A new valuation school : Integrating diverse values of nature in resource and land use decisions

We are increasingly confronted with severe social and economic impacts of environmental degradation all over the world. From a valuation perspective, environmental problems and conflicts originate from trade-offs between values. The urgency and importance to integrate nature's diverse values in decisions and actions stand out more than ever. Valuation, in its broad sense of 'assigning importance', is inherently part of most decisions on natural resource and land use. Scholars from different traditions -while moving from heuristic interdisciplinary debate to applied transdisciplinary science- now acknowledge the need for combining multiple disciplines and methods to represent the diverse set of values of nature. This growing group of scientists and practitioners share the ambition to explore how combinations of ecological, socio-cultural and economic valuation tools can support real-life resource and land use decision-making. The current sustainability challenges and the ineffectiveness of single-value approaches to offer relief demonstrate that continuing along a single path is no option. We advocate for the adherence of a plural valuation culture and its establishment as a common practice, by contesting and complementing ineffective and discriminatory single-value approaches. In policy and decision contexts with a willingness to improve sustainability, integrated valuation approaches can be blended in existing processes, whereas in contexts of power asymmetries or environmental conflicts, integrated valuation can promote the inclusion of diverse values through action research and support the struggle for social and environmental justice. The special issue and this editorial synthesis paper bring together lessons from pioneer case studies and research papers, synthesizing main challenges and setting out priorities for the years to come for the field of integrated valuation.Peer reviewe

What does security mean? : A visual discourse analysis of the Swedish Armed Forces formation of threats.

The purpose of this essay has been to identify and examine how the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) create and form potential threats through the use of television commercials. Through a method of visual discourse analysis, commercials carried out by the SAF between 2015 and 2017 have been analyzed to identify and understand how the SAF talks about security and creates potential threats. The Copenhagen School of Securitization has been used as a theoretical framework in this essay to help understand how the Swedish Armed Forces create potential threats through speech-acts and the use of visual and auditory elements. The analysis identified that the SAF creates and forms potential security threats through three main narratives: the rights and freedoms of Swedish citizens, gender, and a diverse society. In relation to the theoretical framework and previous research within the field of securitization, the conclusions drawn from this essay's analysis can help illustrate how the SAF's formation of potential threats has the opportunity to influence political decisions and, therefore, the broader security discourse within Swedish society

What does security mean? : A visual discourse analysis of the Swedish Armed Forces formation of threats.

The purpose of this essay has been to identify and examine how the Swedish Armed Forces (SAF) create and form potential threats through the use of television commercials. Through a method of visual discourse analysis, commercials carried out by the SAF between 2015 and 2017 have been analyzed to identify and understand how the SAF talks about security and creates potential threats. The Copenhagen School of Securitization has been used as a theoretical framework in this essay to help understand how the Swedish Armed Forces create potential threats through speech-acts and the use of visual and auditory elements. The analysis identified that the SAF creates and forms potential security threats through three main narratives: the rights and freedoms of Swedish citizens, gender, and a diverse society. In relation to the theoretical framework and previous research within the field of securitization, the conclusions drawn from this essay's analysis can help illustrate how the SAF's formation of potential threats has the opportunity to influence political decisions and, therefore, the broader security discourse within Swedish society

Home and hell : Representations of female masculinity in action-driven science fiction literature

The aim of this article is to examine the representation of female masculinity in genre literature. Reading female masculinity as queer embodiment, I put two science fictional texts driven by a typical action narrative in dialogue with earlier research on representations of female masculinity in literature and popular culture to demonstrate the importance of bringing the genre of the text into the analysis when examining female masculinity. In the article, I use the connection between female masculinity and tragedy as my starting point to exemplify how the genre of a text shapes the depiction and reading of female masculinity. In the action-driven science fiction texts I study, this link is very much present, but tragedy is given another role to play. Instead of being an element in the constitution of gender non-conforming as an unlivable experience, the representation of these masculine female heroes as oriented away from heteronormative constructions of a good life (Ahmed 2006) makes possiblethe depiction of these women as masculine, as well as the glorification of their gender non-conformity within the framework of the action-based SF narrative

