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Denna studie undersöker hur formuläret Organiserad Verksamhet i Renbetesfjäll inom förvaltning i Västra Jämtlandsfjällen förstås och används av människor som arbetar i besöksnäringen och i småföretagande. Med intervjuer som empiriskt material diskuterar studien hur begreppen funktion och struktur är relaterade till dominerande idéer i områdets förvaltning. Som teoretiskt perspektiv används Tim Ingolds dwelling-perspektiv. Studien når fram till att formuläret inte uppfyller de behov aktörerna har för att ha ett tillfredsställande samarbete med varandra och renskötarna. Formuläret för förvaltning är inte anpassat efter en lokal kulturell kontext, den är skapad utifrån idéen om landskapet som multifunktionellt vilket studien formulerar kritik gentemot.

This essay explores the mysterious disappearance of Olle Högbom from an anthropological perspective. It uses theories of hauntology, ruinology, and simulacra to examine how Olle's absence continues to affect society. The study involves a thematic analysis of online forums and qualitative interviews with Olle’s sister, contrasting public speculation with family narratives, and highlights the enduring presence of Olle in collective memory, illustrating how unresolved disappearances influence society, memory, and everyday life. This anthropological investigation into missing persons provides insights into how spectral presences shape cultural and social dynamics. Employing a blend of ethnographic interviews, content analysis, pictures, and autoethnography, this study paints an intimate portrait of relationships with the absent and examines the liminality of Olle’s existence. Autoethnography in combination with multimodality carries the potential to unearth the unknown and paint an intimate understanding of absence. Olle’s absence is depicted in the first chapter and partially in the third chapter, by presenting an autoethnographic account of the experience of forming relationships with the absent.

This ethnographic study outlines the spiritual and political underpinnings of three Māori farms in Aotearoa/New Zealand. I conceptualise a sub-division of the Degrowth movement interested in incorporating Māori worldviews and traditions into ecological agriculture. The participants’ aspirations and experiences are analysed as examples of a movement in the dawn of a new developmental phase. I depict the movement from the perspective of two separate but interlinked phases: initially, the focus was on cross-pollinating ideas, practises and spiritual beliefs. Sequentially, the movement diversifies its methods and philosophies while reinforcing its political stance as Indigenous people. The study aligns ecological Māori agriculture with Euguene Anderson’s framework for successful human-environment relations. By tracing the impact of Aotearoa/New Zealand’s bicultural context and the friction between environmentalism and Māori values, this study interprets the interplay of Māori worldviews and ecological agriculture as a continuum of experiences connected to racism, colonialism, ostracism, resource management and aspirations of food sovereignty and self-determination.

This thesis an interview-based study that will broach the topic of meaning in work by looking at how meaning is created amongst Swedish artisans; a group of labourers defined by their uniqueness in contemporary labour-norms. The focus of this study is the theorisation of two processes which create meaning within artisan labour: one based on reflexive engagement with production, and one based on collective creations of meaning through outside structurers. From these two processes, a third, unified view on the creation of meaning is proposed, where reflexive engagement and collective creation coalesce to create meaning in labour. Taken together, these three processes come to represent how meaning is formed in artisan labour, and could, in turn, become starting points for further discussions on the nature of meaning in work.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate what makes Swedish retirees migrate to Costa del Sol and how it affects their perception of their Existential Health as expressed in Meaning-in-life, Coherence and Trust, building on a two-week fieldwork, with observations, free conversations, and a short questionnaire. The overall research question is how the migration has influenced retiree’s perception of their Existential Health. Main research questions are the following (A) What is it like to be you here and now as a Swedish retiree? (B) What is better with your life in Spain as compared to Sweden? (C) What is worse with your life in Spain as compared to Sweden? As a theoretical basis, I will draw upon material about the concepts of Existence, Meaning in Life, Coherence and Trust. For Existentialism I use the thinking of the German philosopher Heidegger. About Meaning in Life, Coherence and Trust, I use articles and publications within the fields of Psychology, Philosophy, Medical Sociology and Existential Anthropology. What are the benefits, and how did they get to know ABOUT them, that makes retirees take the step to leave Sweden, permanently or for a couple of months per year. Do they see any disadvantages by migrating. I also investigate what context the retirees live in, what they include and exclude from their daily life. Do they try to integrate in the Spanish society or limit their context to Swedish diaspora and Swedish groups and places, like the Swedish Church. During my fieldwork, I got a strong feeling that the migrants were living a life here-and-now and intentionally did not integrate in the Spanish society. They instead kept to contacts and social life in the Swedish diaspora. One aspect of this is that it is not the migration in itself that is important for the migrators well-being, it is how they themselves grasps, interprets and reconstructs their existence. The results show that the migration does positively affect Existential Health in the sense, Syftet med detta examensarbete är att undersöka vad som får svenska pensionärer att migrera till Costa del Sol och hur det påverkar deras uppfattning om deras existentiella hälsa som uttryckt i mening-i-livet, sammanhang och tillit. Uppsatsen bygger på ett två veckor långt fältarbete, med observationer, samtal och ett kort frågeformulär. Den övergripande forskningsfrågan är hur migrationen har påverkat pensionärernas uppfattning om sin existentiella hälsa. Huvudsakliga forskningsfrågor är följande (A) Hur är det att vara du här och nu som svensk pensionär? (B) Vad är bättre med ditt liv i Spanien jämfört med Sverige? (C) Vad är sämre med ditt liv i Spanien jämfört med Sverige? Som en teoretisk grund har jag material om begreppen existens, mening i livet, sammanhang och tillit. För Existentialism använder jag den tyske filosofen Heideggers tänkande. Om mening i livet, sammanhang och tillit använder jag artiklar och publikationer inom områdena psykologi, filosofi, medicinsk sociologi och existentiell antropologi. Vilka är fördelarna, och hur fick de veta vilka det var, som gör att pensionärer tar steget att lämna Sverige, permanent eller ett par månader per år. Ser de några nackdelar med migrationen. Jag undersöker också vilket kontext pensionärerna lever i samt vad de inkluderar och utesluter från sin vardag. Försöker de att integreras i det spanska samhället eller begränsa sin kontext till svensk diaspora och svenska grupper och platser, som Svenska kyrkan? Under mitt fältarbete fick jag en stark känsla av att migranterna levde ett liv här-och-nu och avsiktligt inte integrerade sig i det spanska samhället. De höll sig i stället till kontakter och socialt liv i den svenska diasporan. En aspekt av detta är att det inte är migrationen i sig som är viktig för migranternas välbefinnande, det är hur de själva uppfattar, tolkar och rekonstruerar sin tillvaro. Resultaten visar att migrationen påverkar existentiell hälsa positivt i betydelsen mening-i-livet, sammanhang och t

