On the Fringe of the Welfare State: Advanced Marginality in the Swedish City

Corresponding author: Christopher Lee 6521 24th Ave NE Apt. B Seattle, WA 98115, USA tua51988@temple.edu Abstract: Throughout the cities of the First-World there exist stigmatized districts housing second-class populations, often stricken by poverty. Sweden has witnessed the emergence of such areas on the suburban periphery of its urban centers in spite of a national tradition of equality and a broad social safety net dedicated to protecting vulnerable citizens. To explain this apparent contradiction, this paper employs the theory of advanced marginality developed by sociologist Loïc Wacquant, which posits that the shift to a post-Fordist economy coupled with welfare state retrenchment and poor urban policy decisions has resulted in defamed neighborhoods of concentrated poverty. It finds that state policies concerning immigration, housing, and city planning coalesced to create a situation where refugee immigrants are pushed to the edge of Swedish metropolitan labor and housing markets as well as social networks. Rather than a consequence of the post-Fordist economic structure or a rollback of welfare provisions, this paper argues that Swedish marginality is primarily a result of bold policies on the part of the state, an assertion the paper supports with evidence from literature in addition to data obtained through qualitative interviews in suburban areas of Stockholm and Uppsala. Acknowledgements I would like to acknowledge support from the Temple Diamond Research Program as well as the support of my friends in Gottsunda, my family in Uppsala and the communities of Stockholm’s förort. I would also like to thank Ben Kohl for his guidance and comments on earlier versions of this paper.

Christopher Lee

The existence of inequality and sociospatial division in the cities of United States is a tacitly accepted fact. In the eyes of advanced industrial democracies world wide, it is perhaps self apparent why the liberal application of free-market policies combined with a racialized second class population and a social safety net filled with conspicuous cracks has produced large swaths of degraded urban space. Hence, the names Harlem, the South Bronx, Compton, Cabrini Green, among others, have acquired global notoriety, not only for the conditions that they harbor or for their dispersion through American pop culture, but for the fact that these neighborhoods have been allowed to blossom in one of the richest societies on earth.

What is less apparent, especially to continental European states, is why seemingly similar areas have begun to develop within social market economies in the post-Fordist era, flying in the face of broad social protections and more robust, egalitarian city structures. Across Europe, states have witnessed the emergence of socially excluded populations, made up to a significant degree by labor migrants, postcolonial immigrants, and refugees from non-European countries of origin, pushed to the periphery of societal networks and housing and labor markets. These populations have, in many cases, been concentrated in large post-war housing estates, often made up by a high percentage of social housing, built on the fringe of European cities. Frequently, these estates have experienced physical deterioration, high unemployment, and problems with resident cohesion. Within their respective contexts, these areas have developed infamous reputations akin to their American ‘counterparts’. The Bijlmer in Amsterdam, Sant Roc near Barcelona, Les Minguettes and La Ville Nouvelle near Lyons, Le Quatre Mille near Paris, and Marzahn near Berlin are just some of the estates that have become associated with poverty, ‘immigrants’, and crime (Wacquant, 2008; van Kempen et. al, 2005, Musterd et. al, 2006).

Yet one would expect the cities of Sweden, a nation with a proud history of tolerance, social justice, equality and a renowned welfare system built upon the principle of “social citizenship” (guaranteeing universal entitlement to all citizens), to buck this trend (Pontusson, 2005). This has not been the case. In the past 40 years, sociospatially segregated communities, composed primarily of refugees from a multitude of third-world nations, have formed on the suburban border of Sweden’s largest cities. The estates that compose these communities have been characterized by high unemployment, a high number of social assistance recipients, limited but present social conflict, and racial and residential stigmatization of residents by outside Swedish society. More pronounced division and inequality are surfacing in a society that has little experience with either of these phenomena.

Counter to discourse in the popular media, however, the developments in Sweden (and Europe) do not represent the formation of European ‘ghettos’ but distinct sociospatial formations that differ from ‘neighborhoods of exclusion’ found in the United States. This is the argument put forth by sociologist Loïc Wacquant (2008, 231), who has developed the theory of advanced marginality to explain the manifestation and character of poverty in the post-industrial city. Advanced marginality is “…the novel regime of sociospatial relegation and exclusionary closure…that has crystallized in the post-Fordist city as a result of the uneven development of the capitalist economies and the recoiling of

welfare states, according to modalities that vary with the ways these two forces bear upon the segments of the working class and the ethnoracial categories dwelling in the nether regions of social and physical space.” According to advanced marginality, impoverished districts that harbor excluded populations exhibit unique traits that are shaped by the degree to which market forces are mediated by welfare policies as well as by state decisions concerning urban space.

My article investigates the degree to which the theory of advanced marginality serves to explain the development of marginalized populations in Swedish cities, and proposes alternative explanations where it does not. I combine a top down structural analysis, documenting the economic and political developments that have encouraged marginality, with a bottom up qualitative analysis, which examines the way these developments shape the daily life in the Swedish förort (as ‘the neighborhoods of exclusion’ that sit on the suburban periphery are known). This ‘view from below’ is constructed using data from qualitative semi-structured and unstructured interviews I conducted during a month in the field in the summer of 2008. These interviews were carried out in some of the most stigmatized estates within the cities of Stockholm and Uppsala; Rinkeby, Tensta, Fittja and Alby on the outskirts of Stockholm and Gottsunda on the southern perimeter of Uppsala (Pred 1997, 2000). Each of these areas is a large housing estate built in the post-war era as part of the ‘Million Program’ housing policy (Murdie and Borgegård 1998).

The first section of this paper analyzes Swedish marginality using the ‘four structural logics’ fueling advanced marginality as laid out by Wacquant. Though the Swedish labor market and welfare policy have in many ways resisted trends that have stimulated exclusion elsewhere, the unique mixture of state urban, welfare, and immigration policy combined with a post-industrial economic shift and evidently discriminatory labor practices have subjected visible-minorities (those of non-European descent) and refugees to marginalizing factors not unlike those found in other settings. I follow this analysis with a profile of the neighborhoods under analysis, complete with a description of their respective histories, reputation, and demographics. In the third and final section, I cover the daily experience of marginality in the förort, studying the way structural forces touch the lives of Sweden’s marginalized populations as revealed through qualitative interviews.

Egalitarian Inequality Sweden is peculiar amongst cases of marginality in that it defies some of the key factors that theory of advanced marginality contends serve to marginalize individuals in other contexts. In many ways, Sweden has experienced highly muted structural changes that have only greatly affected certain segments of society. Redistributive policies and broad social protections have served to offset rising wage inequality and shield workers from perils associated with any increasing casualization of labor. Although the Swedish welfare state has rolled back in some aspects following the economic crisis of the 1990s, it still remains one of the most generous welfare systems in the world, and has virtually eliminated absolute poverty (Pontusson, 2005). Instead of a

broad societal disadvantage, racialized visible-immigrants1 (particularly refugees) have born the brunt of negative externalities arising from structural causes. On the market side, the post-Fordist economic shift and economic crisis of the 1990s severely decreased employment prospects for unskilled visible-immigrants and revealed discriminatory employment practices (Knocke, 2000). Actions on the part of the state have encouraged segregation through immigration and housing policy, which has shifted the identity of immigrants from labor migrants to refugees and placed newcomers in some of the (relatively) least desirable areas of Swedish cities and towns. Additionally, welfare policy has created large disincentives to enter the low wage labor market, thereby discouraging a crucial opportunity for integration into larger Swedish society (OECD 2007). Residents of visible-immigrant communities experience of marginality, in terms of social separation and labor market detachment, is comparable to that of other excluded populations, but the underlying causes of this marginality are in significant ways idiosyncratic to Sweden. A number of theories have attempted to explain urban sociospatial division. ‘Marginality’ is a concept that has been used to focus on more of the social aspect of this phenomenon. The term is generally used to describe a broad condition of peripherality in relation to a metaphorical center, representing a collective weakness on the part of a specific group in relation to a mainstream ‘core’ society (Bailly and Weiss-Altaner 1995 as cited in Hadjimichalis and Sadler 1995). More recently the term ‘social exclusion’ has been substituted, especially within European discourse, as the denial of access to social participation (both in the sphere of employment and personal networks) and to the institutional guarantees and protections of citizenship provided by a state (Kronauer et al. in Musterd et al. 2006). Both definitions describe essentially the same concept. Marginality has traditionally been examined using two distinct approaches, the behaviorist and the structural. The behaviorist perspective was first applied in the 1960s in to describe the condition of rural migrant populations gathering in squatter settlements on the edge of Latin American cities. According to this approach, the failure of the migrant shantytown dwellers to join formal employment and housing markets in their destination cities was directly related to the values and behavioral traits they carried, which were deemed ‘traditional’ and ill suited for participation in ‘modern society’. Hence, migrants were deemed responsible for their own marginalization by holding on to ‘backward’ customs and ideals incompatible with city life (Germani 1980; González de la Rocha et al. 2004; Perlman 2002; Auyero 1999).

