Sammanhangets mening : En empirisk studie av livsåskådningar i föreställningar om genteknik och i berättelser om barnlöshet, assisterad befruktning och adoption

Sammanfattning: This present thesis explores the meaning of contexts for views of life. The first aim of the investigation is to describe the existential meaningful content of views of life in perceptions of gene technology and in narratives about childlessness, assisted conception and adoption, as they are articulated in two separate sets of interviews. The second aim is to suggest a context sensitive theoretical and methodological development for empirical studies of views of life.The study uses a functional understanding of views of life and develops the notion of existential meaning as an analytical tool. A differentiation of the concept of context in relation to the study is also made.The way gene-technology is perceived, reveals different and sometimes ambivalent conceptions of nature, society and of individual health. The existential vulnerability of human beings is exposed when confronted with gene technology and realising this increased the understanding of the diverse perceptions.The descriptions of childlessness were characterised by meaninglessness and lack of coherence, together with questions of meaning in life. The parents that had gone through in-vitro-fertilisation tried to negotiate the interpretations of the assisted conception to make it a natural process, and recuperate a ‘normal family pattern’. The process of international adoption actualised a ‘pattern of otherness’, which accentuated human dignity, solidarity and repudiation of ethnic discrimination. These two patterns of meaning also reflected different moods during the process.Throughout the thesis it is argued that historical and cultural contexts, as well as the concrete situation, with its different circumstances and purposes, will affect the content and meaning of views of life.