In just the last decade, the popularity of Korean cultural exports has skyrocketed, and fans are to be found everywhere from Seoul to Sweden. While the K-phenomenon is often conceptualized as a global force, engagement tends to be personal and emotionally charged. As such, involvement is closely interlinked with the process of self-realization. This paper visualizes consumption of Hallyu as the co-creation of “emodities” (emotional commodities), emphasizing its role in achieving emotional authenticity and well-being. It continues by arguing that fans perceive themselves to partake in a reciprocal gift exchange with K-pop idols, which comes to define how fanship is expressed whilst mediating a parasocial kinship. This is explored through a lens of the gift economy. Such a framework simultaneously reveals how fans create meaning around the “Koreanness” of the culturally branded content.

This thesis examines identity maintenance in the Kurdish diaspora, focusing on the ritual aspects of identity maintenance. While previous research has focused on processes of Kurdish diaspora formation and ethnic identity, this thesis will address existing discourses and consider the Newroz celebration as an important factor in the maintenance of Kurdish identity within the Kurdish diaspora in Sweden. Incorporating evidence from several ethnographic interviews and a participatory observation, the research argues that, firstly, due to political and historical struggles in the Kurdish homeland, resistance has become a central aspect of Kurdish identity formation. Secondly, as a site of ritual significance, Newroz contributes to the embodiment of Kurdish ethnicity by enabling performative acts and creating community.

This paper explores how the modern categories of labor and value are questioned by practices and ideas on the autonomous zad of Notre-Dame-Des-Landes, France. In a world where the global economy is defined by the division of time between labor and leisure, it is necessary to question these foundations by asking what this dichotomy implies. With data from eight weeks of ethnographic fieldwork observing how utilitarian notions of value are questioned on the zad, this research aims to disclose how, in the place of contemporary hierarchical labor relations, horizontal organization of production and autonomous labor practices afford collective and individual freedom to pursue meaningful ends and actions that are not necessarily ‘productive’. My argument is grounded in an action-based theory of value to propose that the intimate relationship between imaginaries and practices form the basis for understanding how the intersection of value and labor can help us reimagine conventional assumptions about the contemporary economy for the sake of meaningful emancipation.

This ethnographic study explores the postcolonial presence and shared history of the Dutch in Suriname. Suriname has been colonized by the Dutch for more than 300 years, after which it became independent 49 years ago. This study explores the many ways in which Suriname is still connected to the Netherlands. The research question addresses how Suriname’s postcolonial, transnational and neocolonial relations with the Netherlands are visible in everyday encounters with infrastructures in Suriname, and how these relations influence and get influenced by Dutch development work. Instead of entering the field with a set research question, the research question is the result of relying on local interlocutors' insights. Qualitative research, including fieldwork, participant observation and interviews, is performed to explore colonialism, postcolonialism, transnationalism and development work. The position of the researcher is reflected upon. This study illuminates the ongoing visibility of the Netherlands in Suriname in the infrastructure of the country, especially in the capital city Paramaribo. Different forms of international development work are found to often occur parallel to a problematised notion of help. This research contributes to the field of cultural anthropology by taking a critical stance towards ethnographic methods and showing the importance of contextualizing the field.

