<p>Soundclash is a phenomenon where groups within the culture of reggae music “battle” against each other, through strategies including both music and rhetoric. The social interaction in the clash exemplifies the scene hierarchy, in which the participants aim to position themselves as number one. This study includes empirical material from a competition within the Swedish scene, also distributed digitally via Internet sites. The analysis is based on discursive psychology, focusing on rhetoric and the construction of meaning. The thesis emphasize how different truth claims are made, which relate to social positions as well as places within the international community.</p> / <p>Soundclash är ett fenomen där grupper inom reggaescenen tävlar mot varandra genom musik och retoriska strategier. I sina tal förs olika argument fram, vilka syftar att positionera grupper högst upp i scenens hierarki. Materialet utgörs av en svensk tävling inom detta fält, vilken även distribuerats i digital form genom Internet. Uppsatsen utgår från ett diskurspsykologiskt perspektiv, där språklig praktik och meningsskapande står i fokus. Uppsatsen visar hur olika anspråk görs, vilka relaterar till olika sociala positioneringar, likväl som till en plats inom en större internationell gemenskap.</p>

Soundclash is a phenomenon where groups within the culture of reggae music “battle” against each other, through strategies including both music and rhetoric. The social interaction in the clash exemplifies the scene hierarchy, in which the participants aim to position themselves as number one. This study includes empirical material from a competition within the Swedish scene, also distributed digitally via Internet sites. The analysis is based on discursive psychology, focusing on rhetoric and the construction of meaning. The thesis emphasize how different truth claims are made, which relate to social positions as well as places within the international community. / Soundclash är ett fenomen där grupper inom reggaescenen tävlar mot varandra genom musik och retoriska strategier. I sina tal förs olika argument fram, vilka syftar att positionera grupper högst upp i scenens hierarki. Materialet utgörs av en svensk tävling inom detta fält, vilken även distribuerats i digital form genom Internet. Uppsatsen utgår från ett diskurspsykologiskt perspektiv, där språklig praktik och meningsskapande står i fokus. Uppsatsen visar hur olika anspråk görs, vilka relaterar till olika sociala positioneringar, likväl som till en plats inom en större internationell gemenskap.

When collective action for community is defined as local development or as a struggle for survival different understandings are in focus. Politically, this kind of community action is defined as local development and understood in terms of growth and economics. An economic approach to community action is also emphasised in the EU-programmes that support local development groups and projects. On the other hand local groups describe their activities as a struggle for community and community survival. Inspired by feministic research approaches and with an interest in human aspects and values this study investigates meanings of community action as experienced and expressed by rural inhabitants and activists. The study is based on fieldwork that was carried out in a small rural community in the northern inlands of Sweden: Trehörningsjö. Since the middle of the 1990s, the women in Trehörningsjö have driven collective action to uphold the community. With its point of departure in the community and expanding into the arenas of reserach and politics, the study takes on the form of a reflexive research process in which the researcher's former knowledge and new understandings are made visible and discussed parallel with the interpretations made. The main focus of the study is the activist's demand of voice, visibility and worth. The first chapter presents the local community and provides a background to the study. The chapter includes an account of the reflexive approach that widened the field of research from a local to a translocal study of community action. In chapters two, three, four and five the struggle for community is reflected through fieldwork experiences in Trehörningsjö and other arenas beyond the village. Situated events and instances of collective action such as the fight for the local health care centre, are analysed as symbolic expressions of community values and rural importance. From chapter two and onwards, the study follows the footsteps of the leading female activist in and beyond the community itself; that is, the day-to-day work, meetings, conferences and other places where community action is acted out. The struggle for community is proven to focus on translocal rather than local action. In chapter six the fieldwork experiences - that tell about resistance and a struggle for community values and perspectives - are placed in the wider context of the rural development movement, local development research and governmental rural policy in Sweden. On all these arenas community action tend to be interpreted as local development in line with a growth perspective, rather than as community protests and struggles that expresses other meanings. Chapter seven takes the analyses and discussion further, and relates community struggle to concepts such as civil society and social economy. Anthony Giddens concept of life politics and Alberto Meluccis concept of collective action are used to deepen the analysis on how humane meanings and relation based aspects of community action are made invisible on the political "growht and development" agenda. Community struggle presents a possibility for rural inhabitants to (re)define and reclaim their community and themselves as important and valuable. However, to be able to understand what the concept of community struggle expresses, and demands, it needs to be acknowledged as a form of action that has the potential to challenge established bureaucratic and political defintions, which, in practice, proves to be difficult.

KM II. An analysis of Malmö Art Museum’s satellite space as extra-institutional practice maps the activities of the hitherto unexplored satellite exhibition space KM II, including the 14 exhibitions that were shown in KM II’s two spaces in Malmö’s harbor and in the suburb Rosengård. The essay contributes new perspectives on extra-institutional exhibition practices by analyzing KM II as an actor on the then much discussed art scene of Malmö, during the years 1992 to 1994. The essay also describes trans-local artistic connections over the Baltic Sea, pri- marily between Malmö and Hamburg. I describe the extra-institutional practice of KM II through the model “The Public as Alternative” (Det offentliga som alternativ). The practice created favorable conditions for extensive and often paid artistic work in an unconventional exhibition space, which also made KM II meet the strained situation on the local art scene, partly caused by the financial crisis of 1992. Last, the essay examines the complex relationship between the exhibitions, the institution, the place, and the audience, that made the extra-institutional status of KM II dissolve at Rosengård, during a time that can be described as a transitional phase in museum education.