The Prolonged Inclusion of Roma Groups in Swedish Society (original) (raw)
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The Exceptional State of "Roma Beggars" in Sweden
European Journal of Homelessness, 2018
Across Europe, social-democratic, liberal democracies have become host to growing numbers of impoverished EU migrants (often called "Roma beggars") who seem to pose a challenge to the tenets of egalitarianism and social protection that are the foundation of the welfare state. Sweden is no exception. Nor has it been exceptional in its response: creating what can be described as a "state of exception" for homeless, impoverished EU migrants wherein they are afforded fewer rights, and almost no access to care, compared to other migrants to the country (such as refugees and asylum seekers). In this paper we examine the nature of this "state of exception"-and consequent denial of rights for poor and homeless EU migrants-and how it has been justified by invoking the inherent fairness of the Swedish system. We do so by reviewing, but especially extending, the Italian philosopher Georgio Agamben's concepts of state (and space) of exception, bare life, and homo sacer to describe the way homeless EU migrants are understood and treated in Sweden, and then by carefully examining the major policy statement on the matter, the "Valfridsson Report," which was written to harmonize practices across Swedish jurisdictions while providing the legal basis for making an exception of impoverished EU migrants, and which is now being implemented in law.
Sweden's double decade for Roma inclusion: An examination of education policy in context
This article analyses the Swedish Strategy for Roma Inclusion. Drawing on interviews and documentary materials produced around the Strategy by official sources and Roma organisations, we describe its background, rationale and evolution, but also the rifts it has revealed around the issues of minority representation and the framing of inclusion. We describe the Strategy as a framework for education policy, aligned with the European Framework for Roma integration, and discuss it in relation to issues of representation, inclusion, and policy formation. We argue that, at the discursive level, the Strategy has engaged positively with the politics of Roma inclusion and has introduced a number of new issues in the public debate. However, at the same time it has given rise to policy tensions that reflect inadequate representation of and discussions with Roma stakeholders. For policy makers this has presented opportunities to rethink the design of the Strategy and to opt for an open final text that allows for a more versatile and flexible set of policy options to emerge at local level.
Updated version of a paper from 2008. This paper traces how Swedish official policy language on human rights and racism within the context of a new minority politics functioned in regards one of the country’s official national minorities, the Roma. It asks how this group was made to fit into official policy discourse first as 'zigenare' and more recently as 'romer'. The paper maps how policy discourse on Roma transformed between the early 1990s and 2007, in relation to the domestic economic and political environment as well as under the influence of intra-European policy developments. The minority policy has failed to protect and ensure the rights of Romani people who have recently migrated to Sweden from the newest EU member states. The paper suggest that this failure has occurred primarily for two reasons. First, the policy was created in a political climate where the majority of Roma living in Sweden had done so for centuries. It was not designed to address questions of equality and rights relating to the recent Roma migrants fleeing poverty, violence, and systematic discrimination in other EU countries. Secondly, and following directly from the first point, the policy has little practical affinity to the human beings who are identified and/or self-identify as Romani. It was created to promote a new language of equality and rights in a society that already prized itself on its glowing equality record. It was not designed to deal with practical and very real impediments to a safe, dignified, and liveable life for anyone residing in Sweden. In sum, in order to understand the current failure of the Swedish state to sufficiently address the situation of Romani EU-migrants living in Sweden, it is important to understand how the policy language on minorities was created and legitimised.
Nordic vagabonds: The Roma and the logic of benevolent violence in the Swedish welfare state
European Journal of Criminology, 2017
In Sweden, control of the mobile poor is often driven by the needs and demands of the welfare state itself and follows a different logic outside the neoliberal paradigm. By examining the case of the Roma, EU citizens who travel to Sweden to ask for money on the streets, we can see the expansion and retraction of the criminal law as the government responds to new forms of migration and poverty in its society. The government’s mixed responses – no to bans on begging, but yes to evictions – are the result of dualities inherent in Nordic welfare states, when their inclusionary ameliorative dimensions collide with their exclusionary and nationalistic tendencies. This article proposes the term benevolent violence to conceptualize this duality. It occurs when coercive means are used to uphold the state’s ameliorative goals and when the state’s ameliorative practices have violent effects. In the case of the Roma, it means protecting them from their own livelihood and it means protecting the...
European Education, 2017
This article analyzes the Swedish Strategy for Roma Inclusion. Drawing on interviews and documentary materials produced around the Strategy by official sources and Roma organizations, we describe its background, rationale, and evolution, as well as the rifts it has revealed around the issues of minority representation and the framing of inclusion. We describe the Strategy as a framework for education policy, aligned with the European Framework for Roma integration, and discuss it in relation to issues of representation, inclusion, and policy formation. We argue that, at the discursive level, the Strategy has engaged positively with the politics of Roma inclusion and has introduced a number of new issues in the public debate. However, at the same time it has given rise to policy tensions that reflect inadequate representation of and discussions with Roma stakeholders. For policy makers this has presented opportunities to rethink the design of the Strategy and to opt for an open final text that allows for a more versatile and flexible set of policy options to emerge at the local level.
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2016
Since Romania joined the European Union (EU) in 2007, other EU member countries have started to experience an influx of migrants from Romania, specifically the Roma community. The Roma population has been a discriminated group for centuries. In Romania, their social exclusion has been related to a wide range of factors such as ethnic origin, poor living conditions, or the limited access to education and employment. These factors are not mutually exclusive and they usually come together. This paper is aimed to describe the migration phenomenon of Romanian Romani people in Stockholm, Sweden through the eyes of the migrants themselves. The main goal is to get first-hand knowledge about the Roma community and truly understand the characteristics of their mobility process. The study is primarily based on qualitative research, which gives a clearer insight of the Romani migration. Six semi-structured interviews aresupporting the bibliographical reviews.
Roma Representation in Danish Roma Policy and Public Discourse-A Critical Analysis
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Introduction to the Special Issue “Talking about Roma: Implications for Social Inclusion”
Social Inclusion, 2015
By the last decade of the twentieth century, official discourse calling for the elimination of Roma had been largely replaced by approaches aimed at inclusion. Contemporary approaches of this kind can be roughly divided into those which emphasize human rights as a basis for measures to improve the Roma’s situation and those rooted in the proposition that improvements in the situation of Roma can be expected to provide economic benefits for the general populations of the countries in which Roma live. The contributions to this special issue critically examine public discourses from throughout Europe which are ostensibly aimed at promoting the social inclusion of Roma. While the fact that the discourses treated fit broadly within human rights and/or economic paradigms allows the articles to speak to one another in various ways, the articles also exhibit a wide range of variation in approach as well as geographical focus. Whereas the first four articles deal directly with issues of defi...
Editorial Introduction to the Special Issue “Talking about Roma: Implications for Social Inclusion”
2015
By the last decade of the twentieth century, official discourse calling for the elimination of Roma had been largely replaced by approaches aimed at inclusion. Contemporary approaches of this kind can be roughly divided into those which emphasize human rights as a basis for measures to improve the Roma's situation and those rooted in the proposition that improvements in the situation of Roma can be expected to provide economic benefits for the general populations of the countries in which Roma live. The contributions to this special issue critically examine public discourses from throughout Europe which are ostensibly aimed at promoting the social inclusion of Roma. While the fact that the discourses treated fit broadly within human rights and/or economic paradigms allows the articles to speak to one another in various ways, the articles also exhibit a wide range of variation in approach as well as geographical focus. Whereas the first four articles deal directly with issues of definition in relation to Roma, a second group of contributions compares developments across multiple countries or institutions. The last four articles each treat a single country, with the final article narrowing the focus further to a single city.