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One reason for poverty is that many people are denied access to financial markets. A new alternative way of providing credit to people living in a vulnerable economic situation is microfinance. Microfinance has often been a success story and one explanation has often been the impact of social capital. This thesis investigates the relationship between social capital and microfinance. Do individual

Green movement has started in the 1970s and gained popularity in the 1980s. Its expansion continued to grow even more in the 1990s. Today, in 2010, environmental issues are parts of political agenda, and everyday life. It has become a must to consider environmental aspects in design processes. Green design has gained enormous importance as well as green consumption and green marketing over the yea

This thesis provides an analysis of three photographs from the New Mothers-series by Rineke Dijkstra, which serve as a point of entry for a discussion on how the maelstrom of visual expressions surrounding the contemporary subject is transforming his/her experience of what is real in relation to visual expressions. In the exploration, the concept of “the real” is examined in its construction and a

The purpose of this study was to examine school counselors’ constructions of the honor related problems as well as their constructions of their own and the school´s role in relation to these problems. The aim was also to learn about the wider social consequences of the school counselors’ constructions. I was interested in learning about the meaning and significations the school counselors use in t

This study is an assessment of the functioning of the three year old Transparency Mechanism. The mechanism has a surveiling role in the WTO of the Regional Trade Agreements (RTA). Formation of RTAs has been increasing rapidly during the latest twenty years, causing a tension in the multilateral trading system. RTAs give more preferable treatment to parties within the agreement than to trading part

Offending images are representations that hurt people’s feelings deeply. My thesis deals with the way in which people read and interpret these offending images. It becomes important to understand what makes some viewers vulnerable to a certain image thereby provoking strong reactions against it. The aim is to put myself at the receiving end, in the place of those who are offended and look at the i

This thesis is dedicating to analysis the contribution of Knutpunkten building which is located in Helsingborg southern Sweden with regards to its visual impact role on the society and environment from its visual appearance of the elements of design mainly colour and light element. Different philosophical conceptions of colour and light from different theoretician notion is using as a main empiric

Animals are often used in advertising, especially in commercials. When given human characteristics, and used in several commercials over a longer period of time, anthropomorphic animal spokespersons are born. These animals are neither real animals nor humans. They are hybrids, or fake animals. Fake in the sense that they are fictive, they lack an existing model and they are an assembly of many thi

Denna studie har som syfte att undersöka om och på vilka sätt vuxna utlandsadopterade erfar rasism och särbehandling på grund av deras utomeuropeiska utseende, samt hur deras adoptivföräldrar har talat om och hanterat deras kroppsliga annanhet i relation till, och frågor rörande rasism och diskriminering. Undersökningen utgår ifrån en litteraturstudie och fyra intervjuer med vuxna adopterade. En t

Sett till senaste finanskrisen kan konstateras att oroligheterna på marknaden haft stor påverkan på oljepriset och i synnerhet West Texas Intermediate (WTI), vilken jag valt att titta på. Tydliga signaler pekar på relevansen av att kunna prognostisera oanade utfall (risk). En metod som är vanligt förekommande vid prognostisering av risk är Value at Risk (VaR), vilken summerar risken till ett enda

With this thesis we want to prove that by using a single formula for picking stocks, Joel Greenblatt’s ‘’Magic Formula’’, it is possible to achieve returns higher than those achieved by a related index. To prove this, we will construct a portfolio, according to “The Magic Formula”, and backtest the portfolio in the Swedish stock market. The test period will be March 1999 to January 2010 and we wil

This thesis provides an analysis about the issue that how national identity is constructed and approached by Swedish domestic design works. The case studies mainly focus on the products from two companies in Sweden. They are the porcelain of Gustavsberg AB and the domestic design of Svenskt Tenn AB. Majority of the empirical material was collected by the author through the visit of these two compa

As the representation of people’s identity, dress reveals people’s characteristics, social status and most importantly, how people want to be “looked like”. The same theory can be applied to film costume, which is not only a purely visual spectacle but also an important element to sustain the entire film. Film costume on one hand helps to form the concepts and images of different characters and th

Anthropomorphism, or the attribution of human characteristics and attributes to nonhuman objects, is evidenced in the design world, especially in product lines by companies such as Alessi and Koziol. As case studies, this thesis investigates Fred Flare’s Inanimates and Jenny Lundgren’s Plasticks, both of which are sheets of stickers that feature cartoonish facial features like eyes and mouths. The

Starting with an awareness of plain public art which is permanently installed, I begin to pay attention to temporality. As the term “public art” itself carries mutually conflicting concepts, previous researches have mainly focused on issues like “political aestheticization” and “privatization of public space” in terms of development and democracy. From a more socio-aesthetic viewpoint, this thesis

Taiwanese bridal photography is a unique practice with the goal to produce images of fantasy styles ahead of the wedding. Chosen images are displayed at the wedding banquet for the guests to admire and later used as decoration in the house of newlyweds. This visual phenomenon is interesting in that people actively take part in the creation and consumption of visual commodity and it is connected to

This thesis is an analysis of contemporary Manga Culture in Japan and Sweden. The objective of the study was to identify the potential and problems for Manga culture and its future in the international market. Also I try to examine the potential of Manga to establish its academic status. This research will be based on the analysis of the transition and features of Manga related with Japanese cultu

Since culture has been changing over the time in all of the societies, the notions of gender and sex-role stereotypes as two of the constitutive parts of culture have been altering as well; due to the development of contemporary movements such as feminism and gender-related discourses. Nevertheless, because of different social environments and different rituals and values the development pace and

This thesis examines the impact of Guerrilla Gardening and Guerrilla Knitting (also known as Yarn Bombing) in and on the city. Examining definitions and distortions of the notions of ‘the vandal’, ‘the activist/craftivist’ and ‘guerillaisms’ that are made via these movements illustrates an expanding notion of the ‘urban dweller’. Tackled in terms of approaches, public and situationist theory, the

Disadvantaged groups, defined in this study as senior citizens, illiterate persons, physically, mentally and culturally challenged individuals, are a concern for the whole society. Signage for disadvantaged groups is presented differently worldwide. They are indicating different kinds of information, presented in different ways, emphasizing different disadvantaged groups in different countries. Th