In response to this ‘modernization theory’, as it was termed, the structural approach rejected a focus on the supposed behavioral deficiencies of marginal populations and instead proposed that marginal populations in cities were the direct result of the model of industrial and economic growth employed by Latin American countries, which by its nature was fundamentally unable to absorb large portions of the labor force. Described as an ‘industrial reserve army’ or ‘marginal mass’, large pools of unemployed labor were believed to be a permanent structural feature under Latin American forms of

1 The term ‘visible-immigrant’ adapted from Biterman and Franzén (2007), will be employed throughout this article since it has been demonstrated that noticeable non-European origin (whether by birth or ethnic background) plays a decisive role in housing, labor, and other social participation (Murdie and Borgegård 1998).

development (Nun et al. as cited in Auyero 1999; González de la Rocha et. al 2004; Perlman 2002).

The modern outgrowth of the two approaches mentioned above can be found in the conceptions of the ‘underclass’, which follows behaviorist theory, Sassen’s (1991) ‘global city’ theory, a structural analysis, and Wilson’s (1987) theory of spatial ‘mismatch’, also following the structural perspective. These theories tend to emphasize the economic aspect of marginality in the post-Fordist era. Used to explain the persistence of poverty in American inner-city neighborhoods, the ‘underclass’ theory suggests that a section of the (implicitly black) poor self-marginalize and remain trapped in poverty due to antisocial ‘‘…behaviors which are at variance with those of mainstream America…” such as drug use, criminality, illegitimacy, homelessness, drop-out from the job market, drop-out from school and the practice of casual violence (Ricketts and Sawhill as cited in Jargowsky and Yang 2006; Murray, 1996). Shifting their attention to structural trends, both Sassen and Wilson focus on the labor market implications of a shift from an industrial economy to a post-industrial economy and how this change has played into mechanisms of exclusion. Sassen (1991) explains the novel character of urban poverty as a feature of the form of economic growth experienced by global cities2, which involves the agglomeration of the central control divisions of the tertiary sector necessitated by the international nature of economic activity. She contends that this form of economic growth produces a polarized wage structure, characterized by both high paid professional positions and a large number of low-wage jobs, often accompanied by a polarized spatial element as well. Low-wage labor under Sassen’s theory is thought to take on a casualized and informalized nature and employs a disproportionate number of ethnic minorities (particularly immigrants); hence growth under this system may not lead to overall enrichment, but instead a highly divided and unequal distribution of benefits.

Whereas Sassen envisions a shrinking middle class, Wilson (1987) conceives of an expanding middle class which marginalized inner-city communities are unable to join. Wilson posits that the shift to a post-industrial economy has created a mismatch between higher educational demands of the job market and the lower educational qualifications of black communities in inner-cities. A secondary mismatch is also held to exist between the location of inner-city populations and the location of employment positions for which they are sufficiently educated, generally in unskilled industrial labor, often situated in suburban locations inaccessible by public transit (Burgers and Musterd 2002). Wacquant’s (2008) theory of advanced marginality takes a strictly structural angle and thoroughly rejects any suggestion of a self-marginalizing ‘underclass’, whether applied in towards blacks in ghettos of American or to describe Muslim populations residing in European cities. He criticizes the concept for its vague and shifting meaning, racial overtones, and its sorting of poor into categories of ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’. Rather advanced marginality limits its focus to economic trends and the state actions, with a special emphasis on latter, in its attempt to explain processes of urban segregation and social exclusion. The dualization of the wage structure and the casualization of labor Sassen (1991) describes figure heavily into the neoliberal economic factors Wacquant finds at fault for marginalizing populations. Specifically, wage inequality and the failure

2 Burgers and Musterd (2002) have demonstrated that Sassen’s concept can be applied beyond the ‘global city’ to the general urban context

of wage labor to guarantee economic stability (coupled with the inability of the labor market to guarantee employment) generate large segments of the population likely to be forced to the bottom of the housing and labor hierarchy, effectively excluded from avenues of societal participation.

Wacquant is quick to stress that macroeconomic events do not lead to an inevitable process of uniform marginality. In his comparison of the South Side of Chicago and the Parisian housing estate of the Quatre Mille, he reveals how disparate state urban and welfare policy resulted in different outcomes. In the United States, Wacquant believes that the collapse of the South Side of Chicago was less determined by economic forces, as Wilson’s mismatch theory indicates, and was more a result of state policies of welfare retrenchment and institutional abandonment of black urban neighborhoods, ultimately left exposed to market forces. Furthermore, marginality in the United States assumes a specifically racialized nature targeted at African-Americans that has resulted in true ‘ghettos’ which Wacquant (2008, 231) defines as “…ethnically homogenous enclosed spaces wherein a ‘negatively privileged’ category…is forced to develop its own institutions in response to rejection by the dominant society…” and has even steered blacks that have managed to transition into the middle class into segregated enclaves. In contrast French marginality found in the Quatre Mille is the result primarily of post-Fordist economic trends, which have eliminated industrial and manual labor positions, resulting in widespread unemployment that has been partially buffered by strong state policies of welfare protection, labor regulation, and housing oversight. The result of dedicated action on the part of the French state has been an extreme reduction in the rate and degree of poverty, criminality (including the development of a parallel informal economy), and physical deterioration of marginalized neighborhoods, especially in comparison to the American ghetto. Moreover, marginality in France has not proceeded on the basis of race, in spite of growing tensions between the native French population and ‘foreigners’ of former colonies.

A majority of households in Le Quatre Mille are French nationals, rather than post-colonial immigrants, and those of immigrant background who do experience upward mobility are not confined to specific housing areas (Wacquant, 2008, 191). Thus, based upon his observations of the American and French contexts, Wacquant finds that it is the state which ultimately articulates the impact of economic change on urban populations, selecting which populations will bear hardship, and that marginality at its core is “…the effects of state projected on to the city,” (2008, 6); a view which follows Esping-Andersen’s (1990) assessment of the state as an agent of stratification as well as amelioration. Beneath cross-national marginality, regardless the national setting, Wacquant (2008, 262-272) holds four structural logics to be at work 1) occupational dualization and the resurgence of inequality 2) the desocialization of wage labor 3) the recoiling of the social state and 4) the spatial concentration of poverty and the stigmazation of residents dwelling poverty stricken areas. How these are expressed varies according to a selected political economy, but in ever case these developments differentiate post-Fordist poverty from poverty of the post-war period until the mid 1970s. I use these logics to evaluate the Swedish context.3

3 In this section I draw on Wacquant (2008, 262-272) unless otherwise noted.

For his first logic, Wacquant links the persistence and growth of inequality in the midst of economic expansion as a feature of the postindustrial economic system. Specifically the dualization of the labor market, the increase in both highly skilled and highly compensated positions and the expansion of low-wage, low skill labor has allowed for a situation in which advances in economic prosperity are unevenly distributed and sharpen material disparities. The employment prospects and financial betterment of marginal populations, as part of this process, have become functionally disconnected from macroeconomic trends to the point where upturns in the economy only remotely benefit those in excluded communities, while market downturns lead to further monetary hardship.

An escalation in inequality has been a feature of all post-Fordist advanced industrialized democracies (Sassen 1991). However, in real and relative terms, Sweden has diminished the force of this change. Pontusson’s (2005) comparative study of advanced industrial economies is instructional in this regard. Using the Gini coefficient4 as his tool of analysis, Pontusson illustrates how gross earnings inequality in Sweden rose from 29.5% in 1981 to 37.3% in 2000 (that is, the percentage of income that would have to be redistributed in order for all incomes to be equal) yet disposable household income inequality only rose from 19.7% to 25.2% during the same period. The dissimilarity between the rise in gross earnings and disposable household income represents the redistribution of income through tax and transfer systems to lower-income households on the part of the Swedish government. The net result, a disposable household income inequality of 25.5%, is one of the lowest in the world and outside the Nordic countries is only surpassed by the Netherlands, which has a Gini coefficient of 24.8%. For purposes of comparison, France and the United States, the settings of Wacquant’s studies, had Gini coefficients of 28.8% (in 1994) and 36.8% (in 2000), respectively, by the same measure (Pontusson, 2005, 36). Overall, inequality in Sweden has risen but only to a relatively low end point.

Likewise, a review of basic data reveals a similar tendency concerning the dualization of Sweden’s labor market. Pontusson’s (2005) work is of value here as well. With a 90-10 ratio, or the ratio of wages from a person at the bottom of the 90th percentile of the earnings distribution to the wages of a person at the top of the 10th percentile of the earnings distribution, one can determine the range of inequality existing between low-income and high-income earners. Sweden’s 90-10 ratio rose from 2.03 in 1980 (meaning people in at the bottom of the 90th percentile made approximately twice as much as those in the top of the 10th) to 2.30 in 1998, after reaching a low of 1.95 in 1983. This places Sweden in small handful of countries with 90-10 ratios at or below 2.30. Most of Europe has developed a ratio upwards of 2.60 and liberal market economies (such as the United States and the United Kingdom) hold ratios of 3.0 or higher. The university wage premium, or the percentage in difference between those attaining secondary and tertiary education, is nearly half that of the United States, revealing a wage compression uncharacteristic of a dualization of markets for low skill, low wage work and high skill high remunerated work (Thakur et al 2003). The Swedish wage distribution, it seems, has

4 A Gini coefficient is used to represent “…the percentage of total income that would have to be redistributed to achieve perfect income equality…” (Pontusson 2005)

remained fairly egalitarian, especially in relation to non-Nordic countries and free-market oriented states. A true polarization of wage incomes does not seem to have occurred.

