The mental constructions of other places are based on impressions from everything that surrounds us in our everyday life, e.g. pictures, videos, texts and narratives. The tourism industry is especially influential when it comes to creating the image of before ?unknown places?. Furthermore, it has a tendency to embellish and idealize people and places located in what is commonly known as the Third World.

My essay is an investigation of American Psychos Patrick Bateman. Why is Patrick Batemans identity one so easily described as shallow and superficial? I discuss theese questions from a marxists point of view putting Bateman in the context of Georg Lukács theories of reification. I compare the structure of Patrick Batemans identity with the idea of an reified identity to se how the mechanisms of reification creates the entity that is Patrick Bateman.My conclusion is that one answer to Batemans shallowness is the phenomenon of reification. To get a grasp of how shallowness might be understood I combine the theories of Lukács with Bakhtins idea of the aouthorative discourse.If one look upon reification as an aouthorative discourse and one also presume that human existence is social and verbal the conclusion is that Patrick Bateman cannot exist because of what he is an example of.

Cause-Related Marketing (CRM) is a marketing activity that has grown popular in the USA and studies have been carried out that explore how American consumers perceive and react to CRM. In Sweden, however, CRM has not yet found ground to any greater extent, and therefore there is limited research on how Swedish consumers react to CRM and how they perceive it. In this study, eight Swedish consumers are interviewed regarding their perception of CRM. The main findings of the investigation are that Swedish consumers fit well into a model that is based on American consumers? responses to CRM.

Weathering on rocks is an important component of the world?s geomorphology. One way to measure weathering on rocks is to analyse rock hardness. This is a study conducted in the northern hemisphere on granite rocks in Uppsala, Sweden. A Schmidt hammer is used to create a correlation analysis between the aspects on three glacial erratic boulders and rock weathering.

This is a thesis about the American empire. I also focus my work to see if this American empire is declining. The two main questions I ask and want to answer in this thesis are: is America an empire and is it in decline?I first conclude that America has been an empire ever since the end of the Second World War. The sheer military and economic power of the American empire matches and exceeds the ones before them.

Historical research about the so-called New Left was until the late 1990s an entirely newacademic field in Swedish academia. However, a large part of this research still deals withquestions concerning ?who did what? and perhaps more notably ?who was right?.This thesis is an attempt to move away from such inquiries and instead look towardshow one albeit small but very important part of this so-called New Left discussed andused the term America and things American. Formed largely around the Anti-WarMovement, the Marxist-Leninist ? or ?Maoist? ? Left naturally opposed US worldpolicies; but perhaps more interesting a significant part of the ideas about America andthe Vietnam War seemed to stem from USA itself ? such as naming your anti-war folkgroup ?Freedom Singers? after the US civil rights group ?The Freedom Singers?.Analyzing three Swedish Marxist-Leninist magazines the study thus complements theresearch on not only the Swedish New Left but also the study of anti-Americanisms;firstly, by examining what the Marxist-Leninist left considered particularly American;secondly, by studying in what context these particular Americanism was discussed; and,thirdly, by observing if these notions changed over time, and why.

The purpose of our thesis has been to study Social Workers view of children?s needs and how they work with children?s needs when they are orphaned because of HIV/Aids in South Africa. The question formulations we used to answer our purpose are:? What needs do the Social Workers consider the children to have?? How do the Social Workers work with children?s needs?We have a qualitative methodological approach in the thesis, where we have performed four interviews with four Social Workers on different organizations in and around Cape Town, South Africa. The presentation of the empirics is made as a summary with representative quotations, which we have interweaved with earlier research and theoretical conceptions.

After the two big hurricanes called ?Gudrun? (2005) and ?Per? (2007) in the south of Sweden, some landowners planted Douglas fir instead of the traditional Norway spruce and Scots pine. They did it for different reasons. Some of them spreading their "risk", others because they wanted better growth or to obtain a more storm-resistant stand and trees more protected against rot. In this study, survival and growth were examined on Douglas fir in 21 different locations, owned by private landowners in southern Sweden.

The intention of this study is to investigate why some regions, which choose to secede from their parent country, are internationally recognized and others are not. The case studies of this study are South Sudan and Somaliland. South Sudan is as of now the world?s newest state, and Somaliland is a break-away state that is considered a part of Somalia by the International community. There are conditions that have to be fulfilled, before existing nations recognize the break-away state, such as an agreement between the seceded state and the parent country, which was the case for South Sudan and Sudan.

This thesis concerns five Gotland Bronze Age cairns. They have been analyzed in order to compare their inner and outer burial - and building context. The analysis then forms the basis for the discussion of the similarities and differences observed. These five cairns along with the cairn Uggarderojr are presented in detail and compared. Major similarities were found between four of the five cairns.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate some aspects of teaching environmental issues, as they are manifested in another culture. In this paper, I will discuss how you teach environmental issues, how the teaching environment is formed, and what an environmental issue means to a South African teacher, as well as, if there are any cultural aspects to what an environmental issue is. Seven observations were made and qualitative interviews with four teachers teaching Life Science in Cradock, South Africa - The results showed that these South African teachers, independent from each other, followed a similar pattern in their teachings. These patterns contain gathering information concerning environmental issues in the immediate surroundings, as well as using the text book and teaching environmental issues through lectures. It was not possible to draw a conclusion about the cultural aspects in association to environmental issues.

Motivation: The aim of this study has been to conduct a comparative study concerning how race, ethnicity and class is represented in American contrary to Swedish daily press and from there on to explore and explain similarities and differences that have been found in the material.Problem statement:? How is race, ethnicity and class represented in American contrary Swedish daily press?? What are the similarities and differences between the countries? daily news flow?? What causes the similiarities and differences to achieve their current form?Material: The material which has been the subject of this study consists of eight articles ? four American articles (USA Today) and four Swedish articles (Dagens Nyheter). The material has been elected to meet certain criterias and mainly discusses the effects the health care reform will have on the American population.Approach: The material has been approached by using theories concerned with race, ethnicity, class and framing. The method used to analyze the material was Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA).Results: The results shows significant similarities, although mainly differences, between the countries? daily news flow.

Shareholder value has its origin in the American corporate governance system and has been the subject of great debate over the last few decades. The proponents claim that it creates economic efficiency while the critics argue that maximization of shareholder value jeopardizes the long term survival of companies. However, the debate in Sweden already seems to have forgotten the question of how embedded the ideology really is and what´s leading its way. This study show that shareholder value has developed and been established in Swedish companies between 1995 and 2005. The study has found evidence that suggests that the development can primarily be linked to board networks and international exposure.

The intention has been to look at the school system in South Africa and specifically at arts and culture in grade 10 to 12. I have visited a number of classes and interviewed the teachers working at the art centre PJ Olivier in Stellenbosch. By doing this I wanted to get to know the system and to understand the intentions that the curriculum describes.I have all through the study related the areas I?ve looked at to the curriculum to see how well the intentions are implemented. I have also compared everything with the Swedish school system.The curriculum has good intentions but the country has a lot to do before they reach the goals with a school system where everybody is included and where there is ?ubuntu? (Zulu word for humanity or I am what I am because of what we all are).

AbstractEssay in Political Science, D-level, spring 2010. ?Do the American mass media serve foreign policy interests? ? A scrutiny of two American newspapers? coverage of the coup d?état in Honduras in the summer of 2009?, Author: David Scott. Tutor: Anders Broman The bias of the American mass media has been widely discussed among scholars. Not only has this phenomenon caught the attention of political scientists, but also academics from other scientific fields.