Bachelor thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (BSc)
closed access
This thesis contends with embedded forms of (post)colonialism found within contemporary immigration procedures faced by non-Western immigrants in Europe. While reflecting on how colonial...Show moreThis thesis contends with embedded forms of (post)colonialism found within contemporary immigration procedures faced by non-Western immigrants in Europe. While reflecting on how colonial hierarchies and Othering is sustained through certain immigration processes the concept of agency is considered. Ultimately, this thesis finds that it is within the structure of victimhood that non-Western immigrants and refugees are able to maneuver and negotiate significant degrees of agency.Show less
This research aims to unveil the agency of the artwork “la Zoyd’s pataVerse” by Yvonne le Grand. By applying Wild’s take on Gell’s Art Nexus, three phases of the social biography of Le Grand’s work...Show moreThis research aims to unveil the agency of the artwork “la Zoyd’s pataVerse” by Yvonne le Grand. By applying Wild’s take on Gell’s Art Nexus, three phases of the social biography of Le Grand’s work are placed into a system that connects with four agents that mostly revolve around the interactions between them. This research laid bare that the agency of the artwork came into being because of (a) the Index, being an online platform that invited Recipients to participate in the artwork; (b) the Artist, deciding to (not) use the input by Recipients in Zoyd’s life; (c) the Recipient, willing to and being able to interact with the Artwork; and (d) the Prototype, offering another dimension to the artwork as it refers to the fact that online and offline identities are both versions of the self that are not fully separate.Show less
After a brutal war, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) lost its significant territorial areas. How to deal with the organization’s members returning back to their home countries, has been...Show moreAfter a brutal war, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) lost its significant territorial areas. How to deal with the organization’s members returning back to their home countries, has been subject to heated debate. By focusing specifically on the role of the organization’s female members this paper explores the differences in the judicial approaches to the returning ISIS-women, through a case study analysis of Norway and Sweden. By discussing the differences in the expansion of national terror legislation, its implementation in relation to the women of ISIS, and the possible contributing factors to the different approaches, this paper answers the following research question: how do Norway and Sweden differ in their judicial approach to the Norwegian and Swedish women of ISIS returning back home between 2012-2022? Moreover, what are the main contributing factors leading to the differences in the approaches? The paper argues that Norway is more punitive towards returning women than Sweden. This is due to Norway’s legislation on terrorism participation, which allows for prosecution without classifying which actions count as participation. Furthermore, the paper argues that this differs from Sweden’s legislation on participation, which requires evidence of grave terrorist crimes committed in order to prosecute. This, the paper demonstrates, results in Sweden lacking the legal framework to prosecute its female nationals returning from ISIS. Lastly, the paper explores possible factors contributing to the different judicial approaches and highlights the Swedish legislative council, the effect of recent terrorist attacks, and loud critics as the most significant. Through the use of the case study, this paper contributes to knowledge on the implications domestic judicial differences can have in combatting transnational threats like terrorism.Show less
This thesis examines attitudes towards feminism and the New Woman movement in the 1890s and 1900s in relation to the representations of female criminal characters in the following works: Thomas...Show moreThis thesis examines attitudes towards feminism and the New Woman movement in the 1890s and 1900s in relation to the representations of female criminal characters in the following works: Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891); Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes stories; and Joseph Conrad’s The Secret Agent (1907). The thesis argues that the texts all contain a paradox considering the agency of criminal women. On the one hand, Hardy, Doyle and Conrad depict the criminal woman as a symbol of choice and agency. On the other hand, the texts also cast doubt on the idea that agency is possible for anyone when the criminological (often deterministic) explanations for the crime are taken into account.Show less
“The future of the world’s population is urban.”1 People move to the city for opportunities, money and a better life. When we look at this transition from a freedom perspective, instead of the...Show more“The future of the world’s population is urban.”1 People move to the city for opportunities, money and a better life. When we look at this transition from a freedom perspective, instead of the common resource or utility views, you could question whether the city will always provide this better life. Do urban environments provide the freedoms we value, better than rural environments? In this thesis I claim that certain freedoms, present in rural environments, actually get reduced when people move to the city, and that the urban spatial environment is a crucial factor in this. I will introduce Amartya Sen’s capability approach to elaborate on the importance of capabilities, compared to other normative indicators of human flourishing. Sen’s capability approach does not focus on resources or outcomes, but on the process whereby people flourish; the