Suburban commons: the rise of suburban social movements and new urban commons in marginalized neighbourhoods in Stockholm

ABSTRACT

The Swedish universal welfare state has transformed since the 1990s into a mixed welfare model with increasing deregulation, recommodification, and reverse distribution from the public to the private sector where capital and influence have concentrated. In major cities such as Stockholm, this has resulted in a polarization where groups in the city centre and residential areas have accumulated wealth and resources while groups in marginalized suburbs and neighbourhoods have faced increasing social exclusion and marginalization. Public sector social work has long focused on individual case work, whereas this development calls for increasing community work initiatives. In this article, we analyse the rise of urban social movements mobilizing for inclusion, influence, and social justice as important aspects of contemporary community work in the Swedish urban periphery. Through analysis of semi-structured interviews with community workers and activists as well as media articles, reports, and web-based materials, the results show how the mobilization of the organization Megafonen has contributed to the development of new social institutions and urban commons.

KEYWORDS:

• community work
• social mobilization
• social movements
• collective empowerment
• urban commons

Acknowledgments

Research for this article was supported by the Swedish Research Council (grant number 2014-1557). We would like to offer special thanks to two anonymous reviewers for their insightful and constructive criticism.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).