Sweden's Equality Myth Unravels: Study Exposes Racial Segregation in Housing
A new analysis of Stockholm neighborhoods reveals that Sweden—long celebrated as a model welfare state—harbors entrenched racial discrimination in housing and labor markets that mirrors apartheid-era systems. The findings challenge policymakers and investors to confront whether inclusive diversity policies mask deeper structural inequalities affecting real estate, urban development, and workforce dynamics.
Originaltitel: Racial Capitalism and Subaltern Struggles in Neo-Apartheid Sweden
<p>The article discusses empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives on structurally andspatially ingrained racial capitalism, dispossession, and precarisation in what is identified as‘neo-apartheid’ Sweden. Theoretically, the argument rests on a critical re-engagement of thenotions of ‘racial capitalism’ and ‘neo-apartheid’ in contemporary critical research, inspired,historically, by rich research on racial capitalism in South Africa under apartheid. The argumentis illustrated, empirically, by a scrutiny of processes of segregation, racial stigmatisation, and‘the return of primitive accumulation’ reflected in predatory housing policies and superexploitationof labour, conditioning livelihoods and opportunities of subaltern Others indisadvantaged urban neighbourhoods. Through a local case in the region of Järvafältet inmetropolitan Stockholm, the paper addresses subaltern struggles contesting these realities ofracial capitalism in a society that used to be an international showpiece of social equality andinclusive diversity policy.</p>