Aggregate figures, however, hide important details. Whereas inequality within the labor market has advanced only modestly, inequality in access to the labor market has intensified conspicuously. Employment prospects for visible-immigrant populations have shown a clear disconnection from macroeconomic trends in the post-Fordist era, especially following the economic crisis of the 1990s (Knocke 2000). Prior to the 1970s, immigrants showed a strong participation in the labor market, albeit in low-skilled jobs, as they were recruited, mostly from Southern Europe, Turkey, and the Balkans, to fill the postwar labor demands of the 1950s and 1960s. After 1970, Sweden began a post-industrial shift, with increasing growth in the service sector coupled with a steady decline in industrial employment, triggered by overseas competition (This development coincided with an important shift in immigration policy which will be discussed later) (OECD 2007). Due to their concentration in unskilled industrial labor, immigrants were disproportionately affected by this transformation. Male immigrant employment rates began to drop precipitously following this period and rising female immigrant employment stagnated after a steady climb that began in the 1960s. Though Sweden maintained essentially full employment until 1990, with unemployment rates below 3%, unemployment rates for foreign citizens were shown to be double the rate of Swedish citizens starting in 1977 onwards (when the unemployment was first recorded separately for different nationalities).

Sweden experienced an economic boom in the second half of the 1980s, yet immigrant employment did not see any improvement and actually declined, even for long-time immigrants who had arrived in the 1960s (Bevelander 2000, Ekberg 1991 as cited in Bevelander 2000). In the early 1990s, Sweden underwent an economic crisis. Between 1990 and 1994, 500,000 jobs were lost (Rojas 2005). Much like the post-industrial shift of the 1970s immigrants, particularly visible-immigrants, were disproportionately affected by this development. Nordic (Swedes and immigrants from neighboring Scandinavia) unemployment rose to 6.9% in 1995 (an unprecedented figure), while unemployment for visible (non-Nordic) immigrants rose to 29.8% (Knocke 2000). Economic recovery began towards the end of the 1990s, and immigrant employment improved marginally, with native Swedish unemployment standing at 4.8% in 2003 and foreign-born unemployment still more than double at 11.1%. A more nuanced examination of the unemployment of individual nationalities in 2003 reveals the character of this recovery. Foreign-born residents from other advanced industrialized countries had unemployment rates of 8% or lower in 2003. Central and Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans, and East Asians saw unemployment rates of 10-13%. North Africans, Middle Easterners, and Sub-Saharan Africans carried staggering rates higher than 22% (OECD 2007). Visible-immigrants, or those with clearly non-European origin, a group that forms an overwhelming majority of the populations of the segregated suburban housing estates, reaped the least benefits from the economic recovery. Biterman and Franzén’s (2007) study of the Stockholm metropolitan area confirms this observation. They found that well-off neighborhoods (which consist almost always of native Swedes) primarily benefited from the improvement in the economy, with the number of self-sufficient residents equal to or higher than 1990 levels, while poor areas (demonstrated to overlap with areas of high immigrant concentration) levels of self-

sufficiency had still failed to reach those of 1990, with regressively worse outcomes for poorer neighborhoods. In line with Wacquant’s logic, economic life chances of the marginalized population in Sweden have witnessed an increasingly corroded link to national economic fluctuations.

A partial explanation for the unemployment of visible-immigrants has been the absolute reduction in total unskilled positions in the post-Fordist era (which is discussed in the next section). However, a secondary consequence of the reorientation of the labor market from industrial to service has been the new language, interpersonal communication, and higher skill demands of employers in the service industries (Bevelander 2000). Several studies have revealed that the further the cultural and linguistic ‘distance’ of an immigrant’s nation of origin, the less likely they are to find employment. In each case Nordic immigrants are the most likely to find employment followed by (in ascending order) Western Europeans, Central and Southern Europeans, Eastern Europeans, and finally nations of the third-world where many of the visible-immigrant refugees originate; Turkey, Chile, Iran, Iraq, Ethiopia, Vietnam etc (Bevelander 2005, Rosholm et al 2006). The inability of visible-immigrants to attain employment has thus been explained primarily as a function of their national origin and failure to acquire country specific skills (such as language) that could raise their employment prospects in the new economy.

Nonetheless, it has been suggested that the ‘cultural requirements’ of the service sector are being used as instruments of racial discrimination on the part of employers; although these claims are difficult to quantify since the Swedish government does conduct discrimination-testing, on ethical grounds, and because there is little research on Swedish institutional discrimination (Andersson, 2006; Pred, 2000). However, studies have revealed that even when language proficiency, place of residence, family background, and education is controlled for, there still remains a 30% higher probability of being unemployed if one has a parent born abroad. Similarly, a study of approximately 150 immigrant academics showed that after five years, during which the immigrant academics underwent language training and supplementary study to fulfill Swedish requisites, only 10% of the sample was able to obtain employment appropriate for their given qualifications (Knocke 2000). Studies covering active labor market policy, which can consist of labor training and employment programs, a key hallmark of Swedish employment strategy, yielded equally abysmal results for non-Nordic immigrant participants (Pontusson 2005; Knocke 2000). Pred (2000) has offered substantial qualitative evidence pointing to a discriminatory process. In short even though empirical evidence may be limited a significant number of studies that suggest some form of labor market prejudice indicate that discrimination cannot be ruled out as a factor when considering Swedish visible-immigrant unemployment (Knocke 2000, Pred 2000).

The second logic that Wacquant (2008) posits underlies advanced marginality is the desocialization of wage labor, the inability of the labor market to provide security either in the form of employment or material well-being. This feature of the post-Fordist economic environment refers to both the quantitative and qualitative deterioration of labor. It is quantitative due to the elimination of vast numbers of low-skilled jobs through computerization, industry relocation to low-wage overseas locations, and the general transition from industry to services. In line structural approaches, Wacquant believes that a large portion of the working class has been made redundant, including unskilled youths

and older factory workers. The rapid increase in low-wage labor, part-time and temporary work, and the disintegration of job-related benefits (such as health care), and union contracts, form the qualitative aspect of this formation. Like Wacquant’s first logic, economic growth under this situation causes a wider distribution of poverty rather than relief. A large number of unskilled positions in industrial labor were lost in the post-Fordist progression. Worker redundancy due to technological advancement made up the bulk of this loss (Bevelander 2005; Knocke 2000). As Rojas (2005) highlights, the Swedish industrial output in 1994 actually surpassed the 1990 level, but employed 250,000 fewer workers. In this respect, Wacquant’s logic holds true as a concrete loss of unskilled positions was sustained. But labor in Sweden has maintained fairly strong level of protection. Whereas part-time labor as a percentage of total employment expanded in most non-Nordic countries of the OECD, part-time positions in Sweden actually declined from 15.5% of total employment in 1983 to 14.1% in 2003. Unlike other labor markets where part-time workers median hourly earnings as a percentage of the median hourly earnings of full-time workers regularly dip to about 75% (below 60% in liberal market economies), Swedish workers who do work part-time earn 87.2% of the median wage of their full-time peers; a percentage second only to Italian part-time workers who earn 87.4% by the same calculation. Correspondingly, Sweden is one of a handful of OECD nations with the highest union densities, highest employment protection scores (based upon an OECD index which includes collective bargaining agreements and temporary employment restrictions), and longest average employment tenures (11.5 years in 1999). Universal health-care and one of the most beneficent unemployment insurance replacement rates in the world round out the package of safeguards extended to workers (Pontusson, 2005).

