This thesis aimed to investigate how a rising sea level would affect the livable area of the island Fongafale, Tuvalu. Through the IPCC stabilization scenarios it was examined which areas of the island that would be affected by flooding. The local population?s perceptions of the effects of climate change were studied to see how the consequences of a world-wide problem such as global warming affect people's lives. The paper clarified the Tuvaluans place in the discussion of climate refugees, explained IPCC's work and described the results of previous studies concerning people in Fongafales perceptions and concerns about climate-related changes.

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate how a local community, and those who dwell within its borders, are affected when a large scale windmill park is planned in its immediate vicinity. I have used a qualitative approach and conducted semi structured interviews to gather empirical data. The study took place in a small Swedish village named Svartnäs, situated in the region Dalarna.I have used the concept of community as a symbolic construction (Cohen 1984), that together with the theory of structuration (Giddens 1984) and the notion of expert system (Giddens 1996) served as my main theoretical perspectives.Even though the windmill park is not built yet, its impact on the people and the local community of Svartnäs has been considerable. In the traces of the new windmill park new options and constraints, that will play an important role in the lives of the people who dwell in Svartnäs, are arising. The windmill project is enlarging old conflicts and is creating a divided village.

This essay is a study of the Swedish author Amanda Svensson?s novel Hey Dolly (2008). The aim of the study is to investigate the conflict that occurs in the storytelling because of the untruthful narrator Dolly. Using the terms story and discourse, from a method of narratology by Maria Nikolajeva, the purpose is to analyze how the narrator manipulates the reader?s comprehension of what is real and not in the text.

Global climate change is one of the greatest challenges in our history. As the average temperature is rising due to anthropogenic emissions, impacts such as floods, droughts and hurricanes, affect the lives of millions of people. Though the least developed countries are least responsible for emissions, they are the worst affected. This thesis focuses on environmental justice in the adaptation discourse. By outlining the adaptation discourse from the United Framework Convention on Climate Change principles, to the Marrakesh Accords, via the Kyotoprotocol my ambition is to analyse how environmental justice has been interpreted in relation to the adaptation discourse.

The aim of this Master?s thesis is to examine how a person?s library use and reading can change with time. It also examines how different factors in a person?s context or in the life situation can affect these activities. The analysis is based upon qualitative interviews with three persons, two women and one man between 67 and 69 years of age.

The purpose of this study was to examine effects of hearing aid use and to do a judgment of the provement. The investigation was a pilot study and may be used in the clinic.The international form ?International Outcome Inventory for Hearing Aids? (IOI-HA) was used for data collection. Four questions were chosen from the form. These questions were answered by hearing aid users and their significant others.

The aim of this study was to increase our knowledge about how the ?Conversational-contact with the social services? is experienced by the parents who attend it. The research was based on a qualitative method consisting of four individual interviews.Main issues of the study:? The parents experience of the content of the meetings with the social workers? Do the parents experience that the conversational-contact has contributed to some changes in their lives?Results indicated that all parents were positiv to the conversational-contact. Afterwards they felt more secure and stable both as persons and in their role as parents.

The integration of the Internet in our society has shaped alot of the things we do in our lives. The Web allows us to achieve certain things directly through our computers, such as reading the paper and paying our bills. But this integration has also lead to another interesting change. Activists have begun to unload their operations onto the Net instead of holding on to the more traditional demonstrations performed in squares. This study aims to look into the world of cyberactivism and examine how cyberactivists experience the way activism has changed as a result of using the Internet.

The purpose of this study has been to describe and analyze how former foster children experienced foster care which have been filled with maltreatment and neglect and how this has influenced their adult life when it comes to health, education and relationships. We also wanted to study how the former foster children coped with their placement. Furthermore we wanted to study whether there has been any turningpoints during their growth. Finally we wanted to describe how the former foster children experienced the authorities control. To make the purpose of this study complete we chose to use qualitative interviews with six former foster children as our research method.

The purpose of this study is to understand and get increased knowledge about what it means to see artists as brands. What are the typical assets and what kind of advantages and disadvantages are distinctive when it comes to applying a brand perspective on artists. Brands are an important part of our lives today, and the benefit of seeing a company as a brand has made that not only big companies are interested in building brands. Beyond companies even persons now want to become brands. The new perspective in seeing persons as brands is interesting and something that made us curious to investigate.

Our lives in urban areas are becoming more and more inactive with negative effects on our mental and physical health. Natural environments and physical activity have the power to both prevent and reduce mental fatigue. Meanwhile we engage ourselves with physical activity, the nature fascinates us with its complexity. In April 2006, some of the visitors to the recreational area of Skrylle were asked to fill in a questionnaire which included questions about their habits within physical activity and the experience of nature. The questionnaires were then divided into two groups: those filled out by persons who exercise on regular basis (i.e. three or several times/week) and those who rarely exercise.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to investigate the female reader of science fiction literature, a genre by tradition dominated by men. Through qualitative interviews with seven female science fiction readers, the relation between the reading and the readers? lives, as well as their concepts of the science fiction genre and the community of science fiction readers, was examined. The main theoretical framework used for the analysis was Yvonne Hirdman?s gender theory, Judith Butler?s concept of identity and Louise M.

This paper aims to investigate what part Swedish media plays when it comes to portraying hiv and people infected by the virus. The study comes from articles published in Sweden's two largest daily newspapers, Dagens Nyheter and Göteborgs Posten, in 2007.By using discourse analysis we found that hiv within Sweden is described as related to riskgroups or risk behaviour and that individuals with hiv is portrayed as average people living normal lives. Except for the above described pattern, stories about so called hiv-men frequently occur. Overall, the words abroad and foreigners are reproduced in articles about individuals living with hiv or aids. When it comes to articles describing hiv abroad, aids is more in focus and people living with the virus is portrayed as innocent victims.

Our purpose with this study was to look at the connection between social capital and integration. Particularly if meetings between people from different cultures can increase social capital and in that way affect integration. We start by identifying the social integration perspective we are going to use through out the study and then we introduce social capital theory as a way of narrowing down the field even more. The study was done through six semi structured interviews. We interviewed three women that was established in the Swedish society and three women that had immigration background.

The purpose of this thesis was to investigate whether publiclibraries language cafés can support or enable the empowerment of the participants. Empowerment means that the individuals ability to take control of their own lives is strengthened and that the individual becomes more independent. Empowerment also means that the individual takes part in a community. An important part of this is the language. I have developed two research questions: What forms of empowerment can be seen in the respondents' statements? What role do language cafés play for people from other countries, in terms of empowerment? The thesis empirical material consists of interviews whit five people involved in different languages cafes in public libraries in the city of Malmö.