The aim of this study has been to explore local cultural policy documents in some municipalities in the geographical region of Västra Götaland. Do the municipalities have these kinds of documents for their local cultural activities, and how are they designed? These are questions which the study has focused on. The study has been concentrated on the library activity in the local cultural policy documents. The research has been a comparative one.

The aim for this essay is to adress questions concering ethnic and cultural experiences and in what way it affects our experience of being in different landscapes. By studying how ethnic experiences are expressed in the landscape and the ongoing process of interaction between them, this essay sets out to discuss the significance of cultural aspects in the landscape. The perspective of this essay is that both landscape and ethnicity can be viewed as something constructed which is shaped and maintained by ongoing interactions in the landscape.While examples are taken from different parts of the western world, the main focus is to study how these experiences take place and are being negotiatiated in a particular landscape, an allotment area outside Malmö, Sweden.In the first part it is shown how the landscape can be read as a landscape of powerrelations and how these relations are related to ethnic experiences.In the next chapter the discussion concerns whether we can talk about different ?ethnic landscapes?. Research suggest that the use and perception of the landscape differs among ethnic groups.

The premise for this study is the question how we should relate to people with different religious beliefs. The aim is to examine if an existence characterized by a religious diversity should affect the certainty and confidence in our faith. To answer my question I have turned to the philosophers David Basinger, Mikael Stenmark, William Lane Craig and Robert McKims different views on this issue. Using an approach based on a comparative method and argument analysis I have then assessed their different opinions in the matter. Based on my own discussion of these arguments I conclude that a religious diversity should imply a reduction in our own religious confidence and that it should be reduced in relation to the amount of disagreement that exist between conflicting religious perspectives in an specific case and matter.

The aftermath of colonization, culture diversity and the recognition of the ownidentity - living in a country which has the role of a former colonizer has got consequences in the multicultural French society. These consequences can be seen studying the politics, the education and the history of that country. In this bachelorthesis I discuss the aftermath of French colonization with a focus on how the French cultural identity can be explained in defining colonialism in French lawmaking. The aim is to understand the definition of the own cultural identity from a postcolonial perspective and what meaning the multicultural society has for this definition. This is an issue which can be seen in politics as well as ineveryday life, and to make an understanding of it, I study how French politicians are representing their country's role as a former colonizer in a postcolonial era.

This Master thesis aims to study the relation between Swedish governmental cultural policy and cultural events at two Swedish public libraries. The Masters thesis demonstrates how national cultural policy regulates every part of the public library. This demonstration is a result based upon national cultural policy documents and interviews with employees at two public libraries in Sweden. The conclusion that national cultural policy regulates this part of the public library is drawn with help of the circle of culture as applied in Culture Studies and Michel Foucault theories of power. The thesis contains the answer of four questions, two involving cultural policy and the other two events at the library.

This graduate essay treats how the cultural heritage of Gothenburg is mediated in different respect.The various sources that have been studied are literary such as guidebooks and books that tell thehistory of Gothenburg. Internet pages and citywalks have also been studied, as well as theinformation the visitor can extract in the area.The introduction presents the subject of the essay, as well as its significance. In the second chapter isthe mediation of the history behind cultural heritage as well as its present interpretation described.Therefore, in chapter three, is a short version of the history of Gothenburg described. The main partof the essay, the main examination, is treated in chapter four where literary sources, citywalks andsigns in the area are examined. Chapter four ends with a suggestion of how the cultural heritage inVästra Nordstaden could in a better way be mediated to residents and visitors in Gothenburg.The results and concluding discussion in chapter five reflects on what was represented in chapterfour.

The aim of this study is to explore local cultural policy documents in the municipality of Gothenburg Sweden, and, more specifically, to investigate the concepts of cultural planning and instrumental cultural policy. Cultural planning is in this thesis seen as a result of an instrumental view of cultural policy. The theoretical framework consists of the theories of Danish cultural policy researcher Dorte Skot-Hansen. She describes cultural policy in urban areas as founded in motives such as economy, social issues, entertaining and enlightenment. A qualitative text analysis is performed in order to see if the purpose of the cultural policies is to focus on cultural planning as formulated in the document Kulturpolitisk strategi ? version 1.0, adopted by the city council in 1998.