Qualitative degradation of wage labor has not been observed to any real degree. Even unskilled workers (those with less than a high school education) have an identical unemployment rate compared to the population as a whole, indicating more or less equitable employment prospects for all levels of education (Pontusson, 2005). The 2007 OECD survey of Sweden proposes that the Swedish may in fact be too protective, creating an insider-outsider dichotomy that damages the employment chances of immigrants, particularly young immigrants. Boosted ‘flexibility’ such as the introduction of measures to introduce part-time, temporary labor with fewer protections, actions that Wacquant credits with inciting marginality, are recommended by the OECD as a remedy (OECD 2007). Much like rising inequality and labor market dualization, Sweden’s labor market has resisted full scale regression. Unable to resist the labor displacement of post-industrial economic events, Sweden has nevertheless provided security for remaining employees. For visible-immigrants the problem, again, is not a question of poor conditions within the labor market but one of making it into that market. As Wacquant’s study of the American ghetto and the Parisian banilieue reveals, the state plays an important role in deciding how market conditions impinge on the lives of citizens and which citizens will be most affected. Through their supply of public goods, basic supports, and ability to regulate labor markets, states determine the extent and spatial distribution of hardship. Public housing policy in particular, says Wacquant, is extremely pertinent to the living conditions of marginalized populations that make up the lower class. Within advanced marginality, the retrenchment of the welfare state plays a

large role in perpetuating marginality, as those at the periphery of society are most likely to depend on the state and are most impacted by the shrinkage of social protection. The state, according to Wacquant’s third logic, is both a causative and a remedial force in the perpetuation and alleviation of marginality. The Swedish welfare system of today is one of the most developed in the world. Primary transfers in Sweden include earnings-related benefits, such as unemployment, sickness, pension, parental and child benefits, and means-tested benefits including social assistance (a minimum income determined by municipal authorities for those with no other means to provide for themselves), housing allowance, childcare subsidies, and student loans (along with universal health care provision as stated earlier) (Thakur et al 2003). In some ways these benefits have been scaled back from previously higher levels prior to the economic crisis of the 1990s, yet it is doubtful whether this adjustment can be labeled a true retrenchment.

Government expenditures as a percentage of GDP did indeed decline from 70% in 1993 to 54% in 2001. Reductions in social benefits, jobs and a process of privatization and restructuring in public services were the primary means of accomplishing this decrease in expenditures (Rojas 2005). Therefore government employment declined by 15.5% between 1990 and 1997, one of the largest cuts in the OECD during this period. Between 1980 and 2001, government spending on health as a percentage of total health expenditures declined from 93% to 83%, representing a growing private health market. Sick pay insurance and unemployment compensation replacement rates shrank from 91% and 83% in 1985 to 83% and 73% in 1999 respectively. Though these cuts did reduce overall expenditures toward these benefits, the final figures still rank among the top 5 highest expenditures in the world (Pontusson 2005).

Lindbom’s (2001) analysis of the changes in the Swedish welfare system following the 1990s is useful in making sense of the complexities of the retreat in social expenditures. His conclusion is that the Swedish welfare state, distinguished by its advanced provision of services (such as healthcare, childcare, and elderly care), has not been dismantled, and maintains a strong position in comparison to other countries. Given that Sweden spends 27.5% of GDP on social programs (second only to Denmark in 2001) and still redistributed 36.5% of market income in 2000 (second only to Belgium), this conclusion is perhaps unsurprising (Pontusson 2005). What is clear is that although the welfare system has undeniably been restructured, the widespread reduction in social service Wacquant refers to has not occurred. In relation to marginalized visible-immigrants in Sweden, the welfare state has played a crucial role in forming basic life conditions. The Swedish state has largely assumed the cost of widespread visible-immigrant unemployment through social assistance payments. Social assistance is the means-tested minimum guaranteed income available to persons with no other income, who do not qualify for employment related protections such as unemployment insurance or cash labor market assistance. Two-thirds of the increase in the cost of social assistance from 1985-1993 came from the inflated demands of foreign households and 50% of totals costs for social assistance in 1994 were related to support for foreign-born populations (Socialstyrelsen as cited in Anderson 1996; Martens 1997. Recent immigrants (almost entirely visible-immigrants) have been shown to have a 30% chance higher probability of being a social assistance recipient; a statistical figure not unrelated to their high unemployment (Hammarstedt 2000). Within

the Stockholm area, inhabitants in poor neighborhoods (invariably with majority populations of visible-immigrants) are over-represented among social assistance recipients, with the proportion of recipients five times the size of the total population in this neighborhood type in 2002 (Socialstyrelsen as cited in Biterman and Franzén 2007).

Swedish welfare policy has been implicated as a causal factor in the high rate of immigrant unemployment, especially among refugees. High labor taxes and a generous social assistance program create large disincentives for entering the labor market, which is especially true in the case of low-income positions usually available to immigrant workers, as it often is more fiscally sensible to remain on state support than to take the implicit pay cut an income-earning position carries (Rojas 2005, OECD 2007). This wage labor disincentive carries heavy implications for the marginalization of visible-immigrants as work is a vital element for participating in any country, beyond even monetary considerations. As Martens (1997) notes “Having work is extremely important in immigrant’s adaptation to society. It implies economic independence, a basis for developing social contacts and a personal identity in a new country.” By sustaining a system that provides few motivations for those with low-incomes to find work, the state may be participating in a process that denies visible-immigrants an opportunity to acclimate and socially integrate into the larger Swedish community. Recently more incentives to work have been introduced, such as tax credits for low income workers, and the New-Start job policy (nystartjobb), that allows employers to waive contributions for those unemployed longer than a year, specifically unemployed youth and refugee immigrants (OECD, 2007). This development runs counter to Wacquant’s (2008, 254-256) recommendation that income security be decoupled from the labor market through the institution of a guaranteed minimum income; a suggestion resting on the premise that the post-Fordist labor market is fundamentally unable to support the basic needs of the majority of adults through lifelong employment. Instead, this new policy seeks to remedy marginality by creating incentives for individuals to return labor market. In the Swedish case the fact that marginalization has operated along the lines of divergent language and culture suggests that the interaction and cultural exchange offered by the labor market may in fact be highly beneficial for visible-immigrants, regardless of whether or not the jobs these groups assume are initially low-wage positions. After all, the current Swedish welfare system essentially guarantees a minimum income, yet this has done little to stem the marginalization of visible-immigrants in Swedish cities. Public housing in Sweden follows the Northern European model in which rental of public stock is available to persons of all income groups and applicants are not means-tested. For this reason public housing in Sweden has not developed a widespread stigma when considered strictly as a tenure form. Swedish public housing is decentralized and operated by municipal housing companies, who construct, manage, and maintain the local government subsidized stock within a given municipality (best conceived of as a metropolitan area) (Magnusson and Turner 2005). Across municipalities, it is common for over 30% of the housing stock to be owned by municipal housing companies (Hårsman 2006). Much as Wacquant (2008) observes in France, where public housing accounts for 45% of all housing, widespread decay is unlikely to occur without notice and possible action from local authorities due to the high percentage of the total stock that is public. The fact that deterioration has not occurred is best illustrated by the fact that Sweden’s Metropolitan Development Initiative, unlike nearly all other European and

North American government programs targeted at urban areas, does not carry any provisions to upgrade the physical conditions of even the most troubled housing estates, as it is an accepted fact that municipal housing has, on the whole, been well maintained (Andersson 2006). Disinvestment in public housing facilities, consistent with other Swedish welfare trends, has not transpired. That is not to say, however, that the public housing sector has not played a role in the marginalization of visible-immigrants. As the next section reveals, its affect on Swedish marginality has been immense. For his fourth and final logic, Wacquant (2008) contends that post-Fordist poverty is distinguished from earlier forms of hardship by its concentration in stigmatized centers of infamy rather than being dispersed across a number of working class neighborhoods as in the early postwar period. These clusters of poverty make up the very bottom in the ranking of urban space and marginalized populations are consistently relegated to these spaces. Residents of these areas of advanced marginality experience collective disgrace for the area they dwell in. Furthermore, residents do not share a common culture or an experience of neighborhood cohesion which translates into “…negative social and symbolic capital…” encouraging social atomism. Parallel to his logic concerning welfare state retrenchment, Wacquant holds states responsible for the existence of these concentrated ‘zones of relegation’ as they are the net result of urban development, housing policy, and regional planning decisions. Thus, states have it within their capacity to demolish, remodel or otherwise reshape areas known for their physical and social dereliction. Wacquant’s focus on the state contained within this logic is highly pertinent to the Swedish situation. Marginality in Sweden has not progressed on the strength of economic factors, but through state choices concerning urban planning, immigration, and housing which have no doubt led to a concentration of excluded populations and their defamation. These state factors, while seemingly unrelated, have inadvertently combined to create a ‘perfect storm’ for marginality. While often guided by good intentions, the outcome of its broad top down decisions has been decisively detrimental for the fate of visible-immigrants in Sweden. The most important Swedish urban planning policies that would go on to affect the lives of visible-immigrants, slum clearance and the ‘Million Program’, began long before mass immigration to Sweden was conceived of as a reality. In the 1940s a process of inner-city slum clearance was carried out, with the aim of eliminating substandard multifamily dwellings in working class neighborhoods. Slum clearance, which basically ensured poorer populations could not dwell near the city center, terminated in the 1960s, coinciding with the start of the ‘Million Homes Program’ also known as simply the ‘Million Program’ in 1965 (Andersson 2006). The ‘Million Program’, which terminated in 1974, aimed to build 100,000 dwellings every year for 10 years. This massive construction effort was prompted by high post-war population growth, rural to urban migration, and the first wave of labor migrants. Unlike public housing in the United States, ‘Million Program’ apartments, commonly owned by municipal housing companies, were built upon ‘Social Democratic’ principles and were intended to offer the best possible conditions for the most affordable price.