This article explores local experiences and consequences of Russian “borderization” and “creeping occupation” along the administrative boundary line (ABL) between occupied South Ossetia and Georgian-controlled territory. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and interviews in borderland villages, the focus moves beyond the immediate physical manifestations and geopolitical consequences and draws attention to the social effects produced by these practices. By examining the relationship between the specific political situation affecting livelihoods along the ABL and local notions of kinship and place as foundations of good lives and social continuity, the article unpacks the ways in which fundamental ambiguities and uncertainties characterizing the borderlands extend beyond the physical terrain and into intimate social relationships and practices. I conclude by arguing that in this context otherwise mundane notions of individual mobility, kinship obligations and ancestral place are infused with a sense of urgency, which takes on both existential and political significance.

This article pays attention to the implementation processes and gendered dynamics of Community Forest Management (CFM) in Burkina Faso and how this impacts everyday forest practices. This is done by exploring how implementation processes shape and are shaped by gendered inequities, exclusions, and resource struggles. Theoretically, this article draws on work from feminist political ecology (FPE) and critical institutionalism (CI) readings to investigate the gendered dynamics in outcomes and institutional processes of the CFM. Empirically, this is explored through ethnographic fieldwork in the village of Tonogo, Burkina Faso. The exploration of the CFM implementation was incited by observations made during the fieldwork around the contrasting environmental conditions of two forested areas: Kungin and Tangin. Although these forest areas are located in proximity to the same village and are governed within the same customary authority, their ecological status differs significantly. The analysis sheds light on the particularities in the gendered power dynamics and complexities of CFM implementation through local customary authorities. The study contributes to showing how the project initiation itself changes social relations and reinforces gendered marginalization. This study, moreover, contributes with empirical insights on how struggles over the right to the forests continue, although the CFM projects have been closed. This knowledge can contribute to forest development and restoration projects taking historical and gendered power relations seriously.

George Marcus’s methodology for multi-sited ethnography is widely discussed and applied in anthropology and the strategy of ‘following the conflict’ has been a fruitful approach to studying controversies and conflicts. Drawing on my shifting methodology in the initial stages of a digital ethnography project on vaccination-related online community forums, I explore ‘the war’ on vaccines using a broadened strategy that includes following agreements and silences within the controversy. By examining the debate in conjunction with medical anthropology research, I discuss how both vaccine-cautious and vaccine-confident forum members challenge conventional debate divisions, such as scientific–unscientific, evidential–anecdotal and genetic–environmental, while still adhering to medico-scientific discourses as zones of agreement. Whereas an agreement-oriented methodology contributes to research on liminal zones and reconfigured forms of bio-citizenship and literacy, the strategy of ‘following silences’ highlights the limits to liminality in a debate underpinned by adultism that silences the views of young people.

Sweden has the reputation of being one of the most progressive countries in the world concerning work-life development and industrial democracy. In this article, an analytical overview of the development in these areas is provided, which includes the antecedents, major events, actor positioning and also the broad-term outcomes. Two major reform movements are described: one aiming to create a radically different work-life where workers control their own work with a power balance between labour and capital, and one a reformist movement aiming to create a degree of co-determination and a more engaging work-life without any major changes in power relations. The case shows that the radical movement was not able to generate radical change and that the reformistic movement achieved only partial success. The outcome over time has been a decreased interest in work-life development where co-determination practices are heavily institutionalized but perhaps do not provide better conditions for workers than in many other advanced industrial countries with a lesser degree of formal co-determination., CC BY 4.0 DEED© The Author(s) 2024Correspondence Address: S. Tengblad; Centre for Global Human Resource Management, University of Gothenburg, Sweden; email: stefan.tengblad@gu.seThe authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Ugandan urban same-sex desiring individuals frequently encounter and navigate competing understandings of sexuality and sexual identity. Western essentialist understanding of sexual identity introduced by international development partners and transnational LGBT+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bi- and Transsexual) activism, as well as media, offer an alternative to Ugandan non-essentialist and fluid subject positions. This article seeks to understand how young individuals with same-sex -desires in Kampala navigate tensions between Western and local understandings concerning sexuality. We have interviewed 24 young individuals with same-sex desires (unaffiliated and individuals working in LGBT+ organizations) and asked how they approach their sexuality and experiences living with same-sex desires in contemporary Kampala. The results reveal how interview participants engaged in a complex navigation between local community expectations, their own same-sex desires, and embeddedness in a global LGBT+ culture. Although the participants engaged in what Westerners would label as a "double life," the article problematizes the prescriptive norms of authenticity and "coming out." The conclusion is that the fluid vs essentialist dichotomy is too simplistic to be helpful when trying to understand the lives and aspirations of young people with same-sex desires.

