Suchergebnisse

Familjelantbruket har genom historien haft en central roll för att producera samhällsviktiga konsumtionsvaror. Den starka industrialiseringen under 1900-talet har familjen fortsatt att utgöra en essentiell grund för produktionen inom de gröna näringarna. Tillgången på billig arbetskraft har utgjort grunden för familjelantbrukets överlevnad inom ramarna för den kapitalistiska marknadsekonomin. Familjen som källa till arbetskraft skapar en större flexibilitet i form av arbetsförhållanden, arbetstider, arbetsmiljö och ekonomi, i en produktion som i stor utsträckning är manuell och därför tidskrävande. Studiet av arbetsdelningen och ägandet könskodning inom familjelantbruket har bidragit till förståelsen av familjens roll i kvinnors underordning. Kärnfamiljen, liksom landsbygden, är två centrala nationella symboler som är starkt politiskt kodade och nära knutna till vår förståelse av svenskhet. Den sociala organiseringen av familjen bidrar till framställandet av de samhälliga hierarkierna och relationerna som naturaliga. Barn socialiseras in i gårdens arbete samt deras sociala position och identitet. Därigenom spelar den rurala kärnfamiljen en betydande symbolisk roll i upprätthållandet av heterosexuella ideologin och den patriarkala arbetsdelningen inom familjen. Därför är det av stor betydelse att undersöka hur kön kodar arbetsuppgifter, ägande och ojämlikhet i organiseringen av familjelantbruket. De sociala relationerna är inte en deterministisk process av inordnande, utan en process som formas av subjekt, agentskap och motstånd, vilket tar sig utryck på olika sätt och genom skiftande strategier. Genusvetenskapen inom landbygdsforskningen har en dryg fyrtioårig historia som akademiskt fält. I strömmarna efter den andra vågens kvinnorörelser formerades fältets ursprungliga forskningsmål som främst syftade att ifrågasätta den rådande bilden av den manliga lantbrukaren och synliggöra kvinnors arbete och deltagande inom landbygdens produktion. Under 80-talet förde marxistiskt och strukturalistiskt inspirerade forskare upp betydelsen av den socioekonomiska kontexten för kvinnors erfarenheter och liv i västvälden och utvecklingsländerna. Under 90-talet ökade mekaniseringen av lantbruket, vilket medförde att kvinnornas roll på gården förändrades till följd av att deras arbete ofta ersattes av maskiner. Denna process belyser ytterligare den ojämlika värderingen av arbetet på gården och i hushållet. Den tidigare förståelsen av kön, som en fix och distinkt kategori, ersattes av ett mer socialkonstruktivistiska synsätt. Förståelsen av genusrelationerna som könade praktiker och meningsskapande ersatte gradvis könsrollstänkandet. Identitetsforskningen har vidgat det rurala genusperspektivet till att även omfatta klass, etnicitet, rasifiering, ålder och sexualitet i studerandet av ojämlikhet. Familjelantbruket, i sin rurala kontext, har halkat efter den allmänna utvecklingen inom jämställdhetsområdet, vilket grundar sig i flera olika faktorer. För att öka jämställdheten inom familjelantbruket är det viktigt att analyser den sociala organiseringen av ojämställdhet inom detsamma. I denna process har både de kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoderna en fruktbar och viktig roll. Statistikens främsta användningsområde är att synliggöra orättvisor, underminera stereotyper och utgöra grunden för politiska beslut som syftar mot ett mer jämlikt samhälle. Kvantitativa metoder är ett bra verktyg för att fånga den strukturella organiseringen av samhället och erbjuder, i ifrågasättandet av singulariteten, en bredare bild av den sociala världen. Det är däremot viktigt att betona att definierandet av statistiska data är mer än teknikalitet, utan även något djupt politiskt. Genusvetenskapen inom landbygdsforskningen har etablerat sig som ett särkilt fält inom rural sociologi, geografi och ekonomi. Problematiken kring fältets isolering kvarstår drygt tjugo år efter att det för först gången påtalades av forskare. För att utveckla fältet empiriskt och teoretiskt krävs det att fältet vidgas och även involverar andra discipliner och akademiska fält. Det är viktigt att skapa grunder för breda forskarnätverk samt att föra ut forskningsresultat och diskussioner i både offentlig debatt och till andra akademiska fält. I studierna av familjelantbruket är det nödvändigt att inkludera kunskaper från andra akademiska fält som t.ex. familjestudier, genusvetenskap, arbetsvetenskap, ekonomi och organisationssociologi. Det är angeläget att bredda de sociala perspektiven och se till hur olika sociala relationer formar ojämställdheten inom familjelantbruket. Ojämställdhet kan inte separeras från andra ojämlikheter på samma sätt som kön inte kan särskiljas från andra sociala relationer. I detta utgör det intersektionella perspektivet ett alternativ till identitetpolitik. I flera offentliga utredningar betonas behovet av en tydligare koppling mellan teoretisk genusvetenskap och praktiskt jämställdhetsarbete. Jag har intentioner att med min forskning bidra till den teoretiska och metodologiska utvecklingen, och därmed vidga den genusvetenskapen inom landbygdsforskningen. En sådan utveckling öppnar upp fältet i förhållandet till dess omvärld och inkluderar ett brett socialt perspektiv med hjälp av både kvalitativa och kvantitativa metoder.

