‘It was entirely his fault’: constructing white masculinities and the Haga Man assaults in Umeå, Sweden 1998–2006

Abstract

Several cases of single repeat offenders in urban space have raised public concern in Sweden during recent decades. Few studies have been conducted on the consequences of the ‘hostage situations’ that emerge when one individual offender causes fear and affects a large group of people in a specific place. The concern of this article is to examine consequences of the Haga Man phenomenon: the case of a serial rapist operating between 1998 and 2006 in Umeå, a medium-sized Swedish city. The article focuses on the construction of white masculinities among male respondents in Umeå during the time of the attacks. I examine how men positioned themselves in relation to the public image of the offender as a ‘normal Swede’ and how they related to women's increasing fear of violence in urban space. Three prominent constructions of masculinity emerged from the research data: the dangerous stranger, the suspect and the protector. These three constructions of masculinity were not clear-cut and did not ‘belong’ to specific men – several of the interviewees articulated various forms of masculinities but stressed them in different ways depending on, for instance, age and/or ethnicity/race. I conclude that men largely positioned themselves as protectors as a strategy to distance themselves from the perpetrator (the image of the ‘normal Swedish man’ performing the rapes) and to ensure that they would not be perceived as suspects. However, men largely perceived that women's increased fear of crime was ‘one man's fault’ and broader issues about gendered power relations in space were not raised.

Varios casos de reincidentes únicos en el espacio urbano han generado preocupación pública en Suecia durante las últimas décadas. Pocos estudios han sido llevados a cabo sobre las consecuencias de las “situaciones de rehenes” que emergen cuando un delincuente provoca miedo y afecta un grupo amplio de personas en un lugar específico. El objetivo de este artículo es analizar las consecuencias del fenómeno del Hombre de Haga: el caso de un violador serial que operó entre 1998 y 2006 en Umeå, una ciudad de tamaño medio de Suecia. El artículo se centra en la construcción de masculinidades blancas entre los hombres entrevistados en Umeå durante el tiempo de los ataques. Analizo cómo los hombres se posicionan a sí mismos en relación a la imagen pública del delincuente como un “sueco normal” y cómo se relacionaron con el creciente miedo de las mujeres a la violencia en el espacio urbano. De los datos de la investigación surgieron tres construcciones principales de masculinidad: el desconocido peligroso, el sospechoso y el protector. Estas tres construcciones de masculinidad no estuvieron bien definidas y no “pertenecían” a hombres específicos – varios de los entrevistados articularon varias formas de masculinidades pero las resaltaron en formas diferentes, dependiendo de, por ejemplo, edad y/o origen étnico/raza. Concluyo que los hombres se posicionaron a sí mismos mayormente como protectores como estrategia para distanciarse del agresor (la imagen del “hombre sueco normal” llevando a cabo las violaciones) y para asegurarse de que ellos no serían percibidos como sospechosos. Sin embargo, los hombres mayormente percibieron que el miedo aumentado de las mujeres a la delincuencia era “culpa de un solo hombre” y temas más amplios sobre relaciones generizadas de poder en el espacio no fueron tocados.

Keywords:

• geography of fear
• gender
• masculinity
• whiteness
• narrative analysis
• Sweden

Keywords:

• geografía del miedo
• género
• masculinidad
• blancura
• análisis narrativo
• Suecia

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank those who gave up their time to be interviewed for this research, and so generously sharing their experiences with me. Thanks also to Aina Tollefsen and Malin Rönnblom, the editor Deborah Dixon and the two anonymous reviewers of this article for their extremely useful and constructive comments.

Notes

1. Sweden has the highest incidence of reported rapes in Europe. Overall, reporting has increased dramatically during the past two decades while the prosecution rate has been lower than in some other Western European countries. The high reporting rate could partly be explained by the fact that the legal definition of rape in Sweden has been successively broadened during the past two or more decades (Lovellte and Kelly 2009).

2. In this study, the categories white and non-white are used in the discussion of ethnicity. This resonates with other studies within the Swedish context (i.e. Hübinette and Tigervall 2009). I have chosen these kinds of broad categories as they illustrate the differences in what it means to have a white or a non-white appearance in Swedish society.

3. In describing himself as quite short he is relating his appearance to the description of the Haga Man.

4. The hunt for the Haga Man was one of the most intensive investigations ever conducted by the Umeå police. A total of 14,000 names were gathered during the investigation, 2500 people (men) were questioned and 777 DNA samples were taken.

5. This spatial behaviour is discussed in a forthcoming article within the research project, i.e. regarding male bodily performance.