Notes towards gritty fantasy medievalism, temporality, and worldbuilding

This article discusses gritty fantasy, a fantasy subgenre, which was established in the early 2000s and has since gained a lot of traction. In previous research, gritty fantasy has often been understood as a deconstructive form of fantasy that draws on the barbaric Middle Ages and subverts fantasy tropes as a reaction against earlier forms of popular fantasy. I examine, rather, the genre’s relation to the medieval and its depictions of power. Drawing on queer temporality and theories on fantasy literature and worldbuilding (Mendlsohn; Roine), I approach gritty fantasy first and foremost as a form of fantasy literature, placing it within the context of speculative fiction and asking what it does as a fantastic literature

Die Oneirokritika des Artemidor von Daldis als Fenster auf die Gesellschaft im 2. Jh. n. Chr.

Mit den Oneirokritika des Artemidor von Daldis aus dem Kleinasien des 2. Jh. n. Chr. liegt die einzig erhaltene Abhandlung zum Traumwesen aus der griechisch-römischen Antike vor. Als solche enthält sie eine singuläre Zusammenfassung von Träumen und dementsprechenden Deutungen von Personen mit unterschiedlichem sozialen Status. Ausgehend von der These, dass das sogenannte ,Traumbuch' des Artemidor folglich als ein Fenster auf die Lebensverhältnisse, Motivationen, Ängste und Hoffnungen der kaiserzeitlichen Gesellschaft Kleinasiens dienen kann, werden die drei sozialen Gruppen der Sklaven, Athleten und Gelehrten als Repräsentanten verschiedener gesellschaftlicher Schichten im Rahmen einer diachronen Analyse untersucht. Der Fokus liegt dabei auf dem Gesellschaftsbild des Artemidor, das den Deutungen zugrunde liegt, sowie auf den damit verbundenen Handlungsnormen und Rollenerwartungen. In dieser Hinsicht leistet das Traumbuch einen maßgeblichen Beitrag zum Verständnis von individuellen sowie gesamtgesellschaftlichen Strukturen, Dynamiken und Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten zur Zeit der zweiten Sophistik

Notes towards gritty fantasy medievalism, temporality, and worldbuilding

This article discusses gritty fantasy, a fantasy subgenre, which was established in the early 2000s and has since gained a lot of traction. In previous research, gritty fantasy has often been understood as a deconstructive form of fantasy that draws on the barbaric Middle Ages and subverts fantasy tropes as a reaction against earlier forms of popular fantasy. I examine, rather, the genre’s relation to the medieval and its depictions of power. Drawing on queer temporality and theories on fantasy literature and worldbuilding (Mendlsohn; Roine), I approach gritty fantasy first and foremost as a form of fantasy literature, placing it within the context of speculative fiction and asking what it does as a fantastic literature

Stålet som svar? : Vikingakroppar, makt och maskulinitet i engelskspråkig fantasylitteratur 2006–2016