Key Points • Forestry cannot be thought of in isolation from its relations with other sectors and other parts of people's lives – for both the health of the forests and the well-being of forest peoples. • Forest governance and everyday management are upheld by a superstructure of gendered forest relations – invisible to mainstream forestry – that often disadvantages women as a social group. • Well-intentioned gender programmes can backfire, causing adverse effects on forests and forest peoples, if the efforts are not cognisant of context and power relations. • Constant awareness of differences among various social groups – men, women, different classes, ethnicities – and how their interests intersect differently in various forest contexts is needed for everyone's energy, creativity and motivation to contribute to sustainable forest management. • Research suggests that greater democratic governance of forests leads to better environmental outcomes. • The gender-neutral framing of some SDG goals undermines efforts towards achieving the outcomes called for in SDG 5.

Economic and social conditions on Swedish farms have altered in recent decades, restructuring the sector, but the family farm is still the primary production unit. Sweden is often described as a role model in gender equality, but a gender-unequal situation in farming has been identified, posing a political challenge. This thesis critically assessed how gender inequalities are reproduced within Swedish family farming by analysing how the 'doing' of family farming, in terms of labour and material relations, is shaped and reproduced. This approach focused the analysis on relations of and in production, by placing labour and property at the centre. Other approaches yielded novel information. The theoretical frameworks of labour process theory, political economy, feminist standpoint theory and material feminism, provided conceptual space to examine the reproduction of gender inequalities. In mixed method research, two types of survey data, interviews with farmers and literature on occupational health and safety in agriculture were used to analyse gendered access to arable land and farming conditions; the Swedish agrarian structure and the gendered organisation of the labour process; the gendered understating of agricultural health and safety; and the temporalities of Swedish family farming. The results showed how gender inequalities are reproduced in the temporal and spatial organisation and structuring of the labour process and through unequal distribution of resources. Unequal access to arable land contributes particularly to the gendering of farm management, farm diversification and farm ability to provide household income. A spatial stratification was observed, with larger gendered differences in more productive areas. The farm labour process forms the diverse experience of time, space, economy and labour of men and women in family farming. The different spheres and socio-economic modes of the labour process puts men and women in unequal positions, with differing materialised experiences of family farming and farm work; its risks, problems and consequences. The findings highlight the persistence of family farming in the Swedish agrarian structure and the importance of gender mainstreaming in e.g. policy, education and risk prevention work. More research is needed on the gendering effects of renegotiation of the family farm concept and situated agrarian change.

This thesis explores the human-environment interaction within the climate-sensitive socio-ecological system of Lake Chilwa in Malawi. It uses the livelihoods framework to analyse various coping strategies to resource scarcity due to lake recessions. The main aim is to understand the processes by which decision-making takes place and the influence of various agents of change on coping with environmental shocks, i.e. water recessions. Lake Chilwa undergoes periodic water recessions with up to twelve incidents recorded between 1900 and 2012. While the lake and its wetland is an economic aquatic agriculture system in between recessions, it is unclear how households around the system survive during the periods of water recessions. Qualitative and quantitative studies were conducted between March 2012 and December 2013 on Chisi Island of Lake Chilwa to evaluate the coping strategies and their major drivers in responding to the periodic lake recessions. Using interpretive analysis, the findings show that people from the Lake Chilwa socio-ecological system have lived in anticipation of periodic environmental shocks due to their deep historical knowledge of the lake level and its fluctuations. This knowledge has been passed from generation to generation. Results further show that the main coping strategies that have stood the test of time for every recession are based on reciprocity and redistribution. These include sharing through kinship ties, hunting wild birds and farming. In many cases coping strategies for each specific recession are driven by political, social and economic factors prevailing at that particular period. Given these conditions, different agents (individuals or communities) make choices designed to maximise their own interests as they scramble to access scarce resources. Although natural resources in these systems are fundamental assets in rural livelihoods, accessing them in times of scarcity requires better governance systems that consider social, political and economic contexts.

