This essay is about the burial rites in the passage graves of Falbygden, Västergötland. My questions were: Can the burial ritual be understood by comparing the material culture inside and outside the tombs? What kind of grave offerings did the dead have? Most peculiar are all these beads of amber, what kind of meaning did they have? Was the position of the body a part of the ritual? The time period is the middle Neolithic.I selected four passage graves to investigate: Hjälmars rör (Falköping 3), Rössberga (Valtorp 2), Näs sn 7:2 Kvättak 5:1 and Frälsegården (Gökhem 94).My conclusion was that there are differences between the material culture inside and outside the tombs. Outside the ritual includes fire, inside the material culture are not burned. The material culture outside is more dominant than the finds inside, although the beads of amber are only represented inside and dominates the findings inside.

This thesis discusses South Scandinavian cup marks in general, and cup marks in Kronobergs County in particular. The question is whether the cup mark phenomena can be viewed as an ordinary family-based cult for a kind of everyday use, or more likely as a community passage ritual. The thesis also suggests that cup marks were made by ritual participants in, or in the process of trying to reach, an altered state of consciousness..

The purpose of this work has been to understand the reading group from the perspective of the society. The studyhas taken place in the city of Västerås and the results can thus not be used in a more generalized sence. Byfocusstudies conducted with members from four different reading groups connected in different ways to the libraryin Västerås I have reached the following conclusions.According to Jürgen Habermas theories the reading groups, with their ideals regarding education and meetingswhere everybody are equals, belong in the part of the public sphere that he calls literary. There are someconnections to the political sphere, for exempel the down to earth quality of the literature that is the choice ofthe groups and their way of discussing it.One problem that occures when one tries to apply Habermas idéas regarding the public sphere on readinggroups is that the criteria Habermas considers as vital to sphere for it to work properly does not seem to workon the reading groups. Inclusion, eqality and freedom of subjects are necessary to create a public sphere.

This study?s aim was to explore how the social media Twitter is used by Swedish political leaders and how they manage the relationship between having both private and public conversations in a new public sphere, the social sphere. In Sweden, studies in this area are yet to grow. We achieved our aim by responding to our three questions at the issue: What kind of content is published in each of the politicians Twitter stream? Are the politicians private or public persons on Twitter? Are the politicians using Twitters interactive functions? We conducted our analysis by performing a quantitative content analysis.

This essay concerns the Celts during the Iron Age, and their ritual practice in human sacrifice. The method applied is an eclectic historic-critic reading of the few classical sources that exist together with archeological material and scholars conclusions of literal sources and archeological material. The hypothesis is that human sacrifice in the Celtic realm not is to be seen as a primitive act of violence, but that it filled a social function to preserve society and the Celtic way of life.The question this essay strives to answer is Which function/s do human sacrifice fill in a Celtic context during the Iron Age? The question is analysed with the aid of Radcliffe-Brown?s and Catherine Bell?s theories on ritual, as well as Malcolm Chapman?s postmodern ideas of the conception of the Celtic. The conclusion of the essay is that the prime functions of Celtic human sacrifice are to preserve society and the Celtic social way of life, combined with an aim to eliminate disturbing elements in that same society, such as crime and individuals who did not fit in to the social community..

Vårt syfte har varit att exemplifiera hur fredagsmys kan gestalta sig i barnfamiljer och vad fredagsmyset kan innebära för familjens individer och individernas familj samt dess sammanhållning. Detta är en kvalitativ undersökning. Vi har valt att anta ett induktivt angreppssätt vilket innebär att vi har utgått från vårt material och därefter har alla uppsatsens delar färdigställts. Vi har med andra ord gått upptäckandets väg. Vi har varit intresserade av att undersöka varför människor gör som de gör och vad det har förbetydelse för dem men även varit intresserade av att finna mönster.

The aim in this bachelor thesis is to describe and analyze ritual performance and transference of religious traditions in some Hindu homes in Varanasi (India). In particular from the children?s perspective. The curriculum of Religious Education in the Swedish schooling system focuses on religious life, expression and practice. Thus, this thesis is about ?lived Hinduism?, ritual performance and religious practices.

This essay describes the phases of funeral rituals between the Syrian/Assyrian, and compares the homeland with Sweden. It describes the stage of rituals according to Victor Turner schema of separation, margin or limin, and aggregation. The rituals religious significance agrees with Clifford Geertz?s theory about the importance of religious beliefs for the human being.

