study surrounds the demarcations between the Finnish and Swedish side of Tornedalen, where the two regional museums with belonging archives are explored and compared.   Method: In this study, ten interviews with a total of 12 participants were conducted, five at Tornedalens museum and five att Norrbottens museum, as well as field studies at both museums. The participants hold positions as archivists, educators, antiquarians, archeologists and managers at the museums. The interviews were taped and transcribed, and notes were taken during the field studies.   Analysis: The theoretical and analytical framework consists of critical heritage discourse. Additional theoretical concepts are place, representation, identity, demarcations, narration and performativity.   Results: the two museums portrait and relate to the tornedalian region and culture in different ways. Tornedalens museum portrait the partition of Tornedalen into two separate nations, and how this affected the lives of people living in the region and does to this day. The museum also represents a narrative that does not divide Swedish tornedalians from Finnish tornedalians and uses Tornio River as a symbol of unity. At Norrbottens museum, this narrative is not represented. Here, the linguistic oppression that Swedish tornedalians, lantalaiset and kvens were subject to is highlighted, as well as questions concerning how people and cultures in Norrbotten are united and share a common history and cultural heritage.    This is a two-year master’s thesis in archival science and museology and cultural heritage science.

Stina Aronson (1892–1956) is a celebrated Swedish modernist who published twenty-five works during the first part of the 20th century. Her writings are considered to be progressive and ethical due to extensive feminist and eco-critical research. Aronson’s novel Hitom himlen(This Side of Heaven, 1946) captures the life in upper Northern Sweden, in the Torne Valley, during the beginning of 20th century. In this thesis, I examine the narrative by placing it in relation to the racial hierarchies permeating society during the initial decades of the 20th century. The Finnish-speaking minority living in the Torne Valley came to be considered racially different from the national majority, due to national and international race science – today understood as scientific racism– and anthropology. My analysis shows how the characters are racialized using such ideas as the Mongolian theory and the cephalic index. It is further made evident that the novel captures a perception claiming the so-called ‘Finns’ were of an inferior race. And further, the belief that a mixture of Swedish, Finnish and Sami blood had weakened the group genetically. The mixture of races was defined as a serious threat to the Swedish population, who was regarded as the whitest and purest population on earth. Aronson captures this belief of a future extinction by depicting the death and illness of the youngest generation in the novel. Furthermore, the main character, Emma Niskanpää, believes that she meets God during the church service at the yearly holiday Marie bebådelsedag. I argue though, that the man she encounters is a fictitious Herman Lundborg (1868–1943), the most prominent of the Swedish race biologists, who, in reality, repeatedly performed skull measurement during this celebration. Directly following on this encounter, the ”deaf-and-dumb” daughter of the family Renström is buried along with several others and Emma Niskanpää’s son falls ill with tuberculosis. In this way, the novel captures the racial surveys carried out on minority groups– surveys which are today considered a national trauma. In This Side of Heaven, Stina Aronson turns into literature a specific form of racism and a forgotten part of Swedish history as a pioneering country in the formulation of race hierarchies.

This study aims to investigate the representation of the region Tornedalen and tornedalians, a Swedish minority, in national news media through a critical discourse analysis. Despite being recognized as a national minority, tornedalians have reported a lack of media coverage, which can lead to feelings of invisibility and discrimination. News media has a significant impact on what we discuss and think about, and they have the responsibility to provide a broad representation of society, including its diversity. However, historically, minority groups have been overlooked or devalued in news media, which can have consequences for marginalized groups lacking significant power, including minorities. Therefore, this study seeks to deepen the understanding of the media’s impact on society’s perception of the minority. The study analyzes how power structures and ideologies shape their representation, interpreted from a post-structuralist perspective, using concepts such as producers/consumers, positioning, otherness, subaltern, and cultural identity. The study’s findings suggest that Tornedalen is often represented as a peripheral and exoticized place, reinforcing the idea of a homogeneous Swedish identity. Tornedalians are often positioned as “the other” with their cultural practices and language being portrayed as inferior or irrelevant. Journalistic practices play a crucial role in shaping knowledge and understanding of minority groups such as tornedalians, and the study highlights the need for news media to provide a more diverse and accurate representation of society. The study also suggests areas for further research, such as investigating how different audiences interpret and react to news articles, and how Tornedalen and tornedalians are represented in public service media. Overall, this study contributes to the understanding of how news media shapes society’s perception of minorities and highlights the importance of providing a diverse and accurate representation of society.