The 'socioenvironmental state' conceptualisation probes how contested, shifting, emergent boundaries of the state contain the possibilities for transformative change in the Anthropocene. The paper outlines a research programme capable of addressing the questions: who becomes authorised to govern change, who is required to make changes on the ground, and what subjectivities and pathways emerge in the context of rapid rate change? The conceptualisation unpacks three boundaries: state– society, its socionatural emergence, and the relationships between boundary-making and belonging to address these questions and better account for the successes and failures of attempts at governing an uncertain, rapidly changing world. In this analysis, 'environmental change' arises as a stochastic, relational becoming – ecologies and resources are emergent with the social-politics of governing them – suggesting that more analytical attention is required on how 'environmental challenges' and their 'drivers of change' are conceived and delimited. Together, these theoretical insights help reveal the way that the micro-politics of local resource use and the contradictory acceptance and refusals of authority and subjection are not only products of, but also productive of, larger scale political economies, socionatures, governance, and political struggles. The aim is to contribute towards a reimagination of political authority that begins to capture the complex interplay between our attempts at governing a changing world and the inadvertent authorisations, inclusions, and exclusions that we produce in those efforts. The paper partially illustrates the conceptual ideas with an account of forestry and climate change in Nepal. In a context wherein programmes to govern resources have become of global concern, probing the implications of these points is crucial. It is not only that states govern resources with particular consequences for 'environmental change' or 'sustainability', but also that the act of governing resources (re)produces the socioenvironmental boundaries of the state with profound implications for how future transformations can unfold.

It is argued that political-administrative organizations are becoming increasingly complex with more horizontal governance required. In Swedish municipal administration, there is a group of administrators assigned the task of monitoring and promoting strategic topics that should be integrated horizontally within the organization. Examples of strategic topics are sustainability, safety/security, diversity, children/youth, public health, human rights, and gender equality. In the thesis, these administrators are called cross-sector strategists. The purpose of this dissertation is to explore how cross-sector strategists become a part of the political-administrative organization when representing, enacting, and reflecting on values in the undertaking of their formal posts. They are situated between the tradition of vertical governance, with formal procedures and hierarchy as its foundation, and the tradition of horizontal governance, with informal networks and deliberation as its foundation. Previous research has shown that this is likely to give rise to value conflicts, and the question is if cross-sector strategists experience value conflicts, and if so, how they cope with them. The cross-sector strategists are studied in this thesis from the perspective of situated agency – focusing on both the contextual expectations of the cross-sector strategists and on their internal reflections to solve value conflicts – in order to explore their process of becoming a part of the local government administration. A mixed-methods design is applied, containing analysis of job advertisements for cross-sector strategists, public managers, and social workers; in-depth interviews with cross-sector strategists; and a survey of professional networks for cross-sector strategists. The results show that cross-sector strategists are subjects to ambivalent and often-contradictory contextual expectations. Cross-sector strategists use the ambivalence of their work for their strategic purposes, and such ambivalence allows them to reframe their topics, their methods, their arguments, and their identity according to current situation in order to increase the impact of their assigned topics and diminish the inner conflict of wanting to be both a responsive bureaucrat and an active lobbyist. Combining these two dedications requires them to be highly reflexive and flexible actors. The outcome of cross-sector strategists' coping with value conflicts can be interpreted in two ways: 1) as if the cross-sector strategists are a formal tool to safeguard crucial democratic and ethical values due to the cross-sector strategists' method of sneaking the strategic policy areas into the organization. Or 2) as a to democracy risky administrative behavior in the long-term due to the disguising of value conflicts and diminished possibilities to process these value conflicts