freedom people have to do and to be as they have reason to value. These substantive freedoms are divided by Sen in a freedom concerned with people’s wellbeing (reflecting capabilities) and a freedom concerned with people’s agency. This distinction is particularly relevant when we consider spatial environments. Where wellbeing freedom deals with the different opportunities open to people, agency freedom concerns the freedom people have to effectively shape and choose their own. By looking at concrete cases, I show that certain freedoms, while present in rural environments, are reduced by the spatial design of our cities, after which I present a number of inspirational design cases which are able to address these losses. I conclude by arguing that, in designing our cities, there is reason to pay more attention to the rural valuing of freedom, both in providing alternative options for people to achieve wellbeing, and in providing space for people to exercise agency in order to conceive a wider range of valuable goals.Show less
Research master thesis | African Studies (research) (MA)
open access
2022-03-03T00:00:00Z
Since the 1980s, Italy has become one of the leading destinations of Senegalese migration and one of the countries with the most numerous Senegalese population in Europe. Along with other African...Show moreSince the 1980s, Italy has become one of the leading destinations of Senegalese migration and one of the countries with the most numerous Senegalese population in Europe. Along with other African diasporas, Senegalese migrants in Italy are an object of interest of the national media that generally portray them as a monolithic group, uniformed under simplistic images and victim of its circumstances. The presence of this community has also been the interest of many scholars within the social sciences. In their works, these scholars adopted a more nuanced and objective look towards Senegalese migrants’ conditions in Italy, taking into account agency and diversity in dealing with the complex situation of this migrant community. Building from the corpus of research laid down by these works, this thesis contributes to the discussion on Senegalese migrants’ agency from a different perspective. Drawing from the example of Senegalese street sellers working in Florence, the present work shows how the use they make of language can be seen as a way to recover actors' agency. Specifically, by considering the use they make of language as an identity marker, the present thesis reveals the role that Senegalese street vendors have in dealing with their new (linguistic) circumstances. Within this framework, intentionality in language use works as a concept to understand and investigate agency. In this way, the present work sheds light on language use as an asset for Senegalese street sellers’ agency; moreover, it gives a practical solution to understand and analyse agency by pointing to how intentionality may be expressed in language use.Show less
Bachelor thesis | Griekse en Latijnse taal en cultuur (BA)
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Pas recentelijk is er in onderzoek meer aandacht voor de rollen die de vrouwen in Lucanus' Bellum Civile spelen. Deze scriptie is er dan ook aan gewijd om de rollen van de belangrijkste vrouwen in...Show morePas recentelijk is er in onderzoek meer aandacht voor de rollen die de vrouwen in Lucanus' Bellum Civile spelen. Deze scriptie is er dan ook aan gewijd om de rollen van de belangrijkste vrouwen in het Bellum Civile (Julia, Marcia, Cornelia en Cleopatra) verder uit te diepen. Hierbij zal de vraag gesteld worden hoeveel agency Lucanus de vier vrouwen toekent: of en op welke manier hij ze in staat stelt invloed uit te oefenen op het verloop van de handeling en of ze dit onafhankelijk doen of door hun relatie met elkaar en de mannelijke personages in het epos. De mate van agency die de vrouwen in het werk vertonen, zal geëvalueerd worden door middel van close-reading van een reeks passages waarin ze een rol spelen. Daarbij zal een verband gelegd worden tussen de transformatie tot Furie die alle vier de vrouwen tot op zekere hoogte doormaken, en de ontwikkeling van hun agency binnen het epos.Show less
Parsimonious system-based theories take center stage within the scholarly field of International Relations. Assuming the international system to be the key determinant of international politics,...Show moreParsimonious system-based theories take center stage within the scholarly field of International Relations. Assuming the international system to be the key determinant of international politics, they aim to explain any geopolitical event. Utilizing 60 speeches from United States presidents Obama and Trump, and employing China’s Belt and Road Initiative as an important divide, this thesis will examine the role of agency, through the individual leadership of both Obama and Trump, within the realm of international politics.Show less
Arab women are often portrayed as in need of saving from the conditions they live in. This narrative takes away the possibility of these women to be agents of change in their own lives. This thesis...Show moreArab women are often portrayed as in need of saving from the conditions they live in. This narrative takes away the possibility of these women to be agents of change in their own lives. This thesis aims to explore how Saudi women push back against societal norms in literary fiction. Specifically, it investigates how Saudi female fictional characters employ different forms of agency in physical and online public spaces compared to private and women-only spaces. The close reading of segments of two fictional literary works was used to showcase how female protagonists employ different understandings of agency. These examples were then linked to real-life examples to demonstrate that fiction is strongly rooted in reality. What became clear is that there is a multiplicity of ways for Saudi women to employ agency to resist and reshape the established order and practices, and different spaces within Saudi society offer different opportunities for employing agency. Moreover, there are different types of agency employed by different types of Saudi women. Thus, Saudi women can be agents of change within Saudi society and their own lives.Show less