Constructed based on the ‘modern designs’ of Swiss architect Le Corbusier, as were many other troubled housing estates throughout Europe, these apartments typically assumed high rise form (though other housing forms were incorporated into the estates)

and were built around a central square that incorporated public and private functions (van Kempen et al. 2005). Meant as self-contained “cities of tomorrow”, these areas were often complete with their own schools, subway stops, libraries and churches and built upon the suburban periphery of large cities; often the only available space for such large scale endeavors. This location meant the new estates were largely isolated from the existing urban structure, save for connection through the metro line in the Stockholm region. The ‘Million Program’ achieved largely what it set out to do and by the mid-1970s two-thirds of Swedish multifamily housing had been built in the post-war period. In the late 1970s, however, a single-family home ‘villa boom’ occurred due to economic prosperity and the state’s introduction of tax deductible interest on home loans, causing the flight of families with children to the newly available homes. Consequentially, the multifamily dwellings produced during the ‘Million Program’ began to experience high vacancies (the municipal housing company managing the ‘Million Program’ estate of Rosengård in Malmö reported 2,000 vacancies, out of a total stock of 20,000 dwellings, during the mid-1970s). (Anderson 2006; Borgegård and Kemeny in Turkington et al. 2004; Rojas 2005; Castro and Lindbladh 2004; Viden and Botta in Stanilov and Scheer 2004). Rising vacancies in suburban municipal housing coincided with a shift in the character of immigrants from those of labor immigration to refugee immigration. Due to economic slowdown, Sweden effectively ended labor migration in 1972 from non-Nordic countries, thus confining immigration from there on for strictly humanitarian purposes. Sporadic inflows of refugees from war-torn parts of the world, such as Latin America, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, have made up the vast majority (60-80% of all foreign migration to Sweden since 1992) of immigration from the 1970s onward. (Knocke 2000; Murdie and Borgegård 1998; OECD (Lemaître) 2007). Non-Nordic populations now make up around 10% of Sweden’s population (in a country with little prior experience of non-European peoples and cultures) (Hoge,1998). The implications of this change are staggering. Contrary to labor migration, which is tied to cyclical and structural labor market needs, refugee immigration is tied to intermittent conflict generally located in the third-world (OECD (Lemaître) 2007). What this entails is that Sweden has taken in large flows of refugees (sometimes on the order of 45,000 persons a year) while at the same time experiencing comparably slow economic growth and a shrinking market for unskilled industrial labor best suited for newcomers (Pred 1997, Bevelander 2000).

Still, the most important aspect of the shift in immigrant character has been the state’s policy in regards to housing refugees. In an effort to take advantage of the downturn in ‘Million Program’ housing estates in the 1970s, municipal housing authorities and welfare officials began to place new refugees in municipally operated apartments left vacant by Swedish families (Pred 1997). Additionally, there is evidence to suggest state municipal and co-op officials have steered visible-immigrants into increasingly segregated areas, although as Andersson (2006) notes, no mechanisms are in place to prevent discrimination on the housing market (Pred, 2000). Inability to gain employment has left many visible-immigrant refugees with few choices for housing beyond the suburban estates where they were initially placed. Employment features are thus reflected on through segmentation within the housing system. Non-visible immigrants such as Germans, Finns and Poles exhibit homeownership rates and public housing representation around those of native Swedes whereas more visible-immigrants,

who participated in early labor migration, such as Yugoslavs, Greeks, have higher concentrations in the public rental sector. Recent refugee visible-immigrants, such as Iraqi’s, Ethiopians, and Somalians show heavy segmentation into the public housing sector (Murdie and Borgegård 1998). The municipal housing stock, though it still remains open to all classes of society, is becoming residualized and significantly the main supplier of housing for visible-minorities and low-income groups, in many ways synonymous. Municipalities with a higher percentage of public housing invariably sport higher populations with a foreign background (Magnusson and Turner 2005; Hårsman 2006). And as higher proportions of refugee migrants fill the suburban housing estates, a process of ‘Swedish avoidance’, in which native Swedes do not flee en masse but instead are not replaced by other natives, is taking place (Bråmå 2006). In a related trend, native Swedes and non-visible immigrants are moving away from poor and very poor neighborhoods, leaving behind concentrations of (generally) unemployed visible-immigrants. All of these events seem to indicate the suburban estates have become increasingly stigmatized as refugee immigrants have taken on a larger presence within the neighborhoods. Sweden is not alone in its troubled track record with post-war housing estates. Across Europe, large high-rise housing developments built on the suburban periphery have experienced declines due to their poor integration into the general urban structure; the Parisian banilieue Wacquant examines is just one example (Wacquant 2008; van Kempen et al. 2005). It remains clear nonetheless, that failed state urban policies, immigration policy that operated without consideration of economic climate, and a refugee placement policy that inserted newcomers into areas facing significant abandonment from the native population, actively promoted spatial segregation. More than pressures of globalization, which Sweden’s labor market and welfare state have negotiated relatively well, state policies have encouraged and shaped marginality in Sweden to the highest degree. The Förort The ‘Million Program’ housing estates built on the edge of Swedish cities where visible-immigrants live segregated from native Swedes have become known as the förort (literally suburbs), a term that has a negative connotation akin to the term ghetto or banlieue. Within the Swedish media, these areas have been painted as zones of criminality and destitution much like their counterparts in other countries (Wacquant 2008). Tales of criminality, violence and substance abuse fill the headlines, constructing an ‘underclass’ discourse. “Paris’ Counterpart to Rinkeby is Called Saint-Denis, a Rundown City with High Criminality,” a sub-heading in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter reported in a story reporting the location of the World Cup stadium Stade de France (Pred 2000). Despite a position in popular culture and the Swedish mental structure similar to other areas inhabited by marginalized populations, the förort has many unique characteristics. Much like the Parisian banlieue, marginalized areas in Sweden consist of large post-war housing estates built on the suburban periphery, and this respect the förort is unlike the ghetto, which is made up of degraded inner city areas that have been relinquished to a perceived second-class population. Also as in the banlieue, the state plays a large part in the day-to-day life of the neighborhood, and a series of urban rehabilitation policies have prevented any widespread physical

degradation of the estates as well as prevented absolute poverty through welfare supports. But unlike the ghetto, harboring a homogenous composition of poor African Americans, or the banlieue, which is heterogenous in its racial and ethnic composition (where a majority of French nationals share public estates with a mix of ethno-national groups from France’s former colonies and white-collar employees account for as much as a quarter of public housing residents), the förort displays homogenous and heterogenous in its ethnic and social makeup in different dimensons. Suburban housing estates are heterogenous ethnic diversity, regularly housing nationals (commonly refugees) from over 100 different nations; this heterogeneity, however, is overlaid as the defining characteristic of the majority of these residents are visible-immigrants with refugee backgrounds working in either low-income jobs or living on social assistance, though much like the banlieue conditions vary significantly from estate to estate (Pred 2000; Wacquant 2008). I selected five neighborhoods for this study were selected on the basis of their stigmatized reputation on both the national and civic scale (as dictated by print sources and local contacts), as they might exemplify a ‘typical’ model of the förort. Four neighborhoods, Rinkeby, Tensta, Alby, and Fittja, were within the Stockholm metropolitan area and one, Gottsunda, within Uppsala. Stockholm is Sweden’s capital and home to nearly 800,000 residents, and contains approximately 1.7 million persons in its metropolitan area, spanning 26 different municipalities (Martinson et al 2002; USK 2007). Rinkeby and Tensta are situated within the boundary of the City of Stockholm municipality in the northeastern suburban districts of Rinkeby-Kista and Spånga-Tensta, at the very end of the T-10 metro line. Rinkeby is perhaps the most well known segregated suburb in Stockholm and is notorious for spawning ‘Rinkeby-Svenska’, a slang form of Swedish that integrates words from the multitude of cultures dwelling in the förort. The estate, built according to ‘Million Program’ design principles, is separated from major highways and bordered by grass fields and natural areas. Buildings within Rinkeby are connected by a series of pedestrian and bike paths and converges around a ‘centrum’ or town square that serves as a commercial and transportation hub. To the north it is bordered by the important IT center of Kista Science city (Stockholms Stad 2008). Just over 15,000 people live in the Rinkeby estate, 89% of them either foreign born or Swedish born to two foreign parents, and the majority coming from either Asia or Africa. Only 44% of working age adults are economically active in the formal labor market (in comparison the percentages of 80 and higher regularly found in the inner-city districts of Stockholm). To compensate for failure to obtain employment, residents rely on available safety net measures. Twenty-two percent of Rinkeby’s population depends on social assistance while 14% of working adults live off of disability pensions, also known as early-retirement pensions (in contrast, inner-city districts generally had rates of 6% or lower in this measure) (USK 2007). Tensta sits to the northeast of Rinkeby on the adjacent metro stop. As with its neighbor, Tensta has developed a relatively poor reputation (Musterd 2008). Another ‘Million Program’ estate, Tensta was built along with Hjulsta in the late 1960s and morphologically is nearly identical to Rinkeby, complete with a ‘centrum’ and a close proximity to outdoor activities (Stockholms Stad 2008) To the south, Tensta is bordered by Spånga, a collection of subdistricts made up largely by single-family homes with a predominantly native Swedish population (Martinson et al 2002). Demographically,

