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Narratives of a Fractured Trust in the
Swedish Model: Tenants’ Emotions of
Renovation
Abstract
Research shows there is a current wave of housing renovation in Swedish cities,
where private as well as public rental housing companies use “renoviction,” or dis-
placement through renovation, as a prot-driven strategy. is article focuses on
emotions and renoviction, in particular the emotions of tenants currently facing
forced renovations, in Sweden. We discuss how power is reproduced and ques-
tioned, and illustrate methods used by housing companies to carry out extensive
renovation. e following questions have guided our analysis: What kinds of emo-
tions are evoked among tenants experiencing an extensive, top-down and costly
renovation? What particular injustices and violations are identied by the tenants
in this situation? How can these violations be understood in relation to the cur-
rent housing policy? Our research is qualitative and builds on semi-structured
interviews with tenants as well as extensive ethnographic work in a neighborhood
undergoing renovation, followed by steeply increased rents. We use the metaphor
of “fractured trust” to conceptualize the emotional reaction of tenants, and argue
that citizens´ trust in the Swedish welfare system is being broken locally, in the
wake of ongoing top-down renovation processes, by use of a rationality that does
not take into consideration tenants’ perspectives and needs. We conclude that
anxiety, angst, anger, and loss, attached together in a common feeling of shock,
were the most prevalent emotions expressed and were described by tenants as a
response to unfair treatment. In the interviews, a complex set of violations per-
formed by the housing company in a renoviction neighborhood is brought to the
forefront here, and set in this context of systemic violence exerted against tenants
in contemporary Sweden.
Polanska, Dominika V. & Åse Richard: “Narratives of Fractured Trust in the
Swedish Model: Tenants Emotions of Renovation”, Culture Unbound, Volume 11,
issue 1, 2019: 141–164. Published by Linköping University Electronic Press:
http://www.cultureunbound.ep.liu.se
Keywords: emotions, renovation, displacement, tenants, violations, housing,
Sweden
By Dominika V. Polanska & Åse Richard
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Introduction
e national housing regime is regarded as a cornerstone of Sweden’s welfare po-
litics. is model, introduced in the country aer the Second World War, is inter-
nationally distinguished for its universality and egalitarian approach, such as its
high percentage of public housing, strong tenants’ rights, and exceptionally good
standard in housing. e “Swedish model” is oen referred to when describing
universalistic welfare policies dating back to the 1930s and the post-war period of
social democratic rule, industrialization, and wealth growth in the country. From
that period and “up to the 1970s the Swedish Model was regarded as something
successful and progressive with regard to the economic and social development of
a mixed economy” (Lundberg 1985: 1). Sweden became a people’s home, Folkhem-
met, guided by ideas of solidarity and universalism, with the vision of creating a
society based on ideas of “a home, or family, in which national solidarity would
prevail and all members and dierent classes would gain from the state’s univer-
salistic social policy” (Hajighasemi 2004: 97). e model culminated in the Mil-
lion Programme (Miljonprogrammet), which set out in the mid-60s, to remedy the
Swedish housing shortage in only ten years, through the construction of a million
state-subsidized dwellings. is was followed by the multicultural citizenship mo-
del in 1975, with an ambition to guarantee inclusive citizenship, even for non-ci-
tizens, covering most social, civil, and political rights (Schierup and Ålund 2011).
Today, the situation of residents in the housing stock of the 1960s and 1970s is
problematic. Tenants experience the consequences of at least three decades of de-
regulation, resulting in a situation described by researchers as “the end of Swedish
exceptionalism” (Schierup and Ålund 2011), along with high levels of residential
segregation (Scarpa 2015), the racialization of urban space (Molina 1998), and
an end to “the era of Social Democratic hegemony” following the election of a
center-right government from 2006-14 (Larsson et al. 2012: 4). Scholars observe
that “neoliberal politics have rapidly transformed the provision of housing, exa-
cerbating the impacts of increasing income inequality” (Hedin et al. 2012: 460),
and that housing in Sweden has turned into a “monstrous hybrid” of regulation
and neoliberal components (Christophers 2013). Recent studies stress that this
current turn in the national housing policy, with the introduction of legislation
allowing for business-like principles in the running of municipal housing com-
panies, has potentially set o processes of large-scale displacement (Baeten and
Listerborn 2015). Today, we can see the consequences: deepening segregation in
Swedish cities, increasing displacement of low-income households, the creation
of “urban nomads” (people moving several times as a consequence of renovations
and raised rents), along with growing discontent among tenants (Boverket 2014,
Lind et al. 2016, Westin 2011).