Burgeoning Africa-China relations have sparked considerable debate over the past two decades. Many Western academics, politicians, and journalists now see growing Africa-China relations as a form...Show moreBurgeoning Africa-China relations have sparked considerable debate over the past two decades. Many Western academics, politicians, and journalists now see growing Africa-China relations as a form of Chinese neo-colonialism in Africa that is challenging Western efforts to help the continent develop. It is in this atmosphere of competition that the perspectives of Africans themselves have often been overlooked. This research paper attempts to shed light on these perspectives by analysing how elite political discourse in South Africa, Zambia and Angola perceives growing Africa-China relations, and how this discourse differs from common themes found in Western discourse. The paper combines a macro critical political discourse analysis of elite political discourse with a qualitative comparative analysis of these three case studies, within the timeframe January 2018 – January 2020. The research paper reveals that African political discourse often differs from, and indeed challenges, common themes found in Western discourse. In doing so, this research also contests the ‘universality’ of Western perceptions of both Africa and Africa-China relations. And finally, this research problematises the portrayal of non-Western actors in mainstream IR and highlights the need to listen to these voices from the periphery.Show less
“Netwerken” winnen in de historische wetenschap steeds meer terrein als gangbaar onderzoeksobject om informatie uit te onttrekken over onderzochte tijdsperiodes. Iedere individu behoort tot een...Show more“Netwerken” winnen in de historische wetenschap steeds meer terrein als gangbaar onderzoeksobject om informatie uit te onttrekken over onderzochte tijdsperiodes. Iedere individu behoort tot een uiteenlopend aantal netwerken: zijn/haar familie; een religieuze groep; een politieke partij of click; enz., het aantal netwerken waartoe een persoon kan behoren is talrijk. Er zijn historici die de uitdaging van het globale netwerk aankunnen, en op basis van juist(informele) netwerken een inzicht over een bepaalde tijdsperiode kunnen verschaffen. Geïnspireerd op dergelijk onderzoek, is in dit onderzoek besloten te gaan kijken naar onderlinge verbindingen op een kleiner stukje grond: het eerste stukje Herengracht. In dit onderzoek zal blijken in hoeverre er tussen de bewoners alhier, naast hun verbondenheid in het geografische netwerk van grachten, ook sprake was van sociaaleconomische netwerkvorming.Show less
Racism is one of the main social issues in the United States which manifests itself in widespread unrest such as the LA riots after the acquittal of the officers responsible for savagely beating...Show moreRacism is one of the main social issues in the United States which manifests itself in widespread unrest such as the LA riots after the acquittal of the officers responsible for savagely beating Rodney King in the late 1990s and the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement in the mid 2010s in the United States. Over the course of the last few decades Hollywood has increased its frequency of producing movies which are set in times of slavery. The degree of (relative) agency of the black protagonists in a selection of these movies (Amistad, 12 Years a Slave and The Birth of a Nation (2016)) becomes a method to criticise the persistence of racial injustice in the United States .Show less
In the field of International Relations, as well as the news or other social media outlets, the discussion of the U.N. often revolves around the five permanent members of the Security Council. This...Show moreIn the field of International Relations, as well as the news or other social media outlets, the discussion of the U.N. often revolves around the five permanent members of the Security Council. This thesis occupies itself by inspecting the agency, and means of influence, of the non-permanent smaller states. Predominantly focusing itself on the Nordic states, observing how these states have interacted with the framework of the U.N.Show less
This thesis offers a close reading of three neo-slave narratives, Octavia Butler's "Kindred," Toni Morrison's "Beloved" and Charles Johnson's "Middle Passage" focusing on the themes of slave and...Show moreThis thesis offers a close reading of three neo-slave narratives, Octavia Butler's "Kindred," Toni Morrison's "Beloved" and Charles Johnson's "Middle Passage" focusing on the themes of slave and post-slavery community, family and gender in relation to the historical trauma of slavery. This thesis first addresses the historiographical debates about the agency and resistance of enslaved people within a system of systematic oppression and dispossession and then demonstrates how the three novels negotiate this issue. Both "Kindred" and "Beloved" probe into the limitations and possibilities of the community as a site of black male and female empowerment. Instead of romanticizing life in the free and enslaved black communities, both Butler and Morrison challenge these sites and call attention to the costs of resistance to the slavery regime. On the other hand, in his effort to liberate his fiction from black identity politics that foreground the works of Butler and Morrison, Johnson explores the cultural hybridity of his protagonist, but he ultimately only reproduces patriarchal values he overtlty parodies.Show less