Tensta shares many of the attributes that distinguish Rinkeby. Eighty-five percent of Tensta’s 17,000 residents are either foreign born or Swedish born to two foreign parents, with Asians and Africans chiefly composing this group. With only a slightly improved labor situation 48% of working age adults participate in the labor market. Social assistance disbursement has kept pace with this rate of participation and 23% of Tensta’s residents receive payments. Likewise, the number of persons with disability pensions sits at an elevated 14% (USK 2007). Between Rinkeby and Tensta, the northeastern förort is home to a high number of visible-immigrants, and consequentially is saddled with low-labor participation and high dependency on social benefits. Alby and Fittja lie on the opposite side of Stockholm’s metropolitan area in the municipality of Botkyrka, where the T-13 metro terminates. These estates were also built as a part of the ‘Million Program’ in previously rural areas, and today still share a close interaction with nature as two lakes, Albysjön and Lake Mälaren, cover their northern and eastern perimeter (Bengtsson 2008). Morphologically, they are indistinguishable from other ‘Million Program’ projects as they share the same general structure, save accommodations to local natural features and topography. Like their counterparts in northern Stockholm, Alby and Fittja’s reputations have suffered as well (Pred 1997, 2000). While I have been unable to locate data comparable to that gathered for Rinkeby or Tensta for estates within the municipality of Botkyrka, it is important to note that those with a foreign-background now outnumber native Swedes living in Botkyrka as they compose 54% of the areas inhabitants, a development assisted by the fact that Botkyrka has the highest percentage of public housing in the Stockholm metropolitan region with a stock making up 44% of total housing in the municipality (Hårsman 2006). Biterman and Franzên (2007) have identified the Fittja and Alby area (Norrbotkyrka) as having one of the highest concentrations of both visible-immigrants and economically deprived households. All available evidence seems to signify that Alby and Fittja fall into the same category of neighborhood as Tensta and Rinkeby. Gottsunda is located near the southernmost tip of the municipality of Uppsala, Sweden’s fourth largest city with a population numbering 185,000, situated 70 kilometers north of Stockholm. The estate sits amongst the suburban districts of Valsätra, Norby, and Sunnersta, five kilometers from central Uppsala (Danielsson 2008). As a ‘Million Program’ project, the largest portions of Gottsunda and its neighbor Valsätra were constructed between 1967 and 1983 and the Gottsunda-Valsätra quarter is differentiated from nearby Norby and Sunnersta by its large stock of multi-family housing, though more recently a small number of low rise townhomes and single-family homes have been added as infill. Like other ‘Million Program’ sites, Gottsunda-Valsätra centers around Gottsunda centrum, a commercial juncture, and a sector containing a concentration of high-rise housing. Typical of ‘Million Home’ areas, a large portion of Gottsunda’s total housing stock is maintained by Uppsalahem, Uppsala’s municipal housing company (Thunwall 2005; Uppsalahem 2007).

While the municipality of Uppsala compiles data for different measures than the City of Stockholm, comparisons can still be made between Gottsunda and neighborhoods Stockholm’s förort. Fourty-eight percent of Gottsunda’s population of 9,500 and 39% of Valsätra’s 4,300 inhabitants are of foreign background (meaning born abroad or the child of two parents born abroad) in stark contrast to neighboring Norby and Sunnersta where the same population makes up 12% of the total, and Uppsala’s inner-city where the figure

is 14%. Gottsunda and Valsätra have relatively high concentrations of immigrants in the context of the Uppsala municipality, but nothing compared to those found in Stockholm, where those of foreign backgrounds make up 85% or higher of the neighborhood population, as in Rinkeby and Tensta. A similar, perhaps related, feature is found in labor participation as 56% of Gottsunda’s working age population and 59% of Valsätra’s were economically active in 2006, while the same measurement was around 74% in Norby and Sunnersta and 68% in Uppsala’s inner-city (Kommunledningskontoret 2008). Again, it is clear that when compared with other districts, Gottsunda and Valsätra have a much lower rate of labor market participation, but still stand 8-10% above Tensta and Rinkeby, where participation barely breaches 50%. Conditions in the Gottsunda-Valsätra area are thus closer in the forementioned respects of employment and ethnicity, where the majority of residents are both economically active and of native Swedish background, to those Wacquant reports in the banilieue rather than those found in the City of Stockholm’s förort. Yet a lower fraction of foreign families and a higher rate of employment has not spared Gottsunda the stigma attached to other areas in the Swedish förort. In an article aiming to dispel some of the negative preconceptions of the neighborhood, the Upsala Nya Tidning summarized the general view of outside Swedish society in the subheading question “Gottsunda a place for criminals and outcasts?” (Wolters 2008). “You hear so much shit about Gottsunda in the media every day…It doesn’t say Gottsunda-Uppsala, only Gottsunda- then everybody knows what it is. There’s quite a bit of mudslinging because of the high number of immigrants,” reported one young man to Irena Molina in her study of Gottsunda (Molina 1997 as cited in Pred 2000). Hence, despite significantly concrete conditions, Gottsunda is grouped with other förort and stigmatized as such, which carries sizable implications for residents of the neighborhood. As Wacquant writes, speaking of marginalized areas, “…whether or not [these] areas are in fact dilapidated, dangerous, and declining matters little: the predjudicial belief that they are suffices to set off socially detrimental consequences” (Wacquant 1996 as cited in Pred 1997). Reflections of Marginality in Suburban Life Structural forces, both in the labor market and the public sector, bear heavily upon the daily experience of residents living in the förort. Many of the locals I interviewed spoke with firm clarity concerning the institutional mechanisms shaping the lives visible-immigrant populations on the Swedish suburban periphery. In the following section I attempt to sketch an outline of the lived experience in the förort using data from 21 semi-structured and unstructured interviews I conducted during the summer of 2008, with 17 visible-immigrants, complemented by 3 older native Swedes one non-visible immigrant who have lived in the förort since its initial construction. Most of these interviews were carried out in the ‘centrum’ or ‘town square’ areas of the housing estates in question, and perhaps for that reason the vast majority of my respondents were males, as females were either not especially present in public spaces or were preoccupied with child-care, shopping, and other activities during my visitation periods.

I do not intend to conflate the areas into a single identity as important differences exist between individual suburban areas. However, a collective narrative can be traced

across each individual neighborhood, suggesting broad commonalities. What emerges from this narrative is an experience of marginality that shares striking similarities with Wacquant’s (2008) account of the banlieue, complete with residential stigmatization, a cleavage between first and ‘second-generation’ immigrants5, the diminishing significance of race for younger residents of the förort, and social atomism. Distinct to Swedish marginality, the conspicuous presence of the welfare state and the predominantly refugee character of inhabitants combine to influence the life circumstances of visible-immigrants of the suburbs in a unique fashion. Stigmatization, a feature Wacquant holds as the strongest linkage between marginal communities worldwide, is one of the most salient factors of the marginalized experience in Sweden. Rather than experiencing true physical decline for reasons discussed earlier, the förort is visually nearly indistinguishable from other neighborhoods populated by native Swedes, and does not contain levels of violence comparable to those found in the American ghetto. Castro and Lindbladh (2003) have described the condition as one of ‘relative poverty’ in which inhabitants still maintain a high standard of living but are disadvantaged only in relation to residents of other more prosperous neighborhoods within the same frame of reference. Perceptions of the förort as a slum or a ghetto typically come from media depictions, rather than concrete conditions, often exaggerated for effect.

There is crime everywhere [not just in Alby]. It is 'allt de samma' (all the same). I am not afraid. They [the media] say there is a lot of crime but it isn't so (Sara, Kurdish woman).

Other [Swedish] people will not live here. It's because of TV and news. I have lived here 30 years and nothing happen to me (Rayna, older Swedish woman).

Crime is everywhere in Sweden. Not just Alby. This is not a dangerous place at all. I have been reading, hearing happenings. Anything you think happens here happens in other places (Lamin, older Gambian man).

Crime? No not really. I have read about a lot in the papers (Kalle, older Polish man). Swedish people think if they get here they get robbed in a second (Hamed, younger Somali man).

Yet even if news coverage finds little basis on the actual experience of day-to-day

life in förort, this does not prevent it from creating a negative image in the Swedish collective imagination that serves to stigmatize those who dwell in the estates. This image taints all interactions with those who reside outside the estates, deeply affecting personal relationships and grafting another layer of marginality on top of existing structural conditions.

5 Swedish citizenship is granted on the basis of Jus sanguinis (right by blood) rather than Jus soli (right by soil). This means that children born in Sweden to foreign parents are not automatically citizens, and must have 10 years of residence in the country after which they can obtain Swedish citizenship at the age of 21-23.

If you tell a girl you are from Tensta, they say 'bye bye'… you know girls in the city, rich girls… so I say I am from Spånga [A suburb bordering Tensta] (Lee, young Turkish man).

