Women of Substance : The Aspect of Education, Career and Female Identity in Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones's Diary

Although two hundred years separate Jane Austen and Helen Fielding and, subsequently, also their portrayals of society, the similarities outweigh the differences. When juxtaposing Pride and Prejudice and Bridget Jones’s Diary in the light of feminism it is evident that both books provide clear examples of the prevailing situation of women in each time and place. The aspects of the study, which are especially important today, show both the development and some degree of stagnation of women’s rights and identities.

A corpus approach to discursive constructions of a hip-hop identity

This chapter is an analysis of a 100,000-word corpus consisting of message-board postings on hip-hop websites. A discourse analysis of this corpus reveals three strategies employed by the posters to identify themselves as members of the hip-hop community in the otherwise anonymous setting of the internet: (1) defined openings and closings, (2) repeated use of slang and taboo terms, and (3) performance of verbal art. Each strategy is characterized by the codification of non-standard grammar and pronunciations characteristic of speech, as well as by the use of non-standard orthography. The purpose of the discourse is shown to be a performance of identity, whereby language is used and recognized as the discursive construction of one’s hip-hop identity.

High-School Students´ Summer Jobs and their Ensuing Labor Market Achievement : the Long Term Effect

In part because of high and persistent youth unemployment, adolescent students’ transition from school to work is an important policy and research topic. Many countries have implemented public programs offering summer jobs or work while in high-school as measures to smooth the transition. While the immediate effect of the programs on school attendance, school grades, and disposable income is well documented, their effect on the transition to the labor market remains an open question. Observational studies have shown strong positive effects of summer jobs, but also that the estimated effect is highly vulnerable to selection bias. In this paper, some 3700 high-school students applying for summer jobs in the period 1995-2003,via a program, are followed to 30 years of age. A quarter of the applicants were randomly offered a summer job each year. Among the remaining students, 50% had a (non-program related) summer job while in high-school. We find the income, post high-school, for the offered and non-offered groups to be similar and conclude that the effect of summer jobs on the transition to the labor market is inconsequential.

Extended local labor markets due to high speed trains : Visualization of estimations in the Swedish national travel demand forecasting tool, SAMPERS

Wider economic benefits resulting from extended geographical mobility is one argument for investments in high-speed rail. More specifically, the argument for high-speed trains in Sweden has been that they can help to further spatially extend labor market regions which in turn has a positive effect on growth and development. In this paper the aim is to cartographically visualize the potential size of the labor markets in areas that could be affected by possible future high-speed trains. The visualization is based on the forecasts of labor mobility with public transport made by the Swedish national mobility transport forecasting tool, SAMPERS, for two alternative high-speed rail scenarios. The analysis, not surprisingly, suggests that the largest impact of high-speed trains results in the area where the future high speed rail tracks are planned to be built. This expected effect on local labor market regions of high-speed trains could mean that possible regional economic development effects also are to be expected in this area. However, the results, in general, from the SAMPERS forecasts indicaterelatively small increases in local labor market potentials.

An analysis of Samoan reaction to The Orator (O Le Tulafale)’s Fāgogo defining Samoan identity

The Orator (O Le Tulafale) was promoted as the first Samoan language film shot in Samoa with a Samoan cast and crew. Written and directed by Samoan filmmaker Tusi Tamasese, the film succeeded at several of the movie industry’s prestigious festivals. The Orator (O Le Tulafale) is about an outcast family of a dwarf (Saili), his wife and her teenage daughter. As the main protagonist, Saili battles to overcome his fears to become a chief to save his family and land. The film’s themes are courage, love, honour , as well as hypocrisy, violence, and discrimination. A backlash by Samoans was predicted ; however, the opposite occurred. This raised the following questions: first, what is it about the film causing this reaction? It is a 106 -minute film shot in Samoa about Samoans and the Samoan culture . D espite promotional claims about the film , there have been Samoan -produced films in Samoa . Secondly, to what are Samoans really responding? Is it 1) just to the film because it is about Samoa, or 2) are they responding to themselves , and how they reacted during the act of watching the film? This implies levels of reactions in the act of watching, and examining the dominant level of response is important. To explore this, t he Samoan story telling technique of Fāgogo was used to analyse the film’s narration and narrative techniques. R. Allen’s (1993, 1997) concept of projected illusion was employed to discuss the relationship between Samoans and the film developed during the act of watching. An examination of the term Samoan and a description of the framework of Fa’a Samoa (Samoan culture) were provided. Also included were discussions of memory and its impact on Samoan cultural identity. The analysis indicated that The Orator (O Le Tulafale) acted as a memory prompt through which Samoans recalled memories confirming and defining cultural bonds. These memories constituted the essence of being Samoan. These memories were awakened, and shared as oral histories as fāgogo. The receivers appeared to interpret the shared memories to create their own memories and stories to suit their contexts, according to Facebook postings. An interpretation is that the organic sharing of memories as fā gogo created a global definition of Samoan that Samoans internationally claimed.