This paper examines the writings of European travelers, chaplains, and resident doctors on pandemics in the Mediterranean regions from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Using French comparative literary theory, the article highlights how Muslim communities in Egypt, Turkey, Aleppo, and Mecca were stereotyped based on their belief in predestination, their failure to avoid contamination, and their lack of social distancing during plague outbreaks. This paper argues that travelers were influenced by Renaissance humanism, Ars Apodemia, religious discourses, and texts, such as plague tracts, model town concepts, the book of orders, and tales, and that they essentialized Mediterranean Islamicate societies by depicting contamination motifs supposedly shaped by the absence of contagion theory in prophetic medicines. Regarding plague science, this paper concludes that Christian and Muslim intellectuals had similar approaches until the Black Death and that Arabs were eclectic since the Abbasid period. This paper further maintains that the travelers' approaches fostered chauvinism and the cultural hegemony of the West over the Orient since the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods, driven by eschatology, conversion, and power structure narratives.

In several parts of Sweden, difficulties arise regarding access to water. In this article, I explore the biopoliticsthat take shape when low groundwater levels are turned into an object of government. Firstly, I examinethe formation of a so-called anatomical politics which refers to a disciplining form of power in which theresponsibilities and actions of the population are at the center. Secondly, I explore the priorities that are madein the political work where human life, health, and well-being are to be protected and other life forms that arenot vital for human living are instead deprioritized or allowed to die. The problems have clear consequencesbut do not pose a threat to human survival. Political efforts aim to bring about changes in people’s everydaylives and affect the use and decoration of households and public spaces. Empirically, I attach particularsignificance to the irrigation bans that Swedish municipalities can introduce to reduce water consumption., QC 20240503

The primary aim of this article is to think through how silence can be considered as generating meaning in literary prose. For this purpose, the article focuses on Zimbabwean author Yvonne Vera’s last novel, The Stone Virgins (2002a), which has often been described as ‘breaking the silence’ about the genocidal violence remembered as Gukurahundi. As a secondary aim, the article sets out to rethink Vera’s idea and argues that rather than ‘breaking’ the silence, her novel explores different forms of silence, some of which are necessary for healing and regeneration. However, silence is not just a theme or motif in the novel: Vera also uses silence in her own writing to generate new meaning. Using an essay by Elleke Boehmer as a point of departure, this article proposes a conceptualisation of silence through two terms: the unsayable and the unsaid, where the former refers to meaning that is suppressed and the latter to that which has not yet been said. It argues that the novel presents a poetics that aligns with its theme of meaning, generative silence, which uses opaque and imprecise syntax and referentiality in a way that maximises the possibility of the unsaid to be said.

QC 20240429

Cet ouvrage propose une analyse engagée de la crise et de la transition politique au Mali à partir de 2020. Il contribue à la compréhension des enjeux socio-économiques, politiques, sécuritaires et culturels au Mali contemporain, par l’analyse des changements intervenus depuis l’année 2020 jusqu’en 2024. Le point de départ est l’analyse des mobilisations citoyennes contre le régime du président Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta, sa chute et les tractations qui ont abouti à deux transitions politiques (de septembre 2020 à mai 2021 ; de mai 2021 à nos jours). Une équipe de chercheurs du Laboratoire d’Anthropologie Comparative, Engagée et Transnationale (LACET) ont mené des recherches dans la rue et au feu de l’action. C’est pourquoi l’ouvrage propose une ethnographie politique contemporaine du Mali. Car, même si le discours d’un Mali nouveau (Mali kura) est devenu le slogan des manifestants, les pratiques politiques du Mali ancien (Mali koro) demeurent.

Cette étude sur les personnes déplacées internes au Burkina Faso est le fruit d’une enquête collective menée fin 2021 à Ouagadougou par une équipe d’anthropologues et de géographes burkinabè et français. Depuis 2018, le nombre de personnes contraintes de quitter leur village suite à des attaques d’une extrême violence est en constante augmentation. Ce livre rend compte des conditions de départ, de déplacement et d’arrivée des déplacés internes qui ont choisi de s’installer dans la ville de Ouagadougou. Il restitue leurs logiques d’insertion économique et sociale ainsi que les enjeux liés à la reconnaissance officielle de leur statut. En s’appuyant sur leurs récits et expériences vécues, cette recherche contribue à documenter la situation actuelle de la zone sahélienne.

This article employs the Bosnian notion of “inat,” often translated as spite, to perform auto(bio)psy of my writing about refugee lives in Sweden. Methodologically speaking, I begin with an assertion that the hybrid form of auto(bio)psy, a method that entangles creative and critical reflection, helps capture what it means to live with the traumas of war, especially in the face of genocide denial and genocide triumphalism. The value of such a reflection that is neither entirely academic nor entirely artistic, neither a court testimony nor data gathered by a disinterested scholar, lies in the possibility of accessing truths that are as material and as emotional as they can be and hopefully, help us better understand uprooted families from 1990s Bosnia and beyond. Following Wendy Pearlman, I argue for the value of emotional sensibility for more profound scientific discoveries. Furthermore, I argue for the need to reconsider the form-content question in the scholarly understanding and analyses of displacement.