If we go to a party and it is Swedish people, most of the time they tell me this: ‘I did not think such nice people came from Gottsunda’ (Farshad, young Iranian man).

If you go into the city and tell people you are from Tensta they say 'How do you live there? Aren't you scared at night?’ Or here is a perfect example. The first question they ask when you tell them you are from Tensta is 'So do you sell weed?' (Kai, young Pakistani man).

The stigma of living in the förort can thus impair one’s ability to form social

connections beyond the large estates and therefore, due to the nature of Swedish housing segregation, constrains interaction between visible-immigrants and Swedes. Beyond day-to-day interactions, this phenomena may explain the ‘Swedish avoidance’ pattern Bråmå (2006) uses to describe the gradual emptying of the suburban periphery of its native Swedish residents; native Swedes could be avoiding these areas due to their poor reputations. As myopic as the outside view of the förort is, the insiders view equals in complexity. The primary cleavage within the neighborhoods divides the ‘older generation’ or ‘first-generation immigrants’ and the ‘second generation immigrants’, who perceive and experience the area in divergent manners. Older immigrants generally arrived in the 1970s and 1980s, as part of the initial waves of refugee immigration, but also includes more recent refugees who have left their countries of origin at a reasonably old age. These residents have generally moved to the large housing estates for family reasons, to be near other countrymen, or because few other choices were available. Those that I spoke to were primarily refugees from the Middle East and Africa and generally had positive things to say about their neighborhoods, which were a marked improvement over their previously distressed or war-torn situations.

Regarding Alby: It is a community. It makes it so nice to mingle with other cultures (Lamin, older Gambian man).

There is a lot of people like me [here]. I can feel relaxed (Tariq, Libyan man).

(Christopher) Why do you choose to live in Alby? My family is living in Alby. My sister, my mother, and my brother live here (Sara, Kurdish woman).

Muy tranquilo. Buenos vecinos (Very calm. Good Neighbors) (Jorge, older Chilean man).

One of the primary draws of the förort for older immigrants is that it allows for the partial recreation of ones home culture through local shops selling ethnic foods and through the close proximity to other’s from one’s country of origin.

The older generation, they feel at home. They have Arabic stores here, African stores, the people speak the same language as you. For them it is a home away from home (Kai, young Pakistani man).

People want to live around people they know and people that speak their language. Stores in Gottsunda sell Arabic food, food from the Middle East. They sell halal kött (meat). Even the Willy's (a local chain) in Gottsunda sells Arabic food (Ibbe, young Palestinian man).

Though the ‘older generation’ generally enjoys the familiarity of the suburban periphery, employment has proven a formidable obstacle for them. Most respondents pointed to language as the number one barrier to employment for this group, an assertion that falls in line with structural transformation of the Swedish economy, which now demands more language skills.

It's very difficult to find a job in Sweden at the moment…The people who have work in the service profession must talk very good Swedish (Rayna, older Swedish woman).

You have to be able to express yourself at the job interview. People (immigrants) can't express themselves at a job interview. They use their temperament instead of rhetoric. They can't find the words that the chief (employer) wants to hear (Hamed, young Somali man).

Language is number one. If you cannot speak Swedish. And then there is not so much jobs left. There is another aspect; nobody wants to deal with a job they don't like. A lot to do with age. For the older the situation is quite harder (Kalle, older Polish man).

Many respondents point to the actions of the Swedish state, which they believe relegates refugees to the förort, as actively promoting spatial segregation, thus hindering the prospects of immigrants born elsewhere to interact with native speakers and acquire the language.

It's hard for them when they get to Sweden because they put them in neighborhoods with Persians, Iranians…You know that is who they will talk to…They will not speak Swedish (Farshad, young Iranian man).

(Christopher) Why did your fiancé's parents choose to live in Tensta? The government recommended Tensta as a place for them to live (Bobby, Pakastani man).

You have to get a chance to learn the language. (Christopher) Well as I understand it the Swedish government offers free language classes. Why don’t people utilize these classes? The free Swedish classes are only 5-6 months. That is insufficient. The immigrants go to class for maybe 3 hours but then go back to their neighborhoods and speak their own language. They must go into society and speak Swedish everyday with Swedish people for the program to be effective (Mohammed, older Somali man).

Often immigrants, but members of the ‘first generation’ in particular, who do manage to obtain employment are often placed in low-wage positions on the labor scale, in an employment process residents believes operates in a discriminatory fashion. Qualifications earned in foreign nations are frequently unrecognized by employers, and require supplementary education, discouraging many from gaining employment in a field appropriate to their skill level.

They don't want to see immigrants in head institutional positions like head of police, in politics, in diplomacy. They want to see immigrants as security guards and cleaners (Mohammed, older Somali man)

You know, we have affirmative action but it can only get you a job as a cleaner, bus driver, or a taxi driver (Kai, young Pakistani man).

Difficulties with language, the labor market, and refugee placement policy combine with welfare policy (discussed later) to seclude the foreign born ‘older generation’ to the periphery, which prevents them from gaining an effective grasp of Swedish culture and norms, ultimately hindering any real assimilation into or interaction with Swedish society.

It’s all about the system, if you know the system in Sweden. You know what’s wrong, what’s right. You know how people think and people live. Many things will improve if you know your rights…That’s the problem; our parents don’t know their rights. We know our rights, so we are more accepted by the Swedish people (Shady, young Palestinian man).

…the parents (‘the first generation’) they don’t get an honest chance to fit into society and interact with people born in Sweden that know the language, the culture and the way of life. It’s like this, you know, if you come to the US you want to be around people from the country that speak English and understand the culture… [people] that are American (Kai, young Pakistani man).

People would want to integrate into society and live in neighborhoods with more Swedish people. But you see, you have Somalis that have been here for 17 years and still can’t speak Swedish. You have a case of cause and effect. Cause and effect, you understand? The cause is not getting a job and the effect is social exclusion (Mohammed, older Somali man).

For the younger ‘second generation’ of immigrants the situation is nearly the reverse. Educated in the Swedish school system and accustomed to Western culture, the second generation is better equipped to navigate the labor market. This is reflected in a much more optimistic attitude towards achievement.

I don't believe that shit 'you live in the ghetto, you can't get money.' You know in Sweden you get paid to go to school and you can do anything (Shady, young Palestinian man).

The kids (the second generation immigrants) they get an honest chance. You know, education is free in Sweden, so they get an honest chance. Well you have to pay for the

books here, but they give you money to go to school, so you don't even really pay for them either (Kai, young Pakistani man)

This sense of opportunity is tampered by discriminatory practices on the labor

market. A sense that even with an education immigrants will not be able to obtain a ‘good’ job permeates the mentality of ‘second generation’. In some cases, discrimination has reached such an extent that those of certain backgrounds feel it necessary to change their name to a more traditional ‘Swedish’ name.

I have two cousins that graduated from college in Sweden. Once they finished school, they couldn't get a job in Sweden, so one went to Barcelona and the other to London. (Christopher) Why do you think they couldn't get a job? Because of the color of their skin and their name (Bobby, Pakistani man).

I know a guy who changed his name to get a job. When he went in the first time to apply for the job, the boss, a Swedish guy, tells him that will not be accepted for the job. But afterwards the man pulls him aside and says 'you might want to think about changing your name.' So he legally changed his name from Nasim to Peter. Now he's a stockbroker and he's doing really well for himself (Kai, young Pakistani man).

Most immigrants think 'even if I learn the language and get the basic education they will not hire us.' I denounce this. I have seen many Gambians become doctors, bankers, researchers, veterinarians (Lamin, older Gambian man).

The perceived futility of education offers a partial explanation for the petty crime

that is an ever-present nuisance within the förort. In addition, respondents implicated the inability of parents to discipline their children as a cause for youth criminality. Specifically, respondents held the ‘first generation’s’ unfamiliarity with Swedish norms for child rearing and their unemployment, which fails to provide a model of educational success in the labor market, as accountable for this problem. As in other marginalized neighborhoods, unemployment plays a large role in explaining existent crime as well.

If you go up to people and ask ‘Why did you drop out of school?’ the most common answer you will get is ‘Why bother? I won’t get a job anyway because I’m foreign’…People born in the förort, you could say they don’t have a confidence in them. They don’t have the confidence to break out of the cycle, to go to college, to get a job (Kai, young Pakistani man)

Going to university is not an option for them. Their parents did not go to university… You know, their parents tell them but they do not listen… Most of them want to play football or do anything else but study (Ibbe, young Palestinian man).

There are two ways here. The hard way is school. It’s ten times as hard for the immigrants. The easy way is drop out of school, start stealing, start selling drugs…The kids just hang outside [a local restaurant] and do nothing, smoke weed, do smash and grabs. They think its cool…fight other hoods (Shady, young Palestinian man).

If you have 10-12 kids you can’t take care of them. The parents cannot take care of their kids. You see, you come here at 5 or 6 in the morning you will see kids 10 years old out. 10 years old! I don’t understand it (Özgür, young Turkish man).