The aim of this dissertation is to analyse women's political representation in the Swedish parliament 1970-2002, a period during which the share of women parliamentarians increased from 14 to 45 percent, and to assess changes in party rules and party norms in terms of regulative and discursive continuity and change. Inspired by Carol Lee Bacchi's "What's the Problem? Approach," with its focus on the construction of political problems rather than "the problem" as such, this dissertation studies how Swedish political parties have formulated the problem of women's exclusion from parliamentary politics, what causes of women's under representation they have identified and what solutions they have proposed. The dissertation also studies how party rules to increase the number of women have been implemented in the 2002 nomination process. The dissertation is based on party documents from the period 1970-2002, a national survey to all nomination committees in the parliamentary election in 2002 and 70 interviews with nomination committee members for three political parties in two electoral constituencies. The analysis shows how both party rules and party norms regarding women's political representation have changed over time. The analysis also shows that the framing of women's representation changed over time: from an optimistic view of historical development, gender equality as 'equal opportunity' and harmony between the sexes to a critical view on historical development and gender equality as 'equality of results'. The analysis of the nomination process shows that gender is still a key issue in the composition of party lists but that the number of women on party lists in some parties is dependent on women gatekeepers on the nomination committees. It also shows that the ordering of the list is highly dependent on the candidate list from the previous election and that this order of succession also covers non-winnable seats.

The purpose of this dissertation is to map and analyze the spatial and temporal variation in women's political representation at both the national and local level. In the dissertation it is argued that women's political representation is the outcome of the interplay between structures, institutions and actors. The perspective is a comparative one, in which quantitative analyses and more qualitative case-studies complement each other. When analysing spatial variation a mainly quantitative approach is taken, while the case-study approach is applied to the temporal variation. The first empirical chapter examines whether female representation in the lower houses of the world's parliaments co-varies with other indicators of the political situation of women in order to ensure the validity of the analysis. In the second empirical chapter female representation in parliaments of the world during the post-war period is analyzed. In the third empirical chapter the focus narrows down to women's political representation in Western Europe during the post-war period, where both the national and local level is analysed. The fourth empirical chapter consists of case studies of six countries. Sweden, Norway and the Netherlands feature high female representation; France, Greece and Ireland low female representation. In the fifth empirical chapter women's political representation at the local level in Norway and Sweden is analysed during the post-war period. In the sixth empirical chapter the temporal variation in female representation in a number of Swedish municipalities is analysed, from the introduction of female suffrage in 1921 until 2002. The result is that both structures, institutions and actors are necessary to explain the spatial and temporal variation in female representation. There is no direct link between structures and female representation. The structure does affect the actors and co-varies with the institutions, but successful actors as entrepreneurs might boost female representation. Actors are important. The increase in female representation cannot be seen as an automatic process taking care of itself. Conscious actors are necessary both to affect and to monitor the development. An unfavourable structural context might be compensated for by actors and institutions which favour female representation.

Key Points • Understanding the impacts of SDG 16 on forests and people requires attention to the power dynamics that shape how all 17 SDGs are interpreted and implemented across the Global North and South. • As SDGs were agreed upon by nation states, SDG 16 places a strong emphasis on state power and the rule of law. • Yet inclusive governance requires the involvement of diverse actors, and consideration for customary laws and other non-state forms of rulemaking at global to local scales. • Many national laws governing forests and land use favour political elite, large-scale industry actors and international trade. • The development and strengthening of legal frameworks that support all of the SDGs – including those relevant to human rights, income inequalities, land tenure, gender and environmental protection – requires equal or greater priority than law enforcement. Otherwise, law enforcement will reinforce inequities and unsustainable practices. • SDG 16 provides an opportunity to overcome the stereotypes of the Global North as the referential role model for peace and democracy, by highlighting the role of the North in fostering market inequalities and global conflicts, and drawing attention to barriers to democratic and inclusive participation within the Global North. • How transparency, accountability and justice are conceived and prioritised shapes their impact on forests, as well as the degree to which their achievement either empowers forest-dependent peoples or excludes them from meaningful and informed engagement.

The purpose of the dissertation is to analyze the institutionalization of national masculinity policy in Sweden, focusing on idea and policy development regarding the issue of men and gender equality from the 1980s until the 2020s. Swedish national masculinity policy can be characterized as a delimitable area within gender equality policy that is specifically focused on promoting the development of gender equal men. The dissertation shows Sweden as pioneering in regard to this institutional invention promoting "the new man" and as active in disseminating these ambitions internationally. The main material consists of reports from Swedish governmental working groups and inquiries on men and gender equality during the period, as well as the gender equality policy bills and written communications submitted by the Swedish government to parliament. A methodological approach for an ideational policy analysis in historical perspective is outlined to study the institutionalization process of this policy area over time. The dissertation analyzes the discursive framework that the issue of men and gender equality has been embedded in, how the issue has been addressed at the political level, how it has been problematized in the working groups and inquiries, and finally formally institutionalized by the government. Based on Carol Bacchi's method for policy analysis, the dissertation shows how policy problems regarding men and gender equality have been constructed and represented in different ways during the institutionalization process and what the discursive effects of different policy representations have been. In comparison to previous research on masculinity politics in various men's groups or social movements, the dissertation shows the need to analyze "national masculinity policy" in relation to institutional factors and frameworks. The development of national masculinity policy is discussed in relation to theories of institutional change. The dissertation shows how ideas about men and gender equality that have been developed in research, social movements, and public debate have influenced politics, confirming the assumptions in feminist institutional research that emphasize the importance of ideas for institutional change. This development is described in terms of idea-based incremental institutional change. The dissertation also points to the importance of actors in problem representation processes, using the concept of interpretive repertoire to highlight how the actors who participated in the governmental inquiries on men and gender equality balanced the different perspectives found in their contexts (ideas in public debate, research, and policy). In other words, the dissertation studies the path from idea to formal institution when it comes to the question of the new man in Sweden.