I detta masterexamensarbete synliggör tre svenska stationsområden, potentialer och utmaningar som kommuner står inför i förverkligandet av en stationär förtätning. Studien genomförs med hänsyn till de tre stationsområdena: Stenungsund, Floda och Älvängen, som legat till grund i det pågående forskningsprojektet Urbana Stationssamhällen - realisering av potentialer för stationsnära stadsutveckling (US2). I denna studie används fallstudie som forskningsstrategi med data från forskningsprojektet US2 för att belysa studiens två frågeställningar - Hur skiljer sig de rumsliga förutsättningarna för en hållbar utveckling och potentialerna för förtätning av stationsnära lägen i Stenungsund, Floda och Älvängen? Vilka förutsättningar för styrning, samverkan och genomförande finns i de studerade kommunerna? - Studien har vidare ett abduktivt förhållningssätt med en triangulering av material från GIS-analyser, workshop- och intervjumaterial för att undersöka förutsättningar för realisering av potentialer för en stationsnära utveckling. Resultatet för de tre fallen representerade olika rumsliga förutsättningar och potentialer för TOD enligt analysen från PSS. Lokala geografiska faktorer hade en stark påverkan på potentialerna till förtätning nära stationsområdena där varje fall indikerade på unika behov. Till skillnad från detta uppvisade de tre fallen liknande förutsättningar för styrning, samverkan och genomförande av en stationsnära utveckling. Trots liknande förutsättningar varierade dessa beroende på olika rumsliga aspekter och den typ av utveckling som skulle vara nödvändig för att skapa ett stationsnära område som uppfyller lokala behov av plats- och nodkvalitet. Resultatet från denna studie indikerar på behovet av tydliga mål, förbättrad samordning mellan aktörer, en helhetssyn som tar hänsyn till både lokala och övergripande planeringsnivåer och en balanserad utveckling för att säkerställa en legitim och effektiv planering av stationsnära områden., In this master's thesis, three Swedish transit-oriented locations highlight the potentials and challenges municipalities face in the realization of a transit-oriented densification. The study is conducted with a focus on the three station areas: Stenungsund, Floda and Älvängen, which have been the basis of the ongoing research project Urban Station Communities - Realization of Potentials for Transit-Oriented Urban Development (US2). In this study, a case study approach is used as the research strategy, utilizing data from the research project US2 to address the study's two research questions - How do the spatial conditions for sustainable development and the potential for densification in transit-oriented locations differ in Stenungsund, Floda, and Älvängen? – What are the prerequisites for governance, collaboration and implementation in the municipalities studied? - The study further employed an abductive approach with triangulation of materials from GIS-analyses, workshop material, and interview data to examine the conditions for realizing the potential for transit-oriented development. The results for the three cases represented different spatial conditions and potentials for TOD according to the analysis from a Planning Support System (PSS). Local geographical factors had a strong influence on the potentials for densification near the station area, with each case indicating unique needs. In comparison the study revealed that the three cases exhibited similar prerequisites for governance, organization, and implementation of transit-oriented development. Despite similar conditions, these varied in relation to spatial dimensions and the type of development necessary to create a transit-oriented area that meets local needs for place and node quality. The results highlight the need for clear goals, better coordination among stakeholders, a holistic and coherent approach that considers both local and regional planning levels, and balanced development to ensure legitim

The thesis analyses repatriation laws concerning the human skeletal remains of Indigenous people of United States of America and Aotearoa New Zealand, with a focus on the enduring impacts of colonialism. Through a comparative analysis of legal frameworks, cultural contexts, and the societal effects of these legislations, the study sheds light on the commonalities and differences in addressing Indigenous rights, cultural preservation and, the historical injustices towards the Indigenous communities. The research draws on the postcolonial, decolonial and body theories to underscore the ongoing influence of colonial legacies and Indigenous peoples’ perspective of ancestral remains. Employing a qualitative methodology and using secondary data, the thesis compares the experiences of Indigenous communities in the United States and Aotearoa New Zealand. Central research questions include how these communities perceive repatriation and its role in the broader decolonisation process. The study also emphasises the spiritual connection between Indigenous communities and their ancestors, highlighting the need for restitution and healing. While the research is limited to human skeletal remains, excluding artefacts, and constrained by the availability of materials, the findings contribute to the global discussions on Indigenous rights, cultural preservation, and the reconciliation of historical injustices. Ultimately, the thesis calls for a more profound and sustained effort to dismantle the colonial legacies and empower Indigenous communities in reclaiming their cultural heritage., Denna uppsats analyserar repatrieringslagar gällande mänskliga skelettala kvarlevor från ursprungsbefolkningen i USA och Aotearoa Nya Zeeland, med fokus på kolonialismens bestående effekter. Genom en jämförande analys av rättsliga ramar, kulturella kontexter och de samhälleliga effekterna av dessa lagar, belyser studien likheter och skillnader i uppsatsen med att tillgodose ursprungsbefolkningars rättigheter, kulturell bevarande och de historiska orättvisorna mot ursprungsbefolkningarna. Forskningen bygger på postkoloniala, dekoloniala och kroppens teorier för att understryka det pågående inflytandet av koloniala arv och urprungsbefolkningens perspektiv av förfädernas kvarlevor. Genom att använda en kvalitativ metodologi och sekundära data, uppsatsen jämför erfarenheterna hos ursprungsbefolkningar i USA och Aotearoa Nya Zeeland. Centrala forskningsfrågor inkluderar hur dessa samhällen uppfattar repatriering och dess roll i bredare dekoloniseringsprocessen. Studien betonar också den andliga kopplingen mellan ursprungsbefolkningar och deras förfäder och lyfter fram behovet av återupprättelse och helande. Även om forskningen är begränsad till mänskliga kvarlevor, uteslutande artefakter och begränsad tillgänglig material, bidrar resultaten till de globala diskussionerna om ursprungsbefolkningars rättigheter, kulturell bevarande och försoning av historiska orättvisor. Slutligen uppmanar uppsatsen till ett mer djupgående och långsiktigt arbete för att avveckla de koloniala arven och ge ursprungsbefolkningar möjlighet att återta sitt kulturella arv.

