The Begging Question : Sweden's Social Responses to the Roma Destitute

Erik Hansson

ISBN 10: 1496225031 / ISBN 13: 9781496225030

Published by University Of Nebraska Press Mai 2023, 2023

About this Item

Neuware - Erik Hansson examines Swedish society s reactions to the presence of European Union citizens, mainly Romanian and Bulgarian Roma, begging in the 2010s.

Seller Inventory # 9781496225030

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Begging Question : Sweden's Social Responses to the Roma Destitute
• Publisher: University Of Nebraska Press Mai 2023
• Publication Date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1496225031
• ISBN 13: 9781496225030
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 237W x 159H x 29D millimeters 237 millimeters width by 159 millimeters height by 29 millimeters depth
• Weight: 670 grams

About this title

Synopsis

Begging, thought to be an inherently un-Swedish phenomenon, became a national fixture in the 2010s as homeless Romanian and Bulgarian Roma EU citizens arrived in Sweden seeking economic opportunity. People without shelter were forced to use public spaces as their private space, disturbing aesthetic and normative orders, creating anxiety among Swedish subjects and resulting in hate crimes and everyday racism.

Parallel with Europe’s refugee crisis in the 2010s, the “begging question” peaked. The presence of the media’s so-called EU migrants caused a crisis in Swedish society along political, juridical, moral, and social lines due to the contradiction embodied in the Swedish authorities’ denial of social support to them while simultaneously seeking to maintain the nation’s image as promoting welfare, equality, and antiracism.

In The Begging Question Erik Hansson argues that the material configurations of capitalism and class society are not only racialized but also unconsciously invested with collective anxieties and desires. By focusing on Swedish society’s response to the begging question, Hansson provides insight into the dialectics of racism. He shrewdly deploys Marxian economics and Lacanian psychoanalysis to explain how it became possible to do what once was thought impossible: criminalize begging and make fascism politically mainstream, in Sweden. What Hansson reveals is not just an insight into one of the most captivating countries on earth but also a timely glimpse into what it means to be human.

About the Author

Erik Hansson is a human geographer. He wrote this book during his postdoctoral fellowship at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. He has also been stationed at Uppsala University, University of Gothenburg, and Mid Sweden University.