We argue that the narratives of tenants are lacking in the public debate on
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housing, and we seek to explore how these changes in housing policy play out on
the ground, on an individual and neighborhood scale, with a special interest in the
emotions expressed by aected tenants in the early stages of the renovation pro-
cess and how these are understood and narrated by tenants. Looking back, early
sociology studies tend to categorize emotions as mostly negative and derogatory.
Emotions were, in Western philosophical thought, oen deemed childish and un-
reasonable and in juxtaposition with rationality (Turner 2009). Following Negt
and Kluge (1993), shedding light on how private experiences are deemed unim-
portant and seen as undesirable in capitalist regimes, we argue that emotions and
lived experiences of renovation processes are systematically being excluded from
the public debate on housing and Swedish housing policy. us, our ambition is
to analyze how the particular Swedish housing regime interplays with occurrences
on the ground. And we do this by studying emotions evoked in a neighborhood
experiencing displacement pressure, a term referring to pressure put on house-
holds in an area undergoing displacement (Marcuse 1985). Emotions are dened
as constructed socially, culturally, and politically (Hochschild 1979, 1990, Flam
2005), and our inquiry probes into how these are fostered and aected in addition
to questioning and challenging general and particular ruptures. We discuss how
power is reproduced and questioned, and illustrate the tactics used by housing
companies to carry out large-scale top-down renovation projects. e following
questions have guided our analysis:
• What kinds of emotions are evoked among tenants undergoing a costly
renovation?
• What particular injustices and violations are identied by the tenants in
this situation?
• How can these violations be understood in relation to the current hou-
sing policy?
Our research is qualitative and concerns housing, with a special interest in emo-
tions expressed by tenants in neighborhoods undergoing renovation followed by
a considerable rent increase. To date, in Sweden, as well as internationally, few
studies of displacement have focused explicitly on the lived and emotional expe-
rience of those directly aected, despite a recent increase in interest (Baeten et al.
2017, Baeten and Listerborn 2015, Polanska and Richard 2018, Pull and Richard
forthcoming, Westin 2011). Our study builds upon unique empirical material from
an early stage of the renovation process of one specic area: the Gränby neigh-
borhood, located in Uppsala, north of Stockholm. Gränby was built during the
Million Programme in the late-1960s and beginning of the 1970s and was, at the
time of our study, mainly occupied by low-income households of various ethnic
backgrounds and levels of education. Apart from rental housing, amounting to
60 percent of the stock, Gränby consists of owner-occupied apartments as well as
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privately owned single-family housing. Prior to the renovations, there were 1,400
households in the rental housing stock of the neighborhood, all of which at the
time of our interviews were to be subjected to large-scale renovations (including
the renovation of bathrooms, kitchens, ventilation, plumbing, and so on), with an
initial plan to subsequently raise rents up to 43 percent. Since then, considerable
relocation has taken place, but also resistance (Baeten et al. 2017, Mauritz 2016,
Polanska and Richard 2018, Söderqvist 2012).
Our empirical material is unique as we interviewed tenants at the very be-
ginning of the renovation process, collecting voices from those oen neglected in
displacement and gentrication research (Atkinson 2015, Slater 2006). e study
consists of 31 semi-structured interviews and several years of ethnographic work
in the area (2011-18). e interviews were conducted in 2011-12 and the selection
was guided by the interviewees’ personal experiences of renovation and are num-
bered 1 to 31. at is, interviewees were purposefully chosen (based on personal
knowledge and recommendations by others) as they were expected to give a rich
picture of the phenomenon studied: personal accounts of having experienced for-
ced renovation. e interviewees consisted of 24 women and 14 men, all residents
of the rental housing stock in Gränby. e youngest interviewee was 21 years old
while the oldest was around 80, and in total 38 persons were interviewed. e
ethnographic part of the study consisted of participant observation; the collection
of photographs, notes, and media reports; and a large number of informal talks
in Gränby, but also in adjacent neighborhoods subjected to renovation. e aim
of the research project became apparent during the process, as strong emotions
were expressed throughout the material when the interviewees were asked about
their experiences. Tenants expressed strong emotions as well as vivid descriptions
of physical reactions caused by the renovation plans. e interviews encompass
themes like descriptions of the neighborhood, the experience of the situation, spe-
cic feelings and responses, along with the tenants’ perception of the future and
the past. In the beginning of our study, tenants faced a rent increase proposal of
43 percent; however, due to massive collective protests, the nal rent increase was
conned to a range of 18 to 34 percent.