The purpose of my research has been to analyze the communi-cation of three cultural heritages and how they are being ex-posed on their respective webpages. The essay has also touched the subject as to how webpages can, through marketing of cul-tural heritages, create a connection to the marketed locations and their cultural environment. A phenomenon you could call ?creating a location?. My study has also resulted in an under-standing of how historical sites as cultural actors position them-selves to attract visitors to the location.

This essay examines the debate that arose in connection to the sale of Carl Larsson?s monumental painting Midvinterblot in 1987. My main purpose is to examine which meanings the debaters ascribed Midvinterblot and in which way the debate influenced the paintings significance as cultural heritage. I will therefore argue that the debate initiated a renegotitation of the paintings meaning as cultural heritage. In the debate the debaters emphasized the National Museum?s responsibility over cultural heritage, Midvinterblots aestethic, the paintings economic value and its national implications.

This is a study of Sensus Barnmusikskola ? Children?s School of Music, in Karlstad, Sweden?s attempts to facilitate integration and diversity in their operation. The Culture and Recreation Management in Karlstad town?s conditions to award the school their grant in 2009 was that Sensus Children?s school of Music should make targeted interventions in the socioeconomic exposed areas Gruvlyckan/Våxnäs and Kronoparken to increase the number of children with foreign background. This would according to the Culture and Recreation Management bring more integration and diversity in to the school?s operation.

This graduation thesis aims to give a survey of how cultural property is protected withininternational law and how these protections worked during the conflicts in the formerYugoslavia and later at the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY.Cultural heritage is important symbols for ethnicity, religion or political views. Because ofthis cultural property has been targeted in armed conflicts as long as can beremembered. The protection of cultural property within international law has developedfrom the midst of the 19th century up til today and is still developing towards strongerprotection. One of the latest armed conflicts where the cultural property became targetedwas the wars in Yugoslavia in the 1990?s.

Several studies have shown that the Swedish labour market for different reasons is characterized by ethnical discrimination and that people who have another cultural background than Swedish are being excluded. Most studies done within this area have been focused on why it is harder for immigrants to enter the labour market and identifying the contributing mechanisms for this phenomenon. Instead the aim of this study was to see how the immigrants view their own cultural identity and background and how they perceive that their cultural competences are being valued when they apply for a job. To examine this, the following problematic was used: How does a person who has been brought up with both the Swedish culture and another culture look at using this as a cultural competence when they apply for a job. Two different theories were then applied to analyze the problematic, Erving Goffman´s theory about Stigma and Norbert Elias theory about the Established and the Outsiders.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Integration policies have failed to make diversity into anything more than occupying the same physical space. People of different cultural background still do not share their lives to any real extent. Attempts made within planning and landscape architecture to catalyst the integration process have mainly been focused on structural measures, such as residential policies. As for outdoor environments, non-verbal casual encounters in the shape of crossing paths are assumed to lie at the heart of urban social integration.The aim of the thesis is to question this assumption and, as the thesis will show, there is literature supporting this aim. Looking at the works of Gordon Allport, Lewis Coser and some of their followers, I find intercultural contact to require more complex ways of interaction in order to reduce prejudice and to generate tolerance and understanding.

Introduction: How to implement and integrate cultural aspects in strategy making and planning in order for cities and regions to reap both social and economic benefits has been widely discussed in recent years. This method of working with culture, both as an economic, as well as an identity strengthening tool has come to be labeled as cultural planning. But in order for these ideas about cultural projects and institutions to become a reality, something has to be done. This is where the entrepreneur enters.The Glass Factory, a newly opened cultural establishment in the heart of the Glass Kingdom in Småland, Sweden, became the subject of empirical investigation for this paper. As this originally was an initiative from Emmaboda municipality the planning and start-up procedure could be viewed as a cultural planning process.