9 out of 10 people [in Fittja] will go to jail (Christopher) Why? They have no work, no job. They have parents that let them go out all night… Boys sleep all day and go out at 8 or 9 at night. They do robbery and take cars… If they had jobs, they would have to sleep in the night and wake up in the morning (Rayna, older Swedish woman).

Despite these problems, the ‘second generation’ still cherishes their respective

neighborhoods and takes pride in a collective identity they have forged through growing up in the förort. As opposed to the ‘first generation’, which is attracted to the periphery for the number of other foreign persons that share the same background, the ‘second generation’ enjoys comradery that crosses different ethnic boundaries. Resembling Wacquant’s (2008) findings in the banlieue, younger persons from the numerous ethnic backgrounds (often the children of refugees) maintain strong friendships and a shared experience of growing up in a marginalized area.

You see America in the movies, you have the Asian gangs versus the Black gangs versus the Latin gangs, but it's not like that here. That's what I love about this place, we have that companionship. My three best friends are Christian, one is Turkish, one is Syrian, one is African, and I am a Muslim and we are best friends (Kai, young Pakistani man).

Here you have African, Latino, Kurdish. In Tensta it is allting blandat (everything mixed) (Lee, young Turkish man).

It's not like USA where they have different groups like niggers, Latinos. In Gottsunda all are one, they don't have the groups (Ibbe, young Palestinian man).

Ultimately, however, much of the ‘second generation’ plans to one day leave

these neighborhoods, citing the negative influence street culture of the förort could exert on their children. Additionally, this group is much more conscious of the stigma attached to the suburban periphery and are therefore more inclined to leave. All of the older native Swedes that I spoke to reported that their children had moved out of neighborhood, many to nearby suburbs with higher Swedish populations (and a consequentially better reputation). These two trends seem to follow Biterman and Franzén’s (2007) assessment of the neighborhood dynamics of the förort, which states that leavers of the poor, visible-immigrant neighborhoods in Sweden are often better off, as upwardly mobile Swedes and ‘second generation’ immigrants generally are, than incomers (which would most likely be refugees).

If you live a long time in Gottsunda then you want to move because you know there are many criminals. Your children won't have good [role models] (Ibbe, Young Palestinian man).

All of us want to move out of Gottsunda. We are like the Swedish people. We went to Swedish school, have Swedish friends (Shady, young Palestinian man).

(Christopher) So why do you want to leave Tensta? If you stay here, you get drawn into the criminal side. Everyone who grows up here has been in a fistfight or robbed… Where I live next does not even have to be in the inner city. Just a nice quite place. (Christopher) Somewhere like Spånga? Yeah, Spånga is fine. I just want a safe environment to raise kids, one of the other suburbs. They don't have a bad look. (Christopher) A 'bad look'? It's like this, if you meet people in the city and you say you are from Spånga, they say 'oh that's a nice place, your parents must be bankers, you must have a nice house.' But if you say you are from Tensta they think 'Oh this means trouble.' You know it's like if you are in New York and you live in Harlem, you are going to tell people that you are from Manhattan, not Harlem, so they don't get the wrong idea (Kai, young Pakistani man).

To the ‘first generation’ and ‘the second generation’ of immigrants, the förort is two different places. For the ‘first generation’ the suburban periphery is an enclave of security; family, fellow countrymen, and familiar shops are in close reach. Even if they have reached these places through relegation by Swedish authorities or due to economic circumstances, the ‘older generation’ generally holds positive feelings for the area. Younger residents of the ‘second generation’ have more lukewarm feelings towards the förort. While it is where they have grown up and their friends and family reside, the pressures of low-level street crime and an elevated awareness of the area’s undesirable status serve as strong motivations to leave. The Swedish welfare state is a prominent actor in the everyday lives of the förort’s inhabitants. Nearly everyone in the suburban periphery is connected to social assistance in some fashion; either as a recipient or as someone who interacts with recipients on a daily basis. Three outcomes are apparent as a result of the widespread reliance on social assistance programs. The first is visual; signs of serious distress are virtually absent from the streets and public spaces of the förort (the homeless, beggars, and other trademarks typical of marginalized areas elsewhere in the world are nowhere to be found). The second two outcomes emerge from conversation with locals. One of these is social atomism, that is, the mutual distancing and avoidance residents practice to differentiate themselves from other residents they deem unscrupulous or immoral. Due to widespread reliance on welfare benefits, and the stigma attached with this phenomena, some suburbanites make an effort to distinguish themselves as hard workers as opposed to others in the neighborhood who they label as welfare cheats or lazy.

You know how much of my check I must pay to taxes? Around fifty-percent. They (Somalis and Arabs) do not work. You look you see all these Arab men? They sit in the center all day and drink beer. The Turkish culture is to work. Their culture is not to work...The parents take social assistance and the kids they do the same (Özgür, young Turkish man)

The third outcome of this strong welfare presence is the manner in which the

system apparently serves to sequester refugee-immigrants in the suburbs, and provides disincentives for them to join the labor market, thereby further increasing their marginal position. A reliance upon social assistance has become normalized to a significant degree and this culture of state support, combined with relatively strong monetary disincentives to enter the low-wage labor force, seems to have served to isolate visible-immigrants and

refugees by allowing them to remain in the förort instead of develop a social role via employment.

You get paid here for nothing…so some don't want to work. They get money and they get comfortable…You are affected by your neighbors. If an immigrant comes to Sweden and he sees that none of his neighbors work…you know everyone is on welfare and has for a while, he is not going to want to work… I know a guy who is 55-60, he was thirty when he came here, and doesn’t know Swedish. You know, something is wrong with that. What is this man doing, he has been here 30 years and he doesn’t know Swedish? But, you know, he was living for 7-8 years on social assistance before he works (Farshad, young Iranian man).

(Christopher) So how do you think that they might improve integration of immigrants in Sweden? Don't place old people in the förort. Place them in cities. And don't just offer them welfare checks. You know obviously they should have it if they don't have any other option but welfare should not be the first option. If welfare is the first option, they will just stay in their neighborhood (Kai, young Pakistani man).

You see that over there, that says Medborgarkontor? That is a welfare office. All you have to do is go to Arbetsförmedling, sign in, then show that you applied for a job and you get 4000 (SEK). Then you go to the doctor's office, get a note that says you hurt your back or some other type of problem and you get 10,000 (SEK) (Bobby, Pakistani man).

The experience of marginality in Sweden exhibits many traits characteristic of Wacquant’s (2008) advanced marginality. Stigmatization due to place of residence, a group identity formed due to collective marginalization, and social atomism developed in response to outside judgment are all present in the förort. Much as in the case of structural aspects of marginality, Swedish empirical existence is significantly different from that of other situations due to the peculiar factors of the strong welfare state and the strictly refugee character of immigration and the ways in which these two forces interact. A Novel Arrangement From both a top down view and a bottom up analysis, Wacquant’s (2008) theory of advanced marginality is useful in explaining most aspects of the rise of marginality in Sweden. However, the Swedish case is idiosyncratic in the sense that the Swedish state has in many ways averted the disastrous economic effects of post-Fordism. Moreover, Sweden’s safety net has weathered several decades which have seen the drastic restructuring of social insurance programs elsewhere, and has ensured that few have been allowed to slip through the cracks. In fact, the very strength of the welfare system seems in some respects to be contributing to the isolation of visible-immigrants by discouraging their entrance on the labor market, a phenomena running counter to Wacquant’s (2008, 254-256) proposal to decouple income security from the labor market as a means to avert marginality. Rather, the Swedish case demonstrates that even policies carried out with the best intentions, such as the large scale ‘Million Program’ housing construction, or the decision to act as one of the world’s largest recipients of refugees, can lead to the marginalization of populations.

Furthermore, the condition of the visible immigrant population in Swedish cities suggests is that strong social protections by themselves are not an adequate safeguards against marginality. As my qualitative interviews reveal, though true poverty is notably absent, social marginality remains a very prominent feature in the lives of the inhabitants of the förort. What Swedish urban situation emphasizes is that a strong welfare state must be accompanied by a rational immigration strategy, urban planning that creates attractive housing for all segments of the population, measures to discourage discrimination in the housing and labor market, and oversight structures to ensure that social protections are utilized as the are intended. In short, strong social protections alone will fail to avert the emergence of marginality unless guided by well-designed coherent policy. Wacquant’s (2008) contention that it is ultimately the state, not the market, that determines how and if marginality will manifest finds its most poignant exemplar in the förort.

This revelation paints an optimistic picture concerning the future of Swedish cities. Since it is state decisions rather than economic conditions that have primarily served to marginalize visible-immigrants in Sweden, a reversal of this process is more facile than in other contexts, where unpredictable free-market forces must be factored into redevelopment efforts. The resources necessary to ameliorate the current condition of marginality are already in place. What is needed now is political leadership willing to openly discuss the position of visible-immigrants in Swedish cities and society. Unpleasant realities concerning Sweden’s visible-immigrants, such as racial discrimination in the labor market and weaknesses in welfare system must be acknowledged. It is only from within this context that lasting, effective solutions can be crafted and applied.

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