Many African communities are significantly affected by climate change, despite being small contributors to the world's emissions. In Mozambique, the rural Southern region is more vulnerable to climate instability than other rural areas in the country. The purpose of this study is to look at factors that can be vital when deciding whether to stay or to migrate, such as resilience, social sustainability, and development opportunities and challenges. The data was collected through ethnographic fieldwork in a rural community on the Mozambican coast, with the villagers' perspective in the centre of what makes the place relevant to their daily lives. What makes the study village sustain and thrive are the development processes of weather-resistant buildings and developing ideas for more sufficient farming, health, and education. Even though some people migrate from the village to the cities, people often come back as challenges in the village are more familiar and simpler to deal with, development ideas represent a hopeful future for the village, and the villagers' want to live in their community simply because it is home.

Intergenerational trauma is increasingly prevalent among youth from generations that have endured collective trauma due to prolonged armed conflict. Existing research indicates that this trauma is often linked to an elevated risk of heightened violence within affected communities. However, there remains a lack of substantial research on effective interventions for humanitarian organisations to address this issue. Moreover, typical approaches tend to follow Western standards, which may not be suitable for the conditions faced by these communities. This research paper investigates the potential of incorporating community-based coping strategies into the Mental Health and Psychosocial Support (MHPSS) programs employed by humanitarian organisations. Moreover, it explores whether the integration could lead to more sustainable and positive outcomes for affected communities that align with the humanitarian-development-peace nexus. This paper achieves this through an extensive literature review and a case study examining intergenerational trauma and its impact on Palestinian youth in the occupied Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank (including East Jerusalem). It evaluates the community-based coping strategies in place and assesses their effectiveness. The findings of this research emphasise the importance of community engagement and the incorporation of existing coping strategies to effectively address intergenerational trauma among affected youth. This research also indicates a predominantly positive association between existing coping strategies and community resilience. Moreover, the existing coping strategies utilised by the affected communities have the potential to break the cycle of violence, which frequently results from intergenerational trauma. Finally, this research presents that these strategies foster a more sustainable peace process.

Norberg är en liten stad i norra Västmanland, som mest är känd för sina historiska gruvområden. De senaste decennierna har det skett en betydande minskning av stadens befolkning och under 2023 har fler människor dött än fötts i staden. Denna minskning av befolkningen har bland annat lett till att många butiker har stängts igen och att färre arbetstillfällen finns. I denna uppsats undersöker jag vad som händer med de som blir kvar. Jag analyserar bland annat varför de valt att stanna trots den förändring som skett och hur de ser på sin egen framtid där. Jag använder mig även av autoetnografi för att ge en bredare bild genom mina egna erfarenheter och upplevelser. Detta görs tillsammans med fokus på bland annat livslinjer. Jag diskuterar även detta utifrån ett perspektiv av hemmet som en affektiv struktur, inom de fyra aspekterna: säkerhet, förtrogenhet, gemenskap samt känslan av möjlighet och hopp. Resultatet visar att anledningarna till att de stannar är att det finns en stark gemenskap och förtrogenhet. Det blir som en trygghet i sig att stanna. Dessutom finns det hopp för att framtiden kan se bättre ut där, även om det saknas möjligheter idag. Att flytta bryter mot normer och dessutom finns det trots allt en stark hemmakänsla.