In the next section, previous research on emotions studying displacement
in Sweden will be presented. We draw upon current discussions, claiming that
displacement research tends to present abstract conceptualizations, ignoring the
emotional dimension of the phenomenon at hand. Our theoretical framework
and the importance of emotional sociology is introduced and highlighted. We in-
troduce the concept of emotional regimes and argue that power relations are in-
herent in emotional expressions, shaping the way these are communicated and
articulated at the same time as the emotional regimes are embedded in culture.
e emotions expressed in the interviews are analyzed with the help of a fracture
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metaphor in order to understand how current housing policies are breaking the
trust in the Swedish welfare system (including the state and institutions) among
the tenants. Fracture is dened as the act of breaking or a state of being broken,
demonstrated by the emotions distinguished in our material. However, the metap-
hor of a fracture is not xed and leaves room for improvement and recovery. us,
we believe that trust can be damaged but also recovered.
Housing, displacement and emotions: previous research
e universality and egalitarian approach of the Swedish housing regime, encom-
passing a high percentage of public housing, strong tenants’ rights, and an excep-
tionally good housing standard, have been important in forming expectations on
the functioning of the housing market in the country. Rapid national deregula-
tion, initiated in the 1990s (Hedin et al. 2012), paved way for the current ongoing
large-scale renovictions, or displacement by renovation, in rental housing areas
set in motion by private as well as public housing companies (Baeten et al. 2017).
Molina and Westin warned in 2012, that new legislation encouraging municipal
housing companies to be run according to “business-like principles” opened them
up to, and legitimized, projects “that dramatically increase rents and cause dis-
placement of low-income households” (2012: 5). Today, tenants in Sweden have
very little to formally act upon regarding the scope and performance of renova-
tions in their neighborhood and homes, and thereby just marginal possibilities
to inuence their rent (cf. Westin 2011). Governmental reports declare that cur-
rent renovations result in socioeconomically vulnerable tenants moving to poo-
rer neighborhoods, thus increasing housing segregation in the country (Boverket
2014). Adding to this, a fresh study from Uppsala shows that the renovations cau-
se residents to suer from an increase in poor mental health and weakened place
attachment (Mauritz 2016).
ere is a signicant body of literature in environmental psychology on place
attachment, exploring, among other things, how humans are embedded in their
places of residence, and what role stability or disruptions play in their attachment
(Brown and Perkins 1992, Brown et al. 2003). e focus on place attachment is
dominating the eld of studies on turnover and displacement (Altman and Low
1992, Bailey and Livingstone 2007, Bailey et al. 2012), and the health issues and
wellbeing of residents connected to processes of displacement and place attach-
ment are explored in that research (Davidson 2009, Fullilove 1996, Manzo 2014).
Our ambition is to add to this body of research by focusing on the emotional
dimension of displacement processes staged in the current Swedish context where
housing policy, aer decades of rapid deregulation, is shaping a hard-to-handle
system of state regulation and market-orientation (Christophers 2013).
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Inner-city renewal projects, reaching most Swedish municipalities during
a period from the late-1950s to the mid-1970s, followed traditional gentrica-
tion patterns and caused a steep increase in displacement (Selander 1975, örn
2013, Gullberg 1998, Vidén and Reppen 2006). During the 1980s, state-initiated
programs for renovation of rental housing led to a marked increase in the dis-
placement of dwellers (Wiktorin 1989). And, in the 1990s, psychological studies
concluded displacement, both temporal and permanent, severely aected elderly
people and caused emotional disruptions such as stress, mistrust, powerlessness,
self-estrangement, and a feeling of having been violated (Danermark and Ekström
1993, Ekström 1994). Since the clearance of inner-cities between the 1950s and
1970s, today´s wave of renovations is one of the most extensive so-far, covering
the large housing stock built during the Million Programme. us, displacement
is once again on the rise in Sweden (Boverket 2014), and only a few critical studies
have been found to focus on the experiences of displaced residents, their emo-
tions, and perceptions of violations (Baeten et al. 2017, Baeten and Listerborn
2015, Mauritz 2016, Polanska and Richard 2018, Pull and Richard forthcoming,
Westin 2011).
