This master’s thesis will be discussing how nuanced experiences affects the crafting of identity among transnational and/or transracial adult adoptees raised in Sweden from an anthropological perspective.The purpose of this thesis is to show that adoptees craft their identity in numerous and complex ways, one as unique as the other. The nuanced experiences are important to underscore since the adoptee demographic is vast and it consists of multiple individuals with unique lives, and if these distinctiveness are ignored, we run the risk of depicting a flawed picture of the adoptee experience. In an attempt to avoid doing so, this thesis will use an intersection of different theoretical frameworks from previous literatureon adoption and identity, which are belonging, body, and kinning, with additional theoretical concepts on materiality to complement. This paper follows eight adoptees, who share their individual narratives that revolves around the crafting of their Swedish, Adoption, and Ethnic identity. I will bring their experiences to life by putting them in relation to each other to showcase their uniqueness. Keywords: Adoption, Belonging, Body, Kinship. 

This study explore how different forms of embodied experiences in virtual reality can be explained. Virtual reality (VR) is a quickly emerging, although understudied field that in the last decade have come to take a bigger and bigger part in everyone’s daily life. With the rise of virtual reality new possibilities for social platforms in VR have emerged, one of these is the virtual world of VRChat. This paper aims to give an introduction to the world of VRChat, through looking at how different embodied practises take place in it. It is based on a two-month long ethnographic fieldwork in the world of VRChat, following at a group of around 20 individuals scattered around the world and their experiences of embodiment in VRChat. This paper looks at how different forms of embodiment take place in VRChat and how these forms of embodiment affect different aspects of being in a virtual world. I study how mirrors and avatars through embodiment and interplay of different agencies create identity and a sense of ‘me’ amongst users in VRChat. I look at how embodiment connects to immersion and how it bridges the gap between reality and virtuality, through the translation of the sense touch in virtual reality to real life a. I see that a non-traditional form of immersion plays a big role in creating this phenomenon which is called phantom sense

This article explores the local governance of poverty alleviation in a marginalised Hungarian rural community, with over 50 per cent Roma inhabitants, most of whom were either unemployed or participated in public work projects. Kisbalog is among those marginalised rural communities which are characterised by increasing social polarisation and ethnic cleavages as a result of selective outmigration and a municipal leadership which negotiates access to public work along racialised notions of deservingness. Hungary follows the EU concept of public private partnerships for local governance. This article unravels the room for manoeuvre for NGOs working for poverty alleviation in the context of the racialised narratives of a paternalistic local welfare state. Utilising Young's notions of social justice it explores the complicit nature of recognitional, associative and distributional justice in order to understand the interplay in partnerships between public and private agencies. From among three types of strategies, coercive, isolated and deliberative, the last one has the potential to bring about transformative changes.

January 22 & 23:

In the first of a two-part series on the Juba peace talks, world-renowned scholars, Ron Atkinson and Sverker Finnstrom provide an exclusive look at the process in its earliest stages in late 2005 to February 2007. In Part II, they examine recent developments, new threats to the process and the likely future of the peace talks.

Op-ed, 9 August 2006:

While wars elsewhere have grabbed the headlines - most recently in Lebanon and Israel - Africa's longest-running war has been ravaging northern Uganda for 20 years. The conflict has mainly pitted the Ugandan government against a rebel movement called the Lord's Resistance Army...

I denna socialantropologiska kandidatuppsats undersöks fenomenet hederskultur och hur hederskulturen påverkar idrott och- simundervisning i grundskolan, årskurs 7-9. Med kvalitativ metod och semistrukturerade intervjuer presenteras tre idrottslärares perspektiv på hederskultur, samt en skolkurators perspektiv och en socialsekreterares perspektiv. Informanternas perspektiv bygger på deras erfarenheter av hederskulturella situationer inom deras arbetsmiljö, och uppfattningar om hederskultur. Teori om patriarkat är användbar för att förstå hederskulturen och med hjälp av lagstiftning, skollag och tidigare forskning diskuteras det empiriska materialet i denna studie, som visar ett hedersrelaterat förtryck mot elever med utländsk bakgrund.

Denna forskning genomfördes under åren 2000–2004. Forskningssammanhanget är både Lesbiska studier och IMER forskning. I avhandlingen studeras livserfarenheter som 21 lesbiska informanter från 15 olika länder, alla invandrare i Sverige, berättar om. Utgångspunkten för forskningen är sexualitet och migration. De övergripande forskningsfrågorna är: Genom vilka processer blir kvinnor medvetna om sin sexuella dragning till kvinnor? Hur ”lär” de sig att leva lesbiskt, samt inom vilket socialt sammanhang sker dessa processer? Forskningsfrågorna belyses genom de livserfarenheter som de 21 lesbiska informanterna berättar om. Analysen görs genom fokusering på det samband och den växelverkan som fi nns mellan lesbiskhet och migration i datamaterialet.