This essay deals with recurring grotesque motifs in Mikael Niemi’s novels Kyrkdjävulen, Populärmusik från Vittula (Popular Music from Vittula), Fallvatten and Koka björn (To Cook a Bear). It aims to widen the academic understanding of Niemi’s works by focusing on their aesthetics in relation to previous studies, which have mostly been concerned with placing Niemi in a context of Tornedalian minority literature. With the grotesque defined as monstrous and boundary breaking imagery that challenges common rational, ideological or moral world views, this study shows that these motifs can both strengthen, nuance and undermine postcolonial interpretations of the novels.Through Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the grotesque, emphasis is placed on the subversive and utopian aspects of the grotesque motifs. With the use of Sigmund Freud’s term the uncanny (das unheimliche) and Julia Kristeva’s term the abject, psychological and emotional aspects of the selected motifs are drawn to the surface. And, by turning to Sara Ahmed’s thoughts on emotions and performativity, the function of disgust in said motifs is examined. The grotesque motifs in question are: the degradation of the mouth, the lower animals, the boy with the knife, the witch mother, and the androgyne. The first part of the analysis shows that in Niemi’sworks the mouth is associated with storytelling, power, agency and the subject’s ability to both knowand express himself, but also to take the world into himself and be changed by it. The mouth is often degraded, which in a carnivalesque manner results in a linguistic revival. The second part of the analysis argues that lower animals, such as rats, reptiles and bat-like devil spawn, are symbols of the abject – that which man must cast out in order to exist. The motifs of the rats and devils are associated with themes of language, identity and writing, but also allude to a threatening feminine principle. In the third part of the analysis, the motifs of the boy with the knife, the witch mother and the androgyne are found to be juxtaposed to and interwoven with each other in narratives concerning gender, sexuality and coming of age. The results of the study show that Mikael Niemi utilizes grotesque aesthetics to give shape toprocesses of growth and change, captivity and liberation, and a complicated sense of identity that eludes clear and rational definitions. The grotesque in these novels is not purely utopian in a Bakhtinian sense, but more emotionally ambivalent. A determining factor to whether the grotesque image brings true renewal or only a repetition of past pain is the will and choice of the individual. Thus, Mikael Niemi’s novels speak not so much of the power of a minority identity, as of the power and potential of the individual to reinvigorate that identity. They form an individualized, existential project in a Tornedalian context.

<p>Our world is becoming increasingly complex, and is rapidly changingwith distances being reduced. Societies today are also in atransition from traditional production industries to increasingreliance on communication, consumption, services and experience. Asone of these emerging ‘new industries’, tourism is part of thismovement. Globalisation also makes further development of tourismpossible through, amongst other things, the spreading of languages;the development of low-cost carriers; international monetary systems;telecommunications and other technological innovations. Tourismcontributes to the globalisation of society and at the same time is aproduct of it. This is confirmed by complexity theories that stressthe systematic and dynamic nature of globalisation and theinterdependence of the global and the local. Hence, in this thesis,it is argued that acknowledging the complexity of tourism isnecessary for understanding tourism development, and more knowledgeabout tourism also leads to greater knowledge of our society.</p><p>The main aim of this thesis is to understand the complexity of localand regional tourist destination development, by exploring social andcultural factors that influence this development. In order to fulfilthis aim, analysis has been conducted at three different levels:places, projects and people. More specifically, by examining placesand how they develop as destinations; investigating the structure of,and processes within, groups and networks important for destinationdevelopment and by exploring the roles, resources and attitudes ofenterprising people who are seen as key for development. The thesisis based on a research project including three studies of tourismdestinations and projects in Northern Sweden and Scotland.</p><p>The social and cultural factors connected to tourism development arein turn part of learning processes, which in this thesis are seen asfundamental mechanisms for processes of development. A frameworkcalled ‘Learning Destinations’ is introduced that demonstrates howimportant social and cultural factors manifest themselves at each ofthe three levels: places, projects and people. History and heritageand rationales are the main cultural factors discussed, whilstinteraction and boundaries are prominent social factors found toinfluence tourism development. It is suggested that the framework of‘Learning Destinations’ may serve as a tool for understanding thecomplexity of local and regional tourism development.</p>

Our world is becoming increasingly complex, and is rapidly changingwith distances being reduced. Societies today are also in atransition from traditional production industries to increasingreliance on communication, consumption, services and experience. Asone of these emerging ‘new industries’, tourism is part of thismovement. Globalisation also makes further development of tourismpossible through, amongst other things, the spreading of languages;the development of low-cost carriers; international monetary systems;telecommunications and other technological innovations. Tourismcontributes to the globalisation of society and at the same time is aproduct of it. This is confirmed by complexity theories that stressthe systematic and dynamic nature of globalisation and theinterdependence of the global and the local. Hence, in this thesis,it is argued that acknowledging the complexity of tourism isnecessary for understanding tourism development, and more knowledgeabout tourism also leads to greater knowledge of our society. The main aim of this thesis is to understand the complexity of localand regional tourist destination development, by exploring social andcultural factors that influence this development. In order to fulfilthis aim, analysis has been conducted at three different levels:places, projects and people. More specifically, by examining placesand how they develop as destinations; investigating the structure of,and processes within, groups and networks important for destinationdevelopment and by exploring the roles, resources and attitudes ofenterprising people who are seen as key for development. The thesisis based on a research project including three studies of tourismdestinations and projects in Northern Sweden and Scotland. The social and cultural factors connected to tourism development arein turn part of learning processes, which in this thesis are seen asfundamental mechanisms for processes of development. A frameworkcalled ‘Learning Destinations’ is introduced that demonstrates howimportant social and cultural factors manifest themselves at each ofthe three levels: places, projects and people. History and heritageand rationales are the main cultural factors discussed, whilstinteraction and boundaries are prominent social factors found toinfluence tourism development. It is suggested that the framework of‘Learning Destinations’ may serve as a tool for understanding thecomplexity of local and regional tourism development.