Displacement has been dened as “what happens when forces outside the
household make living there impossible, hazardous, or unaordable” (Hartman
et al. 1982, quoted in Slater 2009: 295), and is a process reported to have severe
and negative physical and psychological consequences on aected groups (Fried
1963). Critical research, with its prime focus on North America and Great Britain,
has identied displacement as the main negative outcome of urban gentrication,
extensively damaging for the working-class and urban poor (Atkinson 2000).
Chatterjee argues, in an attempt to conceptualize the global urban condition, that
displacement should “be transported from the very local contexts of its actualiza-
tion to form the body politic of analysis” as it forms the very heart of urban ex-
ploitation (2014: 4). Research has shown that (re)development processes eradicate
important cultural, business, social activities, and homes on a global scale, inclu-
ding Sweden (Hedin et al. 2012; örn and Despotovic 2015). Our objective is to
focus on the local consequences of the current ongoing rental housing renovation
processes in Sweden, proven to generate displacement and increased segregation.
Displacement, in the context of the paradoxical “monstrous hybrid” Swedish
regulatory system, is currently rolled out at the local scale as objective violence
exercised by stakeholders operating “anonymously, systematically and invisibly
through the very way society is organized” (Baeten et al. 2017: 642). On a national
scale though, this is to a large extent a process going on in silence (Baeten et al.
2017), and empirical studies of resistance and emotional responses from a mi-
cro-scale perspective, individual and neighborhood, are lacking. e lack of quali-
tative studies of displacement at the local scale is a perspective recently articulated
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by Atkinson (2015), arguing that the main body of research tends to present ab-
stract conceptualizations of the phenomenon at hand. Instead, Atkinson encoura-
ges researchers “to grasp the lived realities of neighborhood conditions and their
negotiation by residents to fully understand aective ties and the damage done
to them by rapid capital investments and population changes” (2015: 377), thus
following Slater (2006), who emphasizes that the ‘eviction’ of critical perspectives
from the discussion on gentrication is partly a methodological problem requi-
ring qualitative and informed research.
Emotions and fractured trust: theoretical framework
In the capitalist order, emotions and lived experiences have been systematically
excluded (Negt and Kluge 1993). Feminist scholars were among the rst to emp-
hasize the importance of emotions as lived experiences, claiming them to have
political character and embeddedness in culture as well as in power structures
(Boler 1998, Campbell 1994). Within a particular regime, norms are established,
framing certain emotions as acceptable to express while others should be repres-
sed. Here, we employ the term emotional regime to refer to a set of norms do-
minating emotional life in a society complying, for instance, with state-imposed
censorship, dominant economic interests, and the political and military exercise
of power and control (Reddy 2001). Similar sets of norms, each emphasizing dif-
ferent aspects of such modes of expression, have by sociologists been described
as “feeling rules” (Hochschild 1979), “emotional discourses” (Zembylas 2005) or
“emotional vocabularies” (Chang 2016). In her work on culture jamming, Wetter-
gren (2009) connected the emotional regime of late capitalism to commodica-
tion, seeing strong emotions as undesirable and repressed by the capitalist order.
Emotions, though, keep us invested in relationships of power and could be crucial
for the transformation into acts of resistance (Ahmed 2014). us, in our study,
we consider power relations as inherent to emotional expression, shaping the way
they are communicated and articulated, suppressed, or encouraged, and setting
the rules of who can and cannot express emotions: where, when, how, and so on.
In this light, emotions are regarded as reproducing, challenging, or reinforcing
power structures in a specic setting (Zembylas 2005). As depicted by Turner and
Stets (2005), emotions are considered to be a crucial link between the micro and
macro perspectives of social reality. is study stresses the social and cultural (and
less so the biological) dimension of emotions, where norms, logic, and symbolic
elements are emphasized as dictating the emotional expressions in a certain set-
ting. We dene emotions in line with Hochschild (1979: 551), as “bodily coopera-
tion with an image, a thought, a memory – a cooperation of which the individual
is aware,” and we focus on how these emotions are connected to perceptions of
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injustice and violations in the sphere of housing.