AbstractTitle Blogging.se ? a study on the swedish blogosphere from a Habermasian public sphere-perspective (Bloggning.se ? en studie av den svenska bloggsfären utifrån Habermas offentlighetsteori)Author Anders LarssonAim To see whether or not weblogs (blogs) could be said to rejuvenate the public sphere, as it was first described and later re-evaluated by Jürgen Habermas.Method A quantitative analysis of 733 randomly selected swedish weblogs has been done. This analysis set out to see what different categories of bloggers (difference in f.e. gender and age) wrote about, and whether or not these subject categories could be said to play a part in constituting and/or rejuvenating a public sphere.Main results The main results of the quantitative study was that even though most blogs write about ?private? subjects, the most popular blogs, i.e.

The aim of the study is to examine ideas surrounding copyright law and related rights appearing in the referral statements that the participants of the library sphere gave to the department writ Ds 2003:35. These ideas reflect the positions the library sphere take regarding issues surrounding the copyright law and related rights. The department writ was preceded by a directive from the European Union; Directive 2001/29/EC of the European parliament and of the council of 22 may 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. The writ Ds 2003:35 was later followed by a proposition from the government which was co-herent with the preceding writ. The empirical material has been analyzed with a starting point in the polarizations, artist/audience, private/public and original/copy, presented in PhD Martin Fredriksson?s book Skapandets rätt.

The breakdown of the ratification process of the EU constitution was in Sweden blamed on a lack of a debate concerning European issues. The constitution can be seen as the best and latest, but in no way the only, example of this problem. The breakdown can also been seen as proof of a larger legitimacy crises within the EU. The aim of the study is to determine whether or not there really was of lack of debate concerning the constitution in Sweden. This question is theoretic¬ally connected to EU legitimacy through Habermas idea of a public sphere.

Is there a specific tradition of songs within the swedish environmental movement? What kinds of music has been performed in different situations and what does it mean to the movement and its inner life? The essay deals with a town meeting and action against plans of establishing passenger flights at a former military airport in Uppsala, looking at the action as a performance and as a ritual. The second part of the essay is built on interviews of three veterans of the movement's organisations one of which is as a singer-songwriter originally active in the peace movement of the 60's. The paper is about the songs and the situations in which they were sung, concluding that there is, the limited material considered, little evidence of considerable transfer of songs within the movement, though some coherence exists. The connection to between environmental movement and the swedish radical music movement of the 70's is also slightly mentioned.

This paper attempts to trace the journey of Adonis from ancient Mesopotamia, through Phoenicia and finally to Greece, and to see how his function and cult have evolved during this migration. It starts with a short summary of previous research regarding Adonis and goes on to describe the myths and the rites of Adonis as they were celebrated in Alexandria, Byblos and Athens. I then examine possible connections to ritual drama, the mystery religions and whether there is any evidence that the Adonia might have been a germination ritual.My conclusions are that Adonis loses his connection to the growing cycle and the ideology of sacred kingship with the move to Greece where the political system with independent city states is different, and that there has been too much focus on Adonis as a vegetation god. Since Adonis is connected with the ancient Near Eastern cults of sacral kingship it might be more rewarding to consider the death aspects associated with his cult and the possibility of ancestral worship in relation to a ruler. This would make some of the otherwise puzzling aspects of his cult more understandable..

Coping theory asks what the cognitive and behavioral patterns of individuals dealing with stress are. This essay includes, besides the perspective of the psychology of religion, theories of culture and ritual in exploring two Swedes coping with the natural disaster in Thailand year 2004. The vacation paradise was struck by an enormous flood wave, called a tsunami, causing vast destruction and the death of over 200.000 people. Among these 543 were Swedes on vacation. When a disaster of such measures happens, what kind of stress does it cause? How do you cope? Are religion and ritual important? What is the function of the culture in the copingprocess? Using hermeneutical analysis this essay interprets the material from two books by Swedes, who not only experienced the disaster, but lost two children and husband and wife in the flood wave.

This paper investigates the relations between the fantasy genre and the phenomena of escapism. It also delves into the factors which motivates consumption of various fantasy mediums. This is done through interviews with six different fantasy-consumers, along with two observations; of which one is performed at a science fiction convention and the other at a table-top role playing game. The study resulted in a basic understanding of escapism ? it is not limited to the fantasy genre, and fantasy consumers do not deny that fantasy is a form of escapism.