All aspects of our work and private lives are increasingly measured and managed. But how has this ‘audit culture’ arisen and what kind of a world is it producing? Cris Shore and Susan Wright provide a timely account of the rise of the new industries of accounting, enumeration and ranking from an anthropological perspective. Audit Culture is the first book to systematically document and analyse these phenomena and their implications for democracy. The book explores how audit culture operates across a wide range of fields, including health, higher education, NGOs, finance, the automobile industry and the military. The authors build a powerful critique of contemporary public sector management in an age of neoliberal market-making, privatisation and outsourcing. They conclude by offering ideas about how to reverse its damaging effects on communities, and restore the democratic accountability that audit culture is systematically undermining., OCLC: 1422792782

I denna essä återvänder jag till det antropologiska fältarbete som jag genomförde under inbördeskriget i Acholiland, norra Uganda. Det är en resa mer än tjugo år tillbaka i tiden som betonar vikten av det sociala sammanhanget i den antropologiska analysen. Även om resan går många år tillbaka i tiden, är frågan om antropologi och vetenskaplighet kanske mer aktuell än någonsin. I en tid när vetenskapliga hypoteser, formatmallar, projektdesign och forskningsetiska riktlinjer blir alltmer snäva och alltmer avgjorda redan i förhand, riskerar denna utveckling att stänga dörren till nyfikenheten, öppenheten och det socialt förankrade kunskapsbyggande som alltid varit antropologins kärna, skriver Sverker Finnström.

Herding cattle across the landscape requires three species — horse, cattle, and human — to move together in a goal-orientated, albeit human-centered, activity. In this multi-species activity, they must synchronize through embodied communication and develop a shared understanding of moving conjointly. Together, all three species are socialized, or “zoocialized,” to learn to engage in a shared community of communication where they develop a sense of “timing” and “feel” of the others to enable their directed movement together. While not denying or downplaying the power and pain integral to cattle ranching, we explore and interpret the interspecies, multi-species communication, collaboration, and choreography. Based on a multi-species ethnographic methodology, we draw on experiences from cattle herding in the USA, Canada, and Sweden. What emerges are intricate relations of agency, shaped by meanings of species, where human and nonhuman social actors learn to meet and construct a vibrant multi-species community of communication.

The concept of magic is frequently used to discuss technology, a practice considered useful by some with others arguing that viewing technology as magic precludes a proper understanding of technology. The concept of magic is especially prominent in discussions of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). Based on an anthropological perspective, this paper juxtaposes ML technology with magic, using descriptions drawn from a project on an ML-powered system for propulsion control of cargo ships. The paper concludes that prior scholarly work on technology has failed to both define magic adequately and use research into magic. It also argues that although the distinction between ML technology and magic is important, recognition of the similarities is useful for understanding ML technology.

This chapter reviews research of protected natural territories in the Russian North. Protected territories and nature conservation have been addressed in anthropological publications, but often as aspects of other research and rarely as a central topic. I argue that little interest in protected natural areas in Siberia and the North of Russia in 20th and early 21st centuries can be attributed, among other factors, to the success of Soviet authorities following a global tendency in removing indigenous people and histories from such areas, following a global model of fortress conservation. I also describe several areas of anthropological and ethnographic research in Siberia, that have engaged with questions relevant to protected natural territories even though as a peripheral topic. At present, the increased industrial appropriation of and competition over resources in the Arctic is transforming the existing configuration of relations, both through deepened tensions and new alliances between local people and environmentalists. I introduce selected topics that are central in global scholarship on protected natural territories and have strong relevance to the field of Siberia. Pursuing those topics further anthropologists of the region can make the field more visible in broader anthropological scholarship and theory building.

The article explores technology-human relations in a time of artificial intelligence (AI) and in the context of long-standing problems in social theory about agency, nonhumans, and autonomy. Most theorizations of AI are grounded in dualistic thinking and traditional views of technology, oversimplifying real-world settings. This article works to unfold modes of existence at play in AI/human relations. Materials from ethnographic fieldwork are used to highlight the significance of autonomy in AI/human relations. The analysis suggests that the idea of autonomy is a double-edged sword, showing that humans not only coordinate their perception of autonomy but also switch between registers by sometimes ascribing certain autonomous features to the AI system and in other situations denying the system such features. As a result, AI/human relations prove to be not so much determined by any ostensive delegation of tasks as by the way in which AI and humans engage with each other in practice. The article suggests a theory of relationality that redirects focus away from questions of agency towards questions of what it means to be in relations.

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among the Lulesámi, a subgroup of the indigenous Sámi of northern Fennoscandia, this article explores the relationship between indigenous identity and dress. The gáppte, traditional dress, is a central visual marker of the Sámi, yet on a personal and everyday basis this symbolism enters into dialogue, and sometimes conflict, with people’s life experiences, emotions, interests and expectations. Understandings and experiences of the gáppte are placed within a context in which the Sámi community at times is experienced as fragmented and where a history of colonialism and discrimination has left lasting imprints. As shown in the article, narrations of dress unfold how relationships that for long have been marked by oppression and discrimination raise specific forms of awareness as well as questions around what constitutes the self, and how such self can or should be expressed. Through ten different perspectives of the gáppte, the article reveals how different ways of being Sámi become negotiated and materialized through dress.