Here, we do recognize the complexity of emotions, reproducing and challeng-
ing power structures in a society or a specic setting. An important starting point
of our study is thus the question of power and status, and how it is reected in the
process of renovation, following Turner’s argument on the stratication system of
emotions:
Like any other resource—power, prestige, material well-being, health,
education, and the like—emotions are unequally distributed across the
class system in societies; and their distribution operates in a manner
very similar to the distribution of other valued resources in a society
(Turner 2009: 350).
We recognize, in line with Collins, that “truly powerful persons do not beco-
me angry in a sense, because they do not need to; their get their way without it”
(1990:43), and agree with Barbalet arguing that emotions “must be understood
within the structural relations of power and status which elicit them. is makes
emotion a social-structural as much as if not more than a cultural thing” (1998:
26).
What Baeten and colleagues (2017) have called “objective violence” in their
work on Swedish tenants, we use to understand how emotions are conditioned
in situations when tenants face displacement. We explore particular injustice and
violations identied by tenants in the early stage of a large-scale renovation pro-
cess and analyze the interconnectedness of expressed emotions and identied vi-
olations. Moreover, we use the metaphor of fractured trust to conceptualize the
emotional reaction of tenants to renovations in Sweden. We dene fracture as the
act of breaking, or a state of being broken, but also as a state that can be reversed
through participatory approaches and a clear tenant perspective on renovation
and urban renewal.
Emotions and renovation
e feeling of shock was the most prevalent emotion expressed by tenants, des-
cribed as a response to unfair treatment, a lack of inuence regarding the renova-
tions, and experiences of encounters with the housing company. Fullilove (2016)
has described the traumatic stress felt by African American communities in the
US as their neighborhoods were demolished on a large scale. In our case, the neig-
hborhood was not to be demolished, but the tenants still perceived the coming re-
novation as a disruption and threat to their wellbeing and community. e shock
was amplied by neglection of tenants’ requests, needs, and questions regarding
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the coming renovation, along with the tenants’ perception of lacking inuence
over the process.
e interviews put forth a complex set of violations performed by the housing
company in order to put pressure on the residents, exemplied by our interviewees
as “next time we talked, she didn’t remember anything of what she had promised”
(19), or “I don’t dare to ask XX [the housing company]1. ey threaten us. Maybe
we will be squashed” (22). e interviews also make known experiences of nan-
cial penalties, withdrawn sanctions, and written information described as biased,
intimidating, and incorrect. A situation where landlords are forcing their reno-
vation plans upon the residents was previously unthinkable to a majority of the
tenants, and was perceived as unreasonable and unjust. e situation was referred
to in relation to local and national housing politics and tenants had diculties in
combining their view of a “just” and “equal” Sweden with the current situation. A
fracture in the belief of a fair and democratic Swedish society became visible as
the vast majority could not combine their previous beliefs and perception with
the current situation, lacking in inuence and leverage as tenants. Some tenants
recall specic moments of strong emotional response that radically changed their
perception of the coming renovation process:
I got a shock at the meeting where XX [the housing company] told us
about their proposed rent increase. From that day on we were very sca-
red, we didn’t know at all what was going to happen. Will we be able to
stay put? (6)
e tenants oen recalled previous knowledge and experiences of a welfare hou-
sing system (i.e. collectively negotiated rents or renovation funds where the te-
nants’ position in negotiations and inuence on decisions about their homes was
described as strong) and claimed that these were incompatible with the current
renovation plans, the lack of tenant involvement, and the planned rent increases
in their residential area. e tenants also emphasized the fact that housing shorta-
ge in the country and in the city of Uppsala was used by their housing company to
create pressure and legitimize the renovation plan. Physical reactions to the reno-
vation plan that were commonly stated in the interviews were extensive perspira-
tion, irregular heartbeats, acute diculty in breathing, insomnia, or panic attacks.
e overarching emotional response, as we put forth above, was shock. In the
interviews, this was in some cases described as mere shock, a sudden alarming
change including features like surprise, disbelief, and worry for the future. In the
words of one tenant, whose whole family was impacted by news of the planned
rent increase:
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We think it’s really shocking that rent will be increased like this. We’re a
family with children and a limited income; we don’t know where to go.
Are we supposed to pay rent and then live on ketchup and spaghetti?
