The Methodology used to gather empirical materials for this thesis has been different types of interviews. The interviews have been mainly unstructured personal interviews directly with our respondents, due to limiting factors some of the interviews have been carried out via phone or email. The theoretical framework consists of literature from well-recognised authors and is divided into four different parts: Insourcing & Outsourcing, Intellectual Capital, Knowledge Management, China & Intercultural understanding. The empirical foundation has been gathered from a great variety of different sources in an attempt to cover the many complex angels in which this subject can be looked upon. Chinese students, managers in international companies with experience from China, Chinese employees in Swedish companies and different people with good knowledge of different areas of China are all among our respondents. In our conclusion we have reached the three following conclusions for why one should start a “bridge building” enterprise in between qualified Chinese human capital and Swedish structure capital: 1. To fill future shortage of qualified human capital in Sweden. 2.

In this thesis I have used post-colonial theory to analyze the Uyghurs, a Muslim minority group located in Xinjiang province in the Northwest of China, and their identity shaping process in relation to the dominating Han Chinese. I have analyzed the possibilities to use the power perspectives in post-colonial theory, especially Edward Said's Orientalism and the creation of the Other in a new context, where the main focus is on the Uyghurs through the eyes of Han Chinese. I have argued that Han Chinese, with colonial tendencies, have created two generalizing pictures of the Uyghurs; one romantic picture to use as an exotic tourist attraction and one threatening picture that portray Uyghurs as Islamic terrorists to win support in international politics. The thesis is a qualitative single case study with the aim of gaining a deeper understanding for the Uyghurs as well as examine possibilities of widening the analyze areas for post-colonialism. My conclusion is that the power perspectives in post-colonial theory are usable implements also for non-western contexts and in this case function as a way to understand the identity shaping process for the Uyghurs and their relation to Han Chinese..

In this thesis I analyse civilizations in South America. I construct civilizationalnarratives through the method of emplotment, to build a historic continuity, whichI subsequently connect to the theoretical framework. The theory emphasise that,when confronted with globalization and free market capitalism, civilizationsembark on different strategies to challenge the power of transnational marketforces. I find that South America is a polarised continent, and is divergingconcerning the relationship towards the USA and free trade agreements. On thesame time the issues that concern the social movements are not being reproducedin a significant matter at state level.

My study was conducted to provide a deeper understanding of the identity of employee soldiers in the armed forces and their experience of their role in the military context. To describe and identify the soldier's identity formation, values and norms working in group processes are taken into account. As the individual identifies her or himself whit the group, the various phenomena as hostility to other military groups arise. The individuals weld together with other group members to form strong normative relationships within the group. Through a qualitative research approach eight soldiers in a regiment in western Sweden were interviewed, four of them were group executives or deputy group leaders and others were ordinary soldiers.

Turkey has often been described as a cultural and geographical bridge between West and East. When the Islamic AKP came to power in Turkey 2002 many critics feared that the country was going to abandon its former Western allies and strengthen their relations with the Arab world instead. The criticism was intensified when the AKP increased Turkey?s bilateral relations with the Middle East and moved closer to former foe?s like Iran and Syria, at the same time as their long-time friendship with Israel experienced serious crisis. The aim and purpose of this thesis is to describe and explain the change in AKP?s foreign policy towards Israel.The research method is a combination of a qualitative text analysis of Turkey?s speeches in the UN General debate and Jakob Gustavsson?s model for explaining foreign policy change.The results show that the Turkish-Israeli relations have deteriorated after the Israeli attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla in 2010, particularly regarding diplomatic relations and military agreements.

Who is the most typical woman in ELLE Sweden (2013)? In this study we investigated the typical woman represented in the Swedish fashion magazine ELLE (2013) for women. Does a typical woman exist in the magazine at all and if so ? in what words and roles is she described in? How is this woman perceived in relation to the male gender? Based on the theory of constructionism; that the gender (i.e. What is female versus male) is constructed in the society and that media has an affect on our physical and psychological well being as well as our behavior and thoughts, the investigation of the female gender representation in women magazines, was of great importance to us.

FN har sedan starten varit en tongivande gestalt för demokratisering och människorätt. Trots detta passerade 30 år innan organisationen manifesterade sitt motstånd mot den frekventa diskrimineringen av kvinnor. Därefter har jämställdhetsarbetet undergått flera genomgripande paradigmskiften. FNs fjärde globala kvinnokonferens utgjorde startskottet för ännu ett nytt progressivt tänkande kring jämställdhet och respekt för kvinnors mänskliga rättigheter.Denna uppsats behandlar FNs jämställdhetssyn med särskilt fokus på ambitionen att utforma globalt fungerande principer. Genom kritisk analys granskas FNs uppfattning om jämställdhetsproblematiken ur ett feministiskt perspektiv.

This thesis rests on the theory and methodology of discourse theory. By viewing social reality as constituted by discourses, meanings that are taken for granted can be challenged.The events of September 11th 2001 resulted in the American war on terror. This thesis explores the impact of 9/11 and the war on terror on the Russian image of the conflict in Chechnya.Discourse theory is applied to shed light on how the conflict over Chechnya is discursively constructed by the Russian state and media. The discourse is organized in three thematic sections: Identity, Enemy Images and Islam. Russia establishes itself as a member of the Western civilisation.