Studien är etnografi sk och kvalitativ. Den narrativa metoden används för inhämtning av det empiriska materialet, vilket består av utskrivna intervjuer och anteckningar från deltagande observation. Analysen görs med hjälp av teorier om sociala relationer, heteronormativitet, stigmatisering, aktörskap och migration. Studien visar att informanternas erfarenheter av stigmatisering och marginalisering liknar varandra oavsett i vilket samhälle de växt upp. Marginaliseringen av lesbiska kvinnor hänger till stor del samman med en samhällsstruktur som förtrycker kvinnlig sexualitet. Det är genom komma-ut-processen som den lesbiska kvinnan ”lär” sig att ”vara” lesbisk. Stigmatisering är det sociala sammanhang i vilket den lesbiska kvinnan blir medveten om sin sexuella orientering. Genom sitt aktörskap ändrar den lesbiska kvinnan sin sociala position i marginalen och växer som ett självständigt och stolt lesbiskt subjekt. Detta leder henne till att söka sig till andra homosexuella (kvinnor och män). Känslan av grupptillhörighet baserad på likartade livserfarenheter, som har sin grund i samhällets attityd till deras lesbiskhet är centralt för informanternas liv och avgörande för bygget av ett lesbiskt samhälle, oavsett etnisk och nationell bakgrund. Det lesbiska samhället (och gaysamhället) är internationellt.

The book gives accounts of the forces that drive many young people to migrate from the less Developed World, especially Ghana, to come and live in the Diaspora. Coming to live, work or pursue some goals in the Diaspora is for many young Ghanaians, for example, the ultimate goal worth striving after. In Ghana and in most Third World Countries, many people's perception of better life in the Diaspora is shared by many parents and some respectable people, a fact that also reinforces the drive to migrate to the Diaspora. That alone can help them develop their potentialities. But the journey is tough, full of adventure for all. How many have experienced the life in the Diaspora and how many feel detached from their place of birth, Ghana, are among the major themes discussed in this book. People that have migrated from their countries to seek fortunes or whatever in the Diaspora, Potential travellers and politicians in poor countries stand to gain from the experiences shared in this book.

(Editorial review from Amazon)

This study is about the developmental challenges and adversities to children and the youth in Arba Minch which is one of the emerging towns of Ethiopia. Primary data for the study was collected through case stories, in-depth interview with key informants from families, experts in concerned organizations, FGD and observation methods. The purpose of the research was to explore how the emerging risk situations in the family, community and school environments are threatening the socio-economic and intellectual developments of children and the youth in the town. It is identified that there are adverse situations for thousands of children and the youth in the family, school and community environments. Risk factors in the community include high rate of substance abuse, crime and violence, unemployment, idleness and absence of children and youth recreational centers. The presence of shops that show pornographic and action video, drug centers around schools, shortage of educational inputs or teaching-learning facilities, absence of variety of learning styles, students’ misbehaviors, and low academic achievements have made schools ineffective. The family environment is also not comfortable for positive child development due to the prevalence of child abuse, child neglect, poverty and family disorganization.

Denna uppsats fokuserar på kvinnliga sjuksköterskor som är verksamma på ett gemensamt lasarett i Sverige. Studien har tillämpat det fenomenologiska perspektivet för att undersöka sjuksköterskors identitet och dess koppling till deras känsla för ansvarstagande. För att samla in data har tre semi-strukturerade intervjuer genomförts med sjuksköterskor samt netnografi har använts som metod. Genom att intervjua både icke-vita svenska och vita- svenska kvinnliga sjuksköterskor har denna studie med hjälp av det post-koloniala fenomenologi funnit att icke-vita svenska sjuksköterskor upplever en starkare känsla av arbetsprestation jämfört med andra. I förståelse av begreppet "icke-vit" i denna uppsats, avser det personer vars etniska bakgrund härstammar från ett annat land än Sverige. Studien ger bevis för hur arbetsplatsens miljö och kultur, som ett “vit-rum”, bidrar till att icke-vita svenska sjuksköterskor känner att de upplevs otillräckliga på arbetsplatsen som leder till att de arbetar mer och hårdare än vad de generella arbetsuppgifterna kräver.