This dissertation examines the motif of the popular Viking in contemporary Anglophone fantasy literature, with a focus on masculinity, power, embodiment,and sexuality. The study draws on queer-theoretical perspectives on masculinity and the method of queer reading, and approaches the Viking as at once bound up with the legitimization of normative and hegemonic forms of masculinity and open to (queer) negotiations and possibilities beyond normative male masculinities. The material consists of contemporary gritty fantasy, a recent subgenre deeply invested in contemporary concerns regarding masculinity, masculine failure, and masculinity crisis narratives, where the Viking motif plays a major role. The texts under consideration are Joe Abercrombie’s The First Law (2006–2012) and The Shattered Sea (2014–2015), Richard K. Morgan’s A Land Fit for Heroes (2008–2016), Mark Lawrence’s The Red Queen’s War (2014–2016), and Elizabeth Bear and Sarah Monette’s The Iskryne Saga (2007–2015). Understanding the Viking as a motif that is intractably bound up with ideas of the past and the historical period of the Viking Age but not reducible to it, the thesis considers the fantasy Viking as a medial representation of spectacular hardbody action masculinity and puts it in relation to the fantasy text and fantasy worldbuilding as well as more generalized cultural ideas of the North and the Nordics. Furthermore, it asks how we can understand the masculinity of the Viking – long made symbolic of or associated with white supremacy, misogyny, homophobia, and reactionary gender roles – beyond an assumed direct relation to men or men’s concerns. Analytically, the thesis considers the Viking in relation to spatiality, temporality, and embodiment, finding that in the fantasy text, the Viking emerges with a strong focus on a mighty, muscular body and as a barbarian Other connected to the past and in direct opposition to civilization and futurity, making it an escapist possibility outside the disciplining power of neoliberal late-stage capitalism. Furthermore, connecting to postfeminist perspectives on masculinity in media, the thesis finds that the fantasy Viking has developed in ways that seemingly take into account feminist and queer critique of traditional, homophobic forms of masculinity, transforming the Viking and offering it up for (queer) objectification. At the same time, the Viking also becomes a safe site of traditional masculinity, where anxieties and concerns regarding a supposed loss of male power in modernity can be projected and ultimately resolved.Den här avhandlingen undersöker vikingamotivet i den samtida engelskspråkiga fantasylitteraturem med fokus på maskulinitet, makt, kroppslighet och sexualitet. Studien tar avstamp i queerteoretiska perspektiv på maskulinitet och queer läsning som metod och förstår vikingen som på samma gång direkt kopplad till idéer om legitimering av normativa och hegemoniska former av maskulinitet och öppen för (queera) omförhandlingar och möjligheter bortom normativa manliga maskuliniteter. Empiriskt utgår avhandlingen från en relativt ny subgenre av fantasy, gritty fantasy, som är djupt sammankopplad med samtida diskussioner kring maskulinitet i relation till misslyckande och kris och där vikingamotivet ofta har en framskjuten roll. Texterna som avhandlas är Joe Abercrombies TheFirst Law (2006–2012) och The Shattered Sea (2014–2015), Richard K. Morgans A Land Fit for Heroes (2008–2016), Mark Lawrences The Red Queen’s War (2014–2016) samt Elizabeth Bears och Sarah Monettes The Iskryne Saga (2007–2015). Vikingen framträder som ett motiv som är djupt sammanbundet med idéer om det förflutna och historia, men som inte enbart kan reduceras till det. I stället förstår avhandlingen vikingen som en medial representation a vspektakulär, kroppslig actionmaskulinitet och sätter den i relation till fantasytexten och fantasyvärldsbygget samt mer generella idéer om Norden. Vidare har den maskulina vikingen länge symboliskt kopplats ihop med reaktionära idéer om vit överhöghet, misogyni och homofobi, och avhandlingen intresserar sig för hur vikingens maskulinitet kan förstås bortom något som enbart förhåller sig till män eller mäns angelägenheter. Studien diskuterar vikingen i relation till rumslighet, temporalitet och kroppslighet och finner att i fantasytexten skildras vikingen med fokus på en stark, muskulös kropp och som en barbarisk Andra från det förflutna, i opposition mot såväl civilisation som modernitet och framtid. Här positioneras vikingen som en eskapistisk möjlighet utanför och i motsats till det nyliberala, senkapitalistiska samhället och disciplinär makt. Vidare, via postfeministiska perspektiv på maskulinitet, finner avhandlingen att fantasyvikingen också verkar svara mot feministisk och queer kritik av traditionella och homofoba former av maskulinitet genom att omforma vikingen och positionera den som ett objekt för olika former av (queera) begär. Samtidigt blir vikingen också en symbolisk tillflykt för konservativa idéer om maskulinitet, där ängslan över en förmodad förlust av traditionellt manliga egenskaper och manlig makt i senmoderniteten kan projiceras och upplösas.ReImagining Norden in an Evolving Worl