Young people's view of nuclear power and democracy since the 1980s: attitude epidemics, path dependencies and technical-political cultural revolution. In the wake of the leftist wave, young people's criticism of the system has diminished, both in terms of criticism of the nuclear-based energy system and of the nature and workings of the political system. Baby-boomers (people born in the 1940s and '50s) in particular have changed their attitude and become less hostile to the establishment. But how did this change in attitudes occur? How has young people's view of technology and democracy changed during the past few decades? Based on data from the SOM Institute gathered between 1987 and 2005, this final report presents the results of one of the two studies conducted in the project "Towards activism or indifference? How Swedish young people view democracy and the environment, science and technology in an international and longitudinal perspective". First a theory and a method are proposed for analyzing what is called in this report "attitude epidemics", referring to the fact that attitudes spread like wildfire or epidemics, leading to what societal researchers call "path dependencies". Then age-versus-generation differences are studied, as well as a large number of other factors, with regard to attitudes to technology, nuclear power and democracy in particular, or the way democracy works in Sweden. Younger people are found to be the most critical of nuclear power, while they are most satisfied with democracy, even though gender, risk perceptions, party affiliation and political positioning are some of the factors that also influence these analyses on the individual level. The "epidemic effect" and path dependencies do not show their strength in these individual analyses, but all the more in the analysis of time series where the computer and IT revolution is found to be very strongly linked to the strong growth in acceptance of nuclear power. Using new communication technologies is somehow associated with a decline in hostility toward technology and nuclear power. But many cause-and-effect relationships in this attitudinal and technical-political "cultural revolution" still remain to be explored. ; I vänstervågens svall har ungdomens systemkritik avklingat, både i bemärkelsen kritik mot det kärnkraftsbaserade energisystemet och mot det politiska systemets väsen och funktionssätt. Främst 1940- och 1950-talisterna har ändrat inställning och blivit mindre systemfientliga. Men hur gick denna förändring i attityder egentligen till? Hur har synen på teknik och demokrati bland ungdomar förändrats senaste årtiondena? Med användning av SOM-institutets data 1987–2005 presenterar denna slutrapport resultat från en av de två delstudierna inom projektet "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv". Först föreslås teori och metod för att analysera det som i denna rapport kallas "attitydepidemier", att attityder sprider sig lavinartat, och genom dem etablering av vad samhällsforskare kallar "stigberoenden". Därefter studeras ålders- kontra generationsskillnader, liksom ett stort antal andra faktorer, med avseende på attityder till framför allt tekniken kärnkraft och demokrati eller demokratins funktionssätt i Sverige. Yngre visar sig vara de mest kritiska mot kärnkraften men de mest nöjda med demokratin, även om kön, riskuppfattningar, partianhängarskap och politisk positionering är några av de faktorer som också spelar roll i dessa analyser på individnivå. "Epidemieffekten" och stigberoenden visar inte sin styrka i dessa individanalyser, men desto mer i analysen av tidsserier där dator- och IT-revolutionen visar sig mycket starkt förbunden med den starka tillväxten i kärnkraftsacceptans. Att använda nya kommunikationstekniker hänger på något sätt samman med minskning av teknikfientlighet även till kärnkraften. Men många orsakssamband i denna attitydmässiga och teknisk-politiska "kulturrevolution" är fortfarande outforskade. ; "Mot aktivism eller ointresse? Svenska ungdomars syn på demokrati och teknologi i ett internationellt och longitudinellt perspektiv"