What do they think? (7)
e family experienced a sudden change that questioned whether they would be
able to stay in their home and retain their position and role in society. Others
described a paralysis as a result of the shock they experienced connected to un-
certainty about the future: “I have no words right now, but every second it hits
the brain, this thing. But I have no words and dare not speak of what will happen”
(22).
e feeling of shock was depicted as always present and encompassing dif-
ferent elds of the interviewees’ everyday life. To many, the shock resulted in a
realization that their economic means would no longer be sucient to cope, that
the new rent would lead to cost-cutting in other areas of everyday expenditure,
resulting in the deterioration of their living standard. e situation for elderly te-
nants, oen living alone, was described in quite dramatic terms, oen depicting
physical reactions to the renovation plans:
You know it’s, it’s panic. I suer from panic disorder. I believe it’s be-
cause of this separation [referring to the coming compulsory move].
I’ve lived here for nearly 25 years. . . . and I expected to stay here until
I died. (17)
e shock described by the tenants was a very complex set of emotions that, con-
trary to what we expected, did not include shame and guilt. In previous internatio-
nal studies on tenants, shame and guilt have been emphasized as signicant emo-
tions in displacement processes (Annunziata and Lees 2015), or as an important
emotion to overcome in collective identity formation among tenants (Polanska
2017). e non-presence of these emotions in the context of Sweden is related to
the unique Swedish post-war housing policy ambition of neutral forms of tenure,
the system of collectively negotiated rents, the strong position of the Tenants’ Uni-
on, and the determination to raise the attractiveness of rental dwellings. Many of
the tenants interviewed in the study expressed a fractured trust vis-à-vis Swedish
society, its institutions, representatives and the position of tenants (oen previo-
usly used as a source of pride). e perception of a strong tenants’ position colli-
ded with their current experiences and lack of inuence in their own neighbor-
hood, thus creating a fracture in trust. We interpret the specic Swedish historical
housing context, fostering neutrality between tenure forms and concentrating on
universality as an alternative to a system of social housing, as crucial to the lack
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of shame and guilt among tenants. Shame is internationally present in contexts
where tenants are being marginalized. Moreover, none of the respondents expres-
sed feelings of hope, joy, or anticipation when describing the renovation plans in
their area. is could be a result of the fact that our material was gathered at the
very beginning of the process, aer the housing company had proclaimed their
suggested sharp rent increase of 43 percent. Instead, the empirical material brings
forward tenants’ anxiety, angst, anger, and loss, all together attached in a com-
mon feeling of shock. ese four emotions are the most recurrent in the interview
material and will therefore be presented in the following subsections. In the case
of anxiety and angst, we have chosen to present these emotions in combination as
we believe them to be intimately connected.
Anxiety, angst, and lack of control
A common emotion articulated by the interviewed tenants was the feeling of anx-
iety, caused by the planned renovation of their housing. Anxiety was, in the inter-
views, expressed as a physical/bodily feeling of worry, fear, or panic with strong
physical symptoms such as speeding heartbeats, chest pressure, or dizziness. As
one of the elderly interviewees, when asked about the way she was informed about
the renovation, responded:
rough the mailbox, only through the mailbox. My heart started clap-
ping, and I almost had cardiac arrest and a stroke. And, my husband
who was alive at the time—he stayed in a retirement home his last
years—he told me “[Name] please, how are you going to cope with this?
How are you going to handle this?” I told my husband “Don’t you wor-
ry, you need your peace and quiet.” But, [this renovation] was his great
anxiety before he passed away; how I would cope. (17)
It was common among the tenants to focus on the future and worry about how
they would cope economically, physically, and mentally. Not only were those li-
ving in the area aected by anxiety, their families and relatives from outside the
neighborhood also voiced concern:
My kids are worried about my [starts crying] . . . they’re worried about
my . . . mental health, if I might say so. Because you know, I think a lot
about this. And I enjoy my nice apartment so much. It is bright, nice,
and all that, but I can’t stay put. I can pay up to 6,000 Swedish crowns
[app. 600 EUR]. at I’ll manage, but not more. (27)
For larger households living in the area, one of the most acute questions was how
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they would cope economically: “What are we going to eat? What are we going to
pay? How will we pay other bills?” (23) and “We’ll probably starve. We can’t make
our children feel bad by moving to another neighborhood. We’ll pay one whole
salary as rent only” (7). Anxiety was usually mixed with other feelings of power-
lessness and sadness. e emotion of anxiety communicated a sense of hopeless-
ness, and expressed from the point of view of lack of inuence over the course of
matters, imagining either a negative or no-way-out situation.