The collapse of the Spanish real-estate market in 2007-8, and the colossal destruction of jobs it provoked, put an abrupt end to a decade-long model of growth, which was based on the construction and tourism industries as its primary motors as well as on the massive indebtedness of the labouring masses. In the severe economic downturn that ensued, a social conflict appeared: on the one side, the many indebted people forming the movement of the Plataforma de Afectados por la Hipoteca (PAH) and, on the other side, the financial industry. This study offers an ethnographic account of the aforementioned conflict as it unfolds in the precarious reality of Barcelona and Santa Coloma de Gramenet, with a particular emphasis on the experience and struggle of the affected persons. The argument advanced is that the main predicament of the debt conflict is the subordination of life processes to the imperatives of financial accumulation; a situation enabled by a specific constellation of forces, involving the successive governments of Spain, the financial elite, the police, and the courts.

This thesis examines the composition of affective atmospheres, emerging in court sessions of criminal matter in Vienna. The notion of atmosphere is used to explore collective affective qualities, emerging through the interplay between affective bodies and their environment. The focus provides as analytical frame for bringing forward the workings of affect in legal procedures. From a starting point in theories of affect and atmosphere, I cast light at how the affectively charged space is both monitored and beyond control. First, I trace affect through the lens of spatial arrangements of courtrooms. I show how the architectural and interior arrangements and aesthetics of courtrooms are expedient in creating resonance between the bodies and control over the situations, while being visual and material representations of law. Second, I trace affect in the relation between the bodies that produce atmosphere and regard for the bodily capacity to affect and be affected. I consider principles of criminal procedure structuring and disciplining affective bodies in courtrooms and the juridical labour entailing work on emotions. Third, I trace affect in the dynamics and changes of affective atmosphere by showing how atmospheric changes come about and are contested through intensification and ruptures in atmosphere. I discuss the compositions of affective atmosphere in relation to discipline and control converging with bodies entering the legal setting. The ethnographic material is collected through participant observation in one hundred court sessions, as well as through interviews with people involved. 

La inundación de 2003 que afectó la ciudad de Santa Fe tuvo profundas repercusiones en la comunidad urbana. En 2005, las personas afectadas todavía estaban tratando de reconstruir sus vidas, tanto materialmente como afectivamente. Los recuerdos de los momentos previos, simultáneos y posteriores a la inundación marcaron su vida diaria. Este artículo analiza de qué manera los recuerdos de la inundación estaban intrínsecamente impregnados en la vida cotidiana y posdesastre de los barrios en el oeste de la ciudad y en particular cómo se tejían estas memorias en las relaciones de la economía solidaria de los habitantes. El estudio se basa en trabajo de campo etnográfico en dicha ciudad entre los años 2005–2011.

El 29 de abril de 2003, ocurrió la peor inundación catastrófica en la historia de la ciudad argentina de Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. Al poco tiempo, el desastre se convirtió en una cuestión política, ya que se habían realizado graves acusaciones contra las autoridades y tomadores de decisiones con respecto a la negligencia, la corrupción y la falta de preparación para desastres. Surgió un movimiento de protesta demandando tanto la asignación de responsabilidades, como la compensación económica por las pérdidas sufridas por las víctimas. Este artículo analiza el papel de la memoria material y el olvido en el escenario del posdesastre, y más específicamente cómo los diferentes actores sociales en Santa Fe usaron los lugares y los objetos en una contienda por construir un memo-paisaje del desastre. El análisis se basa en etnografía de trabajo de campo translocal y transtemporal realizado en Santa Fe entre 2004 y 2011, y aplica las teorías antropológicas y sociológicas de la memoria a fines de analizar estos procesos.

El 29 de abril de 2003, ocurrió la peor inundación catastrófica en la historia de la ciudad argentina de Santa Fe de la Vera Cruz. Al poco tiempo, el desastre se convirtió en una cuestión política, ya que se habían realizado graves acusaciones contra las autoridades y tomadores de decisiones con respecto a la negligencia, la corrupción y la falta de preparación para desastres. Surgió un movimiento de protesta demandando tanto la asignación de responsabilidades, como la compensación económica por las pérdidas sufridas por las víctimas. Este artículo analiza el papel de la memoria material y el olvido en el escenario del posdesastre, y más específicamente cómo los diferentes actores sociales en Santa Fe usaron los lugares y los objetos en una contienda por construir un memo-paisaje del desastre. El análisis se basa en etnografía de trabajo de campo translocal y transtemporal realizado en Santa Fe entre 2004 y 2011, y aplica las teorías antropológicas y sociológicas de la memoria a fines de analizar estos procesos.