Kommunal marknadsföring- Competitive identity och institutionell problematik : En komparativ fallstudie om två svenska kommuner och deras marknadsföring

Historiskt sett finns det etablerade normer i samhället som säger att en kommun endast ska bedriva traditionell kommunal verksamhet som innefattar att tillgodose välfärden (vård, skola & omsorg). Dock så har globaliseringen och urbaniseringen skapat en konkurrens om invånare vilket har lett till att kommuner idag bedriver en allt mer utvecklad marknadsföring för att attrahera fler invånare. Den här fallstudien innehåller två objekt (kommuner). Vi vill undersöka den kommunala marknadsföringen genom att fokusera på begreppen competitive identity (CI) och institutionell problematik (IP). Begreppet CI innehåller en teoretisk genomgång av komponenter i kommunal marknadsföring och IP beskriver kommunernas komplexa situation med olika institutionella krav. Genom att analysera dessa begrepp mot praktiska fall kan vi bidra till ökad förståelse om kommunal marknadsföring som är vårt syfte. Vi presenterar även en egen modell i samband med begreppet CI som ger en nyanserad bild av ämnet. Studiens resultat identifierar att kommunerna har speciella målgrupper som likt ett företag varierar beroende på deras ställning på marknaden. Genom skapandet av en CI deklarerar kommunen en önskvärd image där företeelser som inte bidrar till den blir exkluderade. Det gestaltar sig på olika sätt vilket analyseras grundligt i studien. Samtidigt illustreras motsägelsen när respondenterna i fallen säger att det är medborgarna som håller uppe imagen. Studien visar att det inte finns en enhetlig bild hur man som kommun ska hantera den institutionella komplexitet som uppstår. Fallen presenterar två olika synsätt som de finner mer lämpligt.

Identity and image – the story of expertise in a manufacturing company

This thesis is an investigation on the corporate identity of the firm SSAB from a managerial viewpoint (1), the company communication through press releases (2), and the image of the company as portrayed in news press articles (3). The managerial view of the corporate identity is researched through interviews with a communication manager of SSAB (1), the corporate communication is researched through press releases from the company (2) and the image is researched in news press articles (3). The results have been deducted using content analysis. The three dimensions are compared in order to see if the topics are coherent. This work builds on earlier research in corporate identity and image research, stakeholder theory, corporate communication and media reputation theory. This is interesting to research as the image of the company framed by the media affects, among other things, the possibility for the company to attract new talent and employees. If there are different stories, or topics, told in the three dimensions then the future employees may not share the view of the company with the managers in it. The analysis show that there is a discrepancy between the topics on the three dimensions, both between the corporate identity and the communication through press releases, as well as between the communication through press releases and the image in news press articles.

Dialectics of Diaspora Space: a Study of Contemporary, Diasporic, South Asian Fiction

In light of these continuing debates concerning immigration, national identity and belonging, re-examinations of immigrant and ethnic communities, often referred to as ‘diaspora,’ have become increasingly popular and prudent. Khachig Tololian, editor of Diaspora magazine, calls diaspora “exemplary communities of the transnational moment.”5 In an increasingly globalized world, where labor, capital, and resources are passed fluidly from continent to continent, diaspora are created by relocation or displacement of immigrant workers and their descendents.6 For these unskilled, immigrant laborers, middle class immigrants, and the children of both groups, adaptation to the culture, society, and life in a new ‘host’ country can be difficult, to say the least. So, in response to a new cultural landscape and a tenuous sense belonging, as well as to maintain a connection with a shared past, citizens of the world’s numerous diaspora replicate linguistic, cultural, and social norms, creating their own “cultural space[s]” that mirror and often replace a past relationship to their land of origin, or ‘home’.

The rhetorics of violence in Joshua: Foucauldian Power, Israelite Identity, and the Ethics of Interpretation

The goals of this project are manifold. First, I will attempt to discover evidence in the book of Joshua that will lend support to the theory of a Josianic influence enacted in the 7th century BCE. I will do this through an analysis of the rhetoric in selected stories in Joshua using the ideas of Foucault. Second, I will address the significance of this kind of analysis as having potential for the emancipation of oppressed peoples. The first section delineates scholarly discussion on the literary and historical context of the book of Joshua. These scholarly works are foundational to this study because they situate the text within a particular period in history and within certain ideologies. Chapter 2 discusses the work of Foucault and how his ideas will be applied to particular texts of the book of Joshua. The focused analysis of these texts occurs within chapters 3 to 6. Chapter 7 presents an integration of the observations made through the analyses performed in the previous chapters and expands on the ethical significance of this study.

Stranger in a Strange Land: The struggle for cultural and personal identity in Haruki Murakami's Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

In order to explicate Murakami's version of the official culture, I have analyzed the novel with the works of several different theorists. Primarily, I drew my own understanding of the official culture from Raymond Williams's examination of culture in Marxism and Literature. His terminology became helpful in writing about the operation of the System and the Town, though it did not define that operation precisely. Williams's work also introduced me to the theory behind the official culture's manipulation and exclusion of historical aspects in order to create their "official" version of history, from which the official culture draws its identity. For further analysis of the treatment of history, I turned to Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. Though it examines the official culture's manipulation of history in a much more in-depth manner, it seems to have influenced Murakami's treatment of individual memories and cultural histories. For instance, the herd ofunicoms in the End of the World resembles Nietzsche's description of the ''unhistorical herd," or has the potential to resemble it. With these theories I was able to access the mechanisms of cultural control that Murakami depicts in the form of the System and the Town, and from there I was able to develop a model for how the narrator struggles to subvert that control. Both sides of that struggle are depicted and re-imagined many times throughout Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World.

Dwelling in possibility: aestheticizing identity in African American women's fiction

African American women writers define aesthetics through their negotiation of identity in the politicized loci of space, place and voice. In the balkanization of such issues of voice and space, we can see the ways that the emergent selfis embodied and aestheticized in literature. To do so creates a more tactile and "artfull" representation of the self rather than a representation of identity as a mere abstract concept. To use written language to express the self is to carry processes of selfdefinition for black women into the realm of creative production. For women, especially black women, who are a politically and socially compromised element of society, the written word is a way of expressing the politically and the socially critical voice that is suppressed in other forums of expression. Using theories on "writing in difference" as a skeleton key, this project seeks to outline some of the ways that black women writers use aesthetic elements in their art to express the potential for self-examination, discovery, and emancipation.