e emotion of angst in our material blended the emotions of anxiety and
hope. Angst is an interesting emotion thanks to its inclusion of the latter ele-
ment—which might spur people into action—and, above all, the potential to for-
mulate coping strategies. It was not as paralyzing as anxiety and was described in
the interviews as a passing feeling: “Really, I feel very bad [close to tears]. But my
temper is such that I can deal with it, sometimes. I’m usually very happy but then
I get into these dark moments, and then it, then it passes, you see” (27). It was also
common that angst was combined with anger in the interviews:
No, I have no alternative but to stay in the streets, put up a tent in the
streets. I cannot aord 10,000 Swedish crowns [app. 1000 EUR] rent.
ere is no alternative, there is nothing in Uppsala. It is totally fucked.
It is impossible for us to pay this much, these rents, they’re not normal.
is is not normal in Uppsala. (15)
e impossibility of the situation was here turned into an analysis of the cause
behind it, not an individual cause but one located outside of the inhabitants living
in Gränby, stressing the unusual and extreme character of the renovation and the
resulting rent. Structural explanations were used, and it was not common among
tenants to blame themselves for the situation. is, we would like to argue, relates
to the particular emotional regime and historical past in Sweden, where tenants
have been a collective with a rather strong position in society, not categorized and
treated as a marginalized group.
Anger to injustices
Anger was an emotion continuously recurring in a majority of the interviews, and
was expressed as a strong uncomfortable emotional response to a perceived unjust
situation. e economic threat the renovation posed was mentioned unanimously
in the interviews: “I almost get angry; it takes a whole salary to pay the rent. We
can’t manage that” (16). e “almost” marks the moderate level of anger expressed
in a specic context historically characterized by peacefulness and collaborative
attitudes. It was not uncommon that the housing company’s renovation plan gene-
rated conicts within families, such as in this case:
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It is really hard, to think about it every day. e worst thing is my hus-
band; he is so angry because of all this, and he wants to move. But not
me! He doesn’t want to pay this new rent. (31)
What was perceived as unjust treatment was not simply accepted, but could lead
to reactions of refusal. What tenants perceived as unreasonably high rent evoked
anger and generated conicts between spouses as well as between children and
parents—as this woman describing a situation where her husband had signed the
letter of consent2 while she was at work:
But, once when I wasn’t home, he signed the letter. I wouldn’t have
let him, and he knew I wouldn’t. It felt completely hopeless, that he
would do such a thing. Maybe it wouldn’t have mattered for us that we
didn’t sign, but it would help other families that . . . it does matter a lot!
(3)
Above all, the renovation plans threatened the living conditions of numerous fa-
milies because of the unaordability of the new rent. Low-income households of
non-Swedish background articulated anger mixed with a worry about the future:
I get angry all the time. I don’t know what we should do. You know,
we’re not Swedish. You regard each other dierently [as non-Swedes],
as a family [referring to the dierence between the nuclear family and
relatives in Swedish culture]. Now they will divide us. is is why I am
really, really angry. (20)
e above quoted tenant interpreted the renovation as a threat to her family´s
wellbeing and the risk of being divided. When the personal boundaries or per-
ceived shared principles were violated, interviewees articulated anger. In some
cases, this seemed to have facilitated boundary setting among the tenants, leading
to the formulation of a common position and identication of the root causes
behind their situation. An illustrative example is this quotation where the inter-
viewee attributed the blame to the housing company and its immoral, systematic,
and unjustied behavior:
What XX [current housing company] is doing to us, former XX [hou-
sing company], XX [housing company] and before that, XX [hou
sing
company], it is a scandal. It is a scandal, marked with a red pen! (17)
is person perceived the immoral behavior of former and previous housing ow-
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ners as scandalous. To describe the situation as a scandal assumed that the tenants
had more inuence than was given, and expected treatment where the needs and
wishes of the tenants were recognized. Some expressed anger over a passive state
“why doesn’t the government do anything?” (18), and put their own situation into
a wider social framework:
It is a scandal in a way, them raising the rent like this. Actually, the same
thing happens in Stockholm. It happens all over Sweden, I think XX
[the housing company] has changed owners and names many times.