El tema del presente número especial el de los eventos críticos, extraordinarios y disruptivos; de los sucesos y situaciones que interrumpen un determinado orden social, ya sean de índole ambiental, tecnológico, financiero, político o social, y que tienen un impacto grande en la sociedad involucrada. Nos proponemos aquí introducir al lector cómo se puede abordar este objeto de estudio desde la antropología social. El problema de los desastres y de las crisis no es de ahora, ni es exclusivo de América Latina. No obstante, en la región han aumentado dramáticamente los impactos de los desastres de origen hidrometeorológico y geológico en el último siglo (BID 2010; UNISDR y Corporación OSSO 2013) y muchos países tienen experiencia histórica y reciente de profundas crisis sociales, políticas y económicas. Son eventos complejos y con un alto impacto social, político y económico que representan un desafío muy grande para las sociedades para gestionar, mitigar y reducir. Como tales, los estudios científicos sobre la problemática son indispensables para comprender tanto causas como efectos y así desarrollar soluciones sostenibles.

En este número especial se presentan cuatro artículos que presentan casos empíricos de América Latina, con énfasis en Argentina y Brasil, que demuestran cual puede ser el aporte antropológico para analizar los eventos críticos, antes, durante y después. El número no aspira dar una visión exhaustiva de la antropología de desastres y crisis en América Latina, sino dar cuenta de un campo de investigación en crecimiento en la región que ya está haciendo importantes contribuciones, tanto a los estudios multidisciplinarios de los eventos críticos, como a las políticas de reducción de riesgo y de gestión de crisis y desastres.

El tema del presente número especial el de los eventos críticos, extraordinarios y disruptivos; de los sucesos y situaciones que interrumpen un determinado orden social, ya sean de índole ambiental, tecnológico, financiero, político o social, y que tienen un impacto grande en la sociedad involucrada. Nos proponemos aquí introducir al lector cómo se puede abordar este objeto de estudio desde la antropología social. El problema de los desastres y de las crisis no es de ahora, ni es exclusivo de América Latina. No obstante, en la región han aumentado dramáticamente los impactos de los desastres de origen hidrometeorológico y geológico en el último siglo (BID 2010; UNISDR y Corporación OSSO 2013) y muchos países tienen experiencia histórica y reciente de profundas crisis sociales, políticas y económicas. Son eventos complejos y con un alto impacto social, político y económico que representan un desafío muy grande para las sociedades para gestionar, mitigar y reducir. Como tales, los estudios científicos sobre la problemática son indispensables para comprender tanto causas como efectos y así desarrollar soluciones sostenibles.

En este número especial se presentan cuatro artículos que presentan casos empíricos de América Latina, con énfasis en Argentina y Brasil, que demuestran cual puede ser el aporte antropológico para analizar los eventos críticos, antes, durante y después. El número no aspira dar una visión exhaustiva de la antropología de desastres y crisis en América Latina, sino dar cuenta de un campo de investigación en crecimiento en la región que ya está haciendo importantes contribuciones, tanto a los estudios multidisciplinarios de los eventos críticos, como a las políticas de reducción de riesgo y de gestión de crisis y desastres.

Flooding has long been a recurrent problem in the Argentinian city of Santa Fe, mainly affecting the poverty-stricken suburban outskirts. In 2003 one of the worst floods ever occurred, which also affected residents in the middle income sectors who had never been flooded before and who reacted with an extraordinary process of commemoration and protest against the government for its lax disaster management. Paradoxically, most other past disastrous floods in the city’s history seem to dwell in the shadows of social oblivion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the years 2004–2011, this article analyzes how local flood memories are made through daily life practices and places in the suburban outskirts, more than through public commemorations, which has implications for vulnerability and risk.

Flooding has long been a recurrent problem in the Argentinian city of Santa Fe, mainly affecting the poverty-stricken suburban outskirts. In 2003 one of the worst floods ever occurred, which also affected residents in the middle income sectors who had never been flooded before and who reacted with an extraordinary process of commemoration and protest against the government for its lax disaster management. Paradoxically, most other past disastrous floods in the city’s history seem to dwell in the shadows of social oblivion. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in the years 2004–2011, this article analyzes how local flood memories are made through daily life practices and places in the suburban outskirts, more than through public commemorations, which has implications for vulnerability and risk.

The two case studies in this chapter present examples of disaster recovery scenarios from Argentina and Sweden, which give complementary theoretical insights about how social processes of remembering/forgetting and of moralizing around past disasters operate in the post-disaster process of making meaning.

To meet an increasing industrial and urban demand for water in a context of water scarcity in Peru, the state has invested heavily in hydraulic megaprojects to ensure water supply to citizens and corporations. The Majes Siguas Special Project (PEMS) in the Arequipa Region is an example of such a water infrastructure project. While the first stage of PEMS, built in the 1980s, was financed and run by the Peruvian government, the second stage that is currently underway is being co-financed and built by a private transnational consortium that will run the infrastructure for 20 years. This can be understood as a process of temporary commodification of the water infrastructure and places the hydraulic megaproject at the heart of tensions between seeing water infrastructure as public utility and seeing it as private provision. This article asks how this tension between public and private is played out in practice within the hydraulic bureaucracy and examines ethnographically how the Majes Siguas Special Project is made over time by way of the everyday practices of experts. The study finds that these experts anticipate the potential political effects of temporary commodification of water infrastructures to be both a risk and a distinct possibility. The article argues that building, maintaining and managing hydraulic megaprojects are far from straightforward processes, but should instead be understood as open-ended experimental reconfigurations that the hydrocracy deals with through contingent practices of knowledge.

In the summer of 2014 occurred the worst wild fire in modern times in Sweden; a disaster that sparked many reactions in affected areas and in society at large. Mass media reported intensively about the emergency and the area was subject to a lot of “disaster tourism,” both during the emergency and in the following months. Numerous public investigations were commissioned to document and analyse the disaster event and its public management. In addition, many scientific research projects were launched to study the psychological, social and ecological effects of the forest fire. This article is the result of one of these research projects, but while many of them focus on the actual disaster management or the immediate impact, our research aims at understanding the long-term effects of the wildfire in the affected communities. This article analyses how local stakeholders have managed what can be called the disaster afterlife or the post-disaster, referring to the process of community recovery and reconstruction, or, to use a more recent concept, resilience. Our focus is on how personal memories and moral understandings forge the ways in which public officials, who are set to manage risk, experience this process. We apply an inductive approach to analyse our empirical material collected by semi-structured interviews in 2016.

Driven by an increasing industrial and urban demand for water and other economic and political interests, the Peruvian State has invested heavily in water infrastructures. One such infrastructure is the Majes Siguas Special Project in the Department of Arequipa. This megaproject was envisioned already in the early twentieth century to supply the coastland with irrigation water and thereby developing agriculture in this arid region. The first stage of the project was built in the 1970-80’s, but the second stage was not actualised until the 2000s and is still waiting to be built. Based on ethnography from fieldwork in the realm of the megaproject in 2016 and 2017, this article asks what happens when the materialisation of a megaproject is constantly deferred and explores how the promise it entails is sustained over time by analysing the social processes of temporal scale-making.

Varför bosätter sig människor på riskfyllda platser? Hur beter sig människor i en katastrof och vilken betydelse har religion, hushåll och försörjning för återhämtning? Lär vi oss av våra kriserfarenheter och vilken roll spelar motivation och kollektiva minnen för detta? Är kapacitetsutveckling, multisektoriell samverkan och övning en hållbar väg mot reducerad katastrofrisk? Dessa är några av de många frågor som denna bok besvarar. 

Katastrofriskreducering är ett växande område, såväl politiskt som inom forskning och utbildning. Det handlar om att förstå de samhällsprocesser som skapar risk för katastrofer och som påverkar villkoren för organisationer och individer att hantera dem. Denna kunskap kan bidra till att minska exponering och sårbarhet för människor, egendom och miljö och utveckla samhällens, organisa­tioners och enskildas förmåga att reducera risker och hantera katastrofers konsekvenser, vad som på senare tid kallas resiliens. Katastrofriskreducering innehåller både teoretiska kapitel och empiriska fallstudier baserade på aktuell forskning om katastrofrisk­reducering.

Boken ger läsaren en god översikt av detta mång­vetenskapliga kunskapsområde, genom att beskriva och problematisera centrala begrepp och perspektiv. Det här är en bok som vänder sig till såväl studenter och forskare som praktiskt verksamma beslutsfattare inom krisberedskap, humanitära insatser och riskhantering på myndigheter, i kommunal verksamhet och i icke-statliga organisationer.

The world is currently experiencing a surge of investment in, and development of, large-scale infrastructural building projects, frequently captured by the term 'megaprojects'. Distinguished by the bulk of their envisioned materiality, the volume of financial capital required to build them, and the complexity of technical, legal, administrative, and political tools needed to bring them into operation, megaprojects do not easily lend themselves to ethnographic inquiry. While in recent years, ethnographic attention to infrastructure has given rise to a burgeoning theoretical apparatus and a growing anthropological subfield in which the various aspects of megaprojects have been analysed, scale as a concept has remained under-theorised. Exploring scale-making ethnographically and unpacking the work that scale does for various actors and publics, the contributions collected in this issue make a theoretical contribution to the anthropology of infrastructure by showing how scale connects the everyday making and the spectacular politics of megaprojects.