Genital cutting is a well-researched bodily practice in anthropology, often associated with the formation of gender, personhood and self in different cosmologies. Early anthropology focused on male initiation rituals, blood sacrifices, and masculinity. As more women anthropologists conducted fieldwork on reproductive health, practices that were previously precluded to male anthropologists, the attention moved progressively to female genital cutting and modifications. Diverging ethical discussions on human rights and health, as well as a range of religious, political and medical stances invest the two practices, which should be considered together. They are also at the centre of opposite global health strategies and interventions by international health organizations, for example the WHO. Recent developments highlight the issue of bodily integrity also for male children. The topic becomes politicized in relation to migration health, gendered violence, and worldviews in the new country of residence. Circumcision calls into question our ability to claim cultural relativism.

This study analyses the narratives expressed by the Pataxó indigenous people of Brazil within their indigenous tourism project, the “Jaqueira Reserve”. Our findings show that the indigenous people's role as protagonists in this setting foregrounds their voices, allowing them to retell and reposition themselves in history and to re-envision the future by presenting different ways of thinking and being. We contend that this Pataxó experience illustrates how decolonial endeavours are being crafted on an everyday basis in ways that strengthen indigenous cultural and environmental rights. Accordingly, we conclude that indigenous tourism has a transformational potential in the sense that it can counter the colonialization of mind and ideas and coloniality's violent oppression/exploitation of culture and nature.

La tesi ripercorre il mio lavoro di Project Manager per conto della organizzazione non governativa Medici con l'Africa CUAMM nelle regioni degli altipiani meridionali della Tanzania tra il 2015 ed il 2019, dove ero responsabile del progetto di cooperazione internazionale sanitaria intitolato " Accelerating Stunting Reduction Project - TubadiLISHE" realizzato in collaborazione e con il supporto di UNICEF Tanzania. Il progetto era indirizzato a ridurre il tasso di malnutrizione infantile cronica e acuta/ severa in circa settecento villaggi della Tanzania meridionale, coinvolgendo circa due milioni di persone. Il progetto si inseriva nella strategia nazionale del Ministero della Salute della Tanzania di contrasto alla malnutrizione infantile e nel piano strategico di UNICEF per l'Est Africa. In questo contesto, il lavoro di cooperante e antropologo si è indirizzato a comprendere e far emergere i determinanti socioculturali della malnutrizione in un contesto che non risente di scarsa disponibilità di cibo attraverso una analisi e approccio proprio della antropologia sociale, culturale e medica. In modalità sinergica, il lavoro di tesi ambisce a far emergere le criticità insite in una prospettiva operativa ed ermeneutica della cooperazione sanitaria che legge i fenomeni attraverso un riduzionismo epistemologico proprio degli indicatori quantitativi degli outcomes sanitari, che implicitamente , e a volte inconsapevolmente, si fanno strumenti per reiterare immaginari collettivi e stereotipi in merito all'Africa rurale fuorvianti. Attraverso il duplice ruolo di Program Coordinator e di antropologo sul campo, rifletto e analizzo la sinergia, la circolarità e le contraddizioni del rivestire e agire in questo duplice ruolo, visto però non come una dicotomia paralizzante, ma come una preziosa possibilità di contaminazione delle due discipline ed impianti teorici. Se la cooperazione necessità indubbiamente degli strumenti e delle pratiche dell'antropologia, quest'ultima, The thesis traces my work as Project Manager on behalf of the non-governmental organization Doctors with Africa CUAMM in the southern highland regions of Tanzania between 2015 and 2019, where I was responsible for the international health cooperation project entitled " Accelerating Stunting Reduction Project - TubadiLISHE" made in collaboration and with the support of UNICEF Tanzania. The project was aimed at reducing the rate of chronic and acute/severe child malnutrition in about seven hundred villages in southern Tanzania, involving about two million people. The project was part of the national strategy of the Ministry of Health of Tanzania to combat child malnutrition and the strategic plan of UNICEF for East Africa. In this context, the work of aid worker and anthropologist was aimed at understanding and bringing out the socio-cultural determinants of malnutrition in a context that is not affected by the scarce availability of food through an analysis and approach proper to social, cultural and medical anthropology. In a synergistic way, the thesis work aims to bring out the critical issues inherent in an operational and hermeneutic perspective of health cooperation that reads the phenomena through an epistemological reductionism of the quantitative indicators of health outcomes, which implicitly, and sometimes unknowingly, become tools to reiterate misleading collective imaginations and stereotypes about rural Africa. Through the dual role of Program Coordinator and field anthropologist, I reflect and analyze the synergy, circularity and contradictions of playing and acting in this dual role, seen however not as a paralyzing dichotomy, but as a precious possibility of contamination of the two disciplines and theoretical frameworks. If cooperation undoubtedly needs the tools and practices of anthropology, the latter can germinate through a confrontation with the taking of responsibility for the action of cooperation, in order to make its ontological status matu