The Social Construction of Vulnerable Areas in Sweden: the institutional mechanisms that produce, reproduce and transform urban marginalization
(2022) SOLM02 20221Department of Sociology of Law
- Abstract
- The term “utsatta områden”, understood as socially vulnerable areas, is highly relevant within the Swedish criminal policy discourse where the Swedish Police Authority’s definition of vulnerable areas function as both foundation and support for a variety of political strategies concerning social interventions as well as penal policies. However, the criteria of vulnerable areas have come to be linked together with a more general picture of insecurity and vulnerability that does not account for the wider range of problems in the individual’s existence, as well as mean to legitimize social control and police interventions in marginalized areas targeting certain populations. The aim of this thesis is to investigate and understand the rationale... (More)
- The term “utsatta områden”, understood as socially vulnerable areas, is highly relevant within the Swedish criminal policy discourse where the Swedish Police Authority’s definition of vulnerable areas function as both foundation and support for a variety of political strategies concerning social interventions as well as penal policies. However, the criteria of vulnerable areas have come to be linked together with a more general picture of insecurity and vulnerability that does not account for the wider range of problems in the individual’s existence, as well as mean to legitimize social control and police interventions in marginalized areas targeting certain populations. The aim of this thesis is to investigate and understand the rationale behind classification and targeting of vulnerable areas as defined by the Swedish Police authority, by applying the theoretical framework of the entangled class-state-ethnicity nexus as proposed by Wacquant. Government policy documents are scrutinized and analyzed approaching a Bourdisian analysis where contextuality and reflexivity is applied in order to answer the research questions, that are; (1) in which way can vulnerable areas in Sweden be understood as subjects of territorial stigmatization, and what are the specific characteristics of territorial stigmatization in a Swedish welfare state context?; (2) how is the Swedish government constructing vulnerable areas, and can this construction be understood as a development of the welfare state towards workfare and prisonfare regulation I conclude by arguing that the Swedish government’s articulation of vulnerable areas is a contributing mechanism in producing territorial stigmatization, and that the construction of vulnerable areas can be understood as a development of the welfare state towards workfare and prisonfare regulation, which mutually interact and function not as a response to criminal insecurity but to social insecurity. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9083935
- author
- Olsson, Lina LU
- supervisor
-
- Ida Nafstad LU
- organization
- course
- SOLM02 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- territorial marginalization, urban marginalization, Wacquant, welfare state
- language
- English
- id
- 9083935
- date added to LUP
- 2022-08-01 14:09:13
- date last changed
- 2022-08-01 14:09:13
@misc{9083935,
abstract = {{The term “utsatta områden”, understood as socially vulnerable areas, is highly relevant within the Swedish criminal policy discourse where the Swedish Police Authority’s definition of vulnerable areas function as both foundation and support for a variety of political strategies concerning social interventions as well as penal policies. However, the criteria of vulnerable areas have come to be linked together with a more general picture of insecurity and vulnerability that does not account for the wider range of problems in the individual’s existence, as well as mean to legitimize social control and police interventions in marginalized areas targeting certain populations. The aim of this thesis is to investigate and understand the rationale behind classification and targeting of vulnerable areas as defined by the Swedish Police authority, by applying the theoretical framework of the entangled class-state-ethnicity nexus as proposed by Wacquant. Government policy documents are scrutinized and analyzed approaching a Bourdisian analysis where contextuality and reflexivity is applied in order to answer the research questions, that are; (1) in which way can vulnerable areas in Sweden be understood as subjects of territorial stigmatization, and what are the specific characteristics of territorial stigmatization in a Swedish welfare state context?; (2) how is the Swedish government constructing vulnerable areas, and can this construction be understood as a development of the welfare state towards workfare and prisonfare regulation I conclude by arguing that the Swedish government’s articulation of vulnerable areas is a contributing mechanism in producing territorial stigmatization, and that the construction of vulnerable areas can be understood as a development of the welfare state towards workfare and prisonfare regulation, which mutually interact and function not as a response to criminal insecurity but to social insecurity.}},
author = {{Olsson, Lina}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
title = {{The Social Construction of Vulnerable Areas in Sweden: the institutional mechanisms that produce, reproduce and transform urban marginalization}},
year = {{2022}},
}