Beyond the binary borders of sex -A LITTERATURE STUDY ABOUT TRANSGENDER THEORY AND ITS POSSIBLE CONTRIBUTION TO A SOCIAL WORK CONTEXT. GERGANA TOSEVA KARIN SELIN A thesis in Social work studies (15 credits) at Malmö University, Hälsa och Samhälle 2012. The discussion about sex and gender is always prominent in a social work context. Our purpose and questions are hence based on the discussion on transgender theory and the way of thinking about the non-binary, and how it relates to the nearby theories. The method of the essay consists of a semi systematic literature overview with the focus on discussing transgender theory in relation to other theories and perspectives, such as modernism, post modernism, feminism and queer theory. We answer the following questions: 1. Is it possible to go beyond or exceed the binary of sex and if so, how do we see it in the material we examined? 2. In what way are the existing theories of sex / gender in the binary? 3. Can one featuring a female embodied subject be of assistance to transgender people's search for an embodied subject? We consider it possible to move beyond the binary by using ?fuzzy logic?(Nagoshi & Brzuzy 2010, Tauchert 2002) which is a way of staying in the binary but expanding the term and work in the grey areas instead.

The thesis explores the meaning of the concept "children's best" in relation to the social Swedish parental insurance debate from a post-structuralist view. The main material has been taken from daily news papers and the methodological as well as theoretical basis is provided for by Laclau & Mouffes discourse theory. In particular has the concept "empty signifiers" been of use when investigating "children's best" as a strong argument on both the "pro" and "against" sides of the debate of an individualized parental insurance. The theoretic purpose of the thesis is also to examine the poststructuralist/feminist dilemma in order to approach a more pragmatic and useful model of the two combined provided by Alcoff and Fraser. One conclusion is that "children's best" may never have an objective answer and will be a changing concept in time, ideology preference and discoursive field.

AbstractSyftet med vår uppsats var att undersöka mediebilden av de två nystartade partierna Feministiskt initiativ och Junilistan. Vi ville undersöka hur kvällstidningarna vinklar politiska händelser och om någon skillnad kan skönjas i rapporteringen partierna emellan. Materialet till vår undersökning hämtades från Aftonbladet och Expressen under perioden 2004-01-01 till 2005-10-15. Den teoretiska tyngden i uppsatsen utgjordes av teorier om feminism och medielogiken. Vår problemformulering och det vi letade efter i artiklarna var:· Hur vinklas artiklarna utifrån deras manifesta tema, sammanhang och utsago?· Har artiklarna en positiv eller negativ attityd till partierna?· Hur kommer medielogiken till uttryck i artiklarna?· I vilken utsträckning kommer partierna till tals?· Hur kan eventuella skillnader i medierapporteringen förklaras?Utifrån dessa genomförde vi sedan en kvalitativ studie av hur mediebilden av de båda partierna utvecklats.

Jina Mahsa Aminis d?d har uppm?rksammats ?ver hela v?rlden d?r omfattande manifestationer och reaktioner i den politiska v?rlden har n?lat fast kvinnors r?ttigheter p? den politiska tavlan. Denna studie unders?ker betydelsen av den feministiska protestr?relsen i Iran f?r svensk-iranska kvinnor genom att titta p? den komplexa fr?gan om kulturell identitet och dess p?verkan. Studien visar att kvinnornas erfarenheter av patriarkala strukturer och kulturella normer spelar en betydande roll i deras inst?llning till f?r?ndring och hur de f?rh?ller sig till sin kulturella identitet.

This study illuminates chosen parts of the present opportunities, in the Western World, for parents and children to choose which school the child will attend (freedom of choice), along with possible consequences that may follow. My research questions are: 1) Do tendencies show that freedom of choice leads to increased segregation, and if that is the case, how is it manifested and does it matter? 2) What relations between the student composition of schools and teachers' expectations and attitudes toward students are there? 3) Do the results from previous studies match with the result from my interviews? The methods used for answering the questions are literature studies and interviews made with six teachers who are working in two upper secondary schools in the northern part of Sweden, i.e. three from each school.The result shows that freedom of choice, regarding schools, seems to lead to student compositions that contribute to increased segregation in societies. It leads to more homogenous student compositions, in the form of ethnicity and social class, in schools in general, with consequences like different expectations and attitudes among teachers depending on the status of the composition.

A growing number of companies realise that to achieve their environmental goals and satisfy stakeholder expectations, they need to look beyond their own facilities and to involve their suppliers in environmental initiatives. A life cycle approach means that the production system should be optimised as whole, across national boarders and individual organisations taking part all the way from extraction to disposal. This study is a Life Cycle Inventory of resources used when producing a piece of cotton garment and the method is based on the standardisation series of ISO 14040-43. The area of study, Tamil Nadu the most southern state of India, accounts for more than 90% of India?s knitwear exports to Western Europe.

The purpose of this Master?s thesis is to examine the relationship between fiction and resistance from a postcolonial and feminist perspective. More specifically, the study is an examination of this relationship in ten novels by the Nigerian writer Buchi Emecheta. The resistance is studied by examining the way it is depicted in the texts, as well as whether the texts can be seen as a form of opposition. Both the resistance and its context are studied.