Aren’t landlords obliged to save money in funds, to use during repara-
tion? (30)
In several cases the anger expressed by the interviewees seemed to have turned
into intensied communication with neighbors, common meetings, and the
withdrawal from signing the approval letter, and so on. e emotion of anger was
oen connected to the feeling of having been treated unjustly. One of the tenants
expressed their anger with the situation in the following way:
We get along so well here, we don’t want to move, but they force us.
In some way, this is how it feels. Some of us are just working to pay
rent, others are buying everything else, and that’s not possible. No!
(10)
e forced relocation from the area was described as upsetting and unfair. e
interviewee argued that even though they were employed, their salary was not
enough to cover the new rent, and compared their situation to other more well-o
households. Others portrayed the renovation as a thought-through strategy of the
housing company:
It is not reasonable to raise rents as such. And one more thing . . . actual-
ly they should not in-crease at all. Why are they raising the rent? I think
this has been a plan of theirs for a long time. We pay the rent, some
should be saved for repairs and renovation and stu. is has been well
planned for a long time, and we have no one to defend us. You know,
they changed owners four times. is is well planned. (26)
Yet others described it in war-like terms, without explicitly identifying the causes
behind the current situation but referring to their previous experiences:
It’s almost like moving from the war, almost. We have moved from the
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war, and we have found war here as well. It is almost as if the war has
come to Gränby. It is almost like a war here, there has been peace and
now we have war. (20)
e increased rent was described as irrational, and the interests of tenants as
non-existent in the calculation. One tenant simply concluded: “ey don’t care
about us” (9). Others referred to the unfairness of the whole situation: “I believed
our society to be unfair [referring to Syria], but no, the whole world is unfair!”
(31). e fracture in trust occurred among the tenants as the trust in Swedish
society and its well-functioning and democratic character were experienced as
incorrect in the renovation process. e interviewees questioned their role as citi-
zens, the forced character of the renovation, and the lack of protection as a group
of tenants.
Loss of meaning
Loss was an emotion expressed in the interviews, describing the failure to gain,
win, obtain, or utilize something, but also as something that has been lost and
thus not available to the interviewees anymore. When loss was discussed by the te-
nants, most oen the cost was emphasized in relation to the gains. Tenants perce-
ived themselves as paying the price of renovations, while the housing companies
or some more abstract entity (“they”) were in control of the cost and proted from
the situation. Loss could encompass: 1) loss of a home, 2) loss of social ties, 3) loss
of a family, 4) loss of everyday routines, 5) loss of a sense of belonging, 6) loss of
wellbeing and comfort, and 7) loss of a meaningful past. Oen these aspects of
loss were closely interwoven in the interviews and dicult to separate:
You lose something, you know. Gränby has become part of my life, you
know. I’ve lived here more than 35 years of my life. I know many people
and have attuned to habits like taking a walk and exercising and shop-
ping. Here the shops are close, people are close. (21)
Loss was oen expressed with feelings of sadness and grief over something lost,
that would have to be rebuilt from scratch:
It is sad, it is. I told my husband that there are mixed feelings as both
him and I have enjoyed living in the area, that is all. It is like, well . . . like
starting all over again. It feels really hard. (21)
In one case, the procedure of packing and moving was described as mourning:
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Journal of Current Cultural Research
is feels bad. It is so hard to get going with this packing process, I al-
most don’t. I have to pack myself, my son will help me move. A process
of mourning? Yes, absolutely, it is. (8)
e emotion of loss oen lacked the energetic twist found in the emotional ex-
pression of anger. Loss was mixed with darker emotions of sadness and grief and,
in some way, acceptance of the faced injustices. e interviewees not only lost the
belief in the democratic functioning of the society, they also lost belief in their
inuence as tenants and the fairness of the Swedish housing system. e emo-
tions expressed were rather contained and cautiously articulated collectively or in
public. ey were of a more private nature; however, it was a nature that strongly
questioned the role of our interviewees in society as well as the protective role of
society vis-à-vis its citizens.
Emotions are not isolated from social reality; instead they are responses to so-
mething. In the next section, we explore what the emotions expressed by tenants
are responding to before we move on to analyzing how the violations identied
by tenants facing extensive and top-down renovation are connected to current
Swