In the spring of 2006 a pilot project was initiated by The Rural Economy and Agricultural Societies of Sweden together with The Swedish Ornithological Society in order to increase collaboration between bird watchers and farmers. The project as a whole comprised 11 farms in South-Central Sweden. The aim was to benefit the decreasing populations of bird species related to the agricultural landscape. The purpose of this master thesis was to study how similarities and differences between bird watchers and farmers regarding opinions about nature, landscape, agriculture, birds and nature conservation have influenced the collaboration. Four of the farmers and five of the bird watchers that participated in the project were included in this study.

Environmental problems are accelerating with energy consumption and the release of greenhouse gases as the major issues. This affects landscape planning mostly through environmentally hazardous transportation and heating of buildings. In environmental work, the term "Sustainable development" is often used. This term was coined in the Bruntland report in 1987. A number of frameworks have been developed to clarify the term and to remind the user about relevant aspects of sustainability.

The overall aim is to examine how the European Union Water Framework Directive has affected the local water management in the catchment Märstaån situated in the eastern part of the lake Mälaren river basin, Sweden. The first part of the study gives an historical overview of the area with focus on how the old agricultural landscape was handling the nutrient load from farming activities by means of different kinds of wetlands. By using the concept of the procedural landscape, introduced by Torsten Hägerstrand , together with historical maps with dates starting from the 17th century, the pre-modern landscape is analyzed.  The second part is an investigation, based on qualitative data, on how the different actors in the catchment area work together to secure the water quality for the Märstaån river. The analysis shows that the Märstaån catchment river systems are mostly unchanged in the rural areas.  The exception is the mainstream section of the Märstaån river running partly underground today and the Halmsjöbäcken river that is heavily affected by the Arlanda airport situated within the catchment area.

A large part of Sweden?s green, urban landscape is covered by lawns. Approximately 80 000 ha of maintained grass lawns are part of public courtyards, schoolyards, parks, golf courses, sport fields and traffic environments. Beyond this figure, the lawn is also an essential element in most private villa-gardens. Lawns have become a universal phenomenon through the dispersion of landscape aesthetics from the Western world.

This diploma work, with the title Represent and Consume the Land ?I drove following the picture of a spruce through Sweden, is presented as a film and an essay and the aim is to explore the perception of an individual with the film as the medium. To reach this, it is necessary to destabilize my own reality, to explore myself at the same time as I study landscapes and representations of landscapes. The diploma work focus on representations of landscapes of Sweden, external pictures and internal images. The picture is a very strong medium that holds and comunicate myths, about the landscape and about the nation.

The aim of this essay is to study how older art can be used to illustrate our contemporary society with a critical view and also to contribute to the discussion of for what reason we keep our public collections.My essay is based on a case study of the 2008 summer exhibition ?Queer: desire, power and identity? at Nationalmuseum. The exhibition used art from different eras to show how the ideals, norms of gender, and how the symbols for power have changed throughout history. It also reveals how certain art or artists have been excluded from art history due to their sexual orientation.This study is based on three questions:-          How can older art be used to illustrate a to our society contemporary theme?-          How can a public museum make an exhibition with a clear and active message?-          How can a clear and potentially sensitive message be shown without risking to be provocative towards either the visitors or the person(s) it is about.My material is based on the exhibition, the work material from the museum, protocols, photographs, exhibition texts, and interviews with the creators of the exhibition.

Ship formed monuments from the Late Bronze Age on the island of O?land, southeast Sweden, have never been thoroughly dealt with in previous research, despite the fact that the region is suggested to have had a key-role in maritime trade networks. This thesis aims to address the ship formed monuments on O?land in relationship to the monuments in northern Sma?land and the island of Gotland. My goal is to discuss how the ship symbolism was practised during the Late Bronze Age in Scandinavia from a new perspective.

Following the wake of the AIDS-catastrophe in the beginning of the eighties, homosexual men or 'men who have sex with men' (MSM) have been barred from donating blood throughout the planet. In this thesis I look into the different discourses at play in the context of creating the legal framework for blood donation in Sweden. Genealogically tracing the emergence of the category of MSM and mapping how the category is brought to use in contemporary negotiations on blood safety, I scrutinize how scientific truth is established within blood transfusion practice. I argue that the rationality of risk group exclusion is contingent on economical grounds, and that the foucauldian concept of biopolitics could productively be used to understand this rationality. In particular, the concept of the 'biopolitics of blood' can be employed in order to understand the reluctance from the involved actors to acknowledge the heteronormative consequences of the legal framework of contemporary blood donation..

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to investigate how contemporary Swedish picture-books describe ethnicity. The analysis is based upon eight books that were published during the period 1996 to 2006. The thesis is based upon a qualitative content analysis and a model of analysis that has been constructed with inspiration from Maria Nikolajeva and Pil Dahlerup and their conceptions of analyzing literature. The study?s theoretical framework is primarily based on the sociology of literature and the perspective of the society in literature.

This Master thesis is made at the request of the local municipality of Uppsala in Sweden. The purpose of this work is to create a guiding management plan. Recreation, conservation of the cultivated landscape and the historical environment, conservation biology and the aim of the landowners are all considerd. The area is almost 34 hectares and located north of the centre of Uppsala. Landowners are the National Heritage Board, the diocese of Uppsala, the university of Uppsala, the local municipality of Uppsala and one private landowner.

What drove me to write this paper is the will to  examine if there is a philosophically and scientifically viable  alternative foundation for an objective morality other than what we like to refer to as "God". The  American philosopher and neuroscientist Sam Harris presents in his book The Moral Landscape a thesis for an objective morality based on science in which he states that  science can determine human values. The purpose of this paper is to perform a theoretical trial of The Moral Landscape, examining Harris' thesis and it's relations to the philosophical obstacles that stands in its way, these being mainly the famous philosophical principle "Hume's Law" and G.E. Moore's "Naturalistic Fallacy and Open Question Argument" and thus will serve as my main theoretical foundation. The results of my study was not conclusive since Harris in fact doesn't succeed in bridging the gap between facts and values on a scientific ground.

Abstract In my work, I have tried to define and clarify the conception of sustainability seen from my perspective as a landscape architect. With a basis in literature studies, I have analysed and commented on different applications, contents and meanings of sustainability and endurance. This compilation is based on how a number of writers, researchers and authorities consider the importance of integrating ecological, social and economic aspects of sustainability in city planning. My perspective has mainly been founded on the anthologies and compilations from the 80´s and 90´s where Per G. Berg and Björn Malbert acted as editors.

The formulation of visions into practical projects is an important part of the professional expertise of landscape architects. This expertise includes the gathering, structuring, improvement and utilization of knowledge. Project models have been developed to provide tools for the implementation and governance of projects, as well as means of learning, reflection and survey of individual projects. The aim of this thesis is to describe some general project models and their theory, and to describe practical, real-life examples of project models used within landscape architecture. Questions asked are: ? How do the processes of idea to construction in landscape architectural projects lool like? Do project models have a relevance for the mission of landscape architects? ? Is a common project model used within such projects, or is the project model varying depending on e.g.

ABSTRACTA Qualitative Discursive Analysis of Eight Contemporary Geography BooksTeacher Training with an Intercultural Profile 2006Author: Susanne LjunglöfTutor: Jan-Eric MattsonThe aim of this paper is to describe which discourses concerning the different continents problems, future and development that I can find in the descriptions of the continents in a number of contemporary geography books.The aim has been divided in four questions:- Which aspects of the continents problems are expressed in these geography books?- Which impressions concerning the continents development and future are expressed in these geography books?- Which conceptions about the population in the different continents are expressed in these geography books?- Which cultural reference creates these discourses?The method used for conducting this study is a text analytical method called general discourse analysis.My conclusions:- The different continents problems, development and future are described through entirely diverse discourses.- The reviewed geography books take their origin i a western perspective in their description of the different continents.- As a reader it is always important to be aware of the ethnocentric perspective that could be expressed.

My Finnish grandfather had a passion for architecture, eventhough he wasn?t an architect. In the end of the 1950s he builta wooden summerhouse on a lot outside of a small villagecalled Lempäälä, close to the city of Tampere. Today the lotbelongs to my mother. Every time I visit our summerhouse, itmakes me want to do as my grandfather did ? to build a smallhouse next to it.My project is a proposal for a wooden house on mymothers lot.