The aim of this thesis is to analyse how space heating for single-family houses, and energy system conversion has been constructed and discussed at national, municipal and household levels. Political documents have been studied, and interviews have been carried out with politicians, civil servants and householders in the municipality of Falun. In order to study and analyse similarities and differences between these three political levels, the following main questions were asked: In which sense is the use of electrical heating formulated as problematic? How are the causes of these problems presented, and which solutions are suggested? What are the effects of how problems, causes and solutions are constructed? At the national level, the use of electricity produced by nuclear power was considered a problem. Initially the municipality's policy documents present the same problem, but there is a change of focus to the problem of imported electricity produced by fossil fuel, and the resulting emissions. At household level, the problem was often an old and badly functioning space-heating system. But some households did not formulate a problem before they converted. Instead they were influenced by their neighbours and thereby convinced. At all three political levels, there is consensus on the households' responsibility concerning energy transition. While industry tends to be considered incapable of cutting down its energy consumption, households are expected to take the responsibility seriously. Furthermore, within the household, the heating system tends to be constructed as a predominantly male concern. At all three levels, households are perceived as dependant on economical subsidies when taking the decision to convert from electrical heating. Although it is interesting that the interviewed householders only apply this view to others than themselves. They are convinced that other households need subsidies to act in an environmentally correct way. The discourse concerning the Swedish energy transition illustrates a shift away from a definition of ecological modernisation where environmental considerations influence economic development. The thesis clearly shows how economic arguments repeatedly influence environmental concerns. However, the tension between the two is played down and concealed through the lack of problematisation of the responsibility of industry, and through the focus on the need for education and future opportunities. Political dialogues concerning the use of electrical heating and the conversion of energy systems towards more renewable energies are dominated by economic arguments at the three levels. One effect of this is an assumption that energy policy instruments such as information and economic subsidies are essential for the energy transition. However, if householders rather are influenced by their neighbours should the government use economic subsidy as the main energy policy instrument?

Purpose - The agricultural sector has undergone extensive changes in the 20-30 years since the peak academic debate on family farming. Still today, the understanding and concept of family farming has political implications in the processes of rural and agricultural policy. The purpose of this paper is to study the development of agrarian structure by analysing the gendered and family relations of family farming. Design/methodology/approach - This paper examines the concept of the family farm and its utilisation and diversity in the current Swedish agricultural sector from a gender perspective, using empirical data from the Farm Accountancy Data Network. The paper operationalises a situated agrarian typology and examines the gendered position and temporalities of family farms in Sweden, based on patterns of labour use. Findings - A workable, fruitful typology of the agrarian structure suitable for future comparative studies is revealed. It also demonstrates the gendered time in the farm labour process, the different temporalities involved and their interconnection between gender, family and various spheres. The spatial and geographical implications, as well as the increased dependence on family and hired labour in different farm types, are emphasised. Originality/value - The focus of this study contributes to the understanding of spatial-temporal relations of family farm business and organisation in general and in Sweden particularly. It also provides empirical basis for developing and gender mainstreaming rural and agricultural policies.

Public concern about pesticide use is very high, although it varies with social, ethical and political factors. In periurban regions, farmers live close to people with other occupations. Thus farming activities such as pesticide spraying may cause tensions. Pesticide use may also cause changes in pest abundances outside the treated field, on plants in neighbouring gardens. The first part of this thesis compared perceptions of pesticide use by farmers and their neighbours in two periurban regions in Sweden. Neighbours reported using pesticides, but perceived pesticide use to be more negative than farmers did. Neighbours also perceived themselves as pesticide non-users to a higher extent than farmers, although both categories used pesticides in their home setting to a similar extent. Perceptions of pesticide use differed between farmers and neighbours but also between groups of farmers, depending on farm size, whether pesticides were used or not, number of crops grown and pesticide safety knowledge. In two field studies, abundances of pests were compared in garden crops adjacent to insecticide-treated and untreated agricultural fields. The garden crops were not subjected to wind drift during insecticide spraying. Despite this, pest abundance and their damage on vegetables and ornamental flowers in nearby gardens decreased with insecticide use in the agricultural fields. The magnitude of this decrease depended on type of insect pests targeted, garden plants tested and timing of pesticide applications. In general, perceptions and attitudes concerning pesticide use differed between groups of people in the periurban society studied, e.g. with social factors such as gender, age and education. The fact that pesticide use in agricultural fields may actually benefit neighbouring garden crops is a novel finding. The findings presented here can be of use for policy makers to avoid conflicts regarding pesticide use in periurban environments, since it is important to address variations in the views of different groups of people in society and to communicate both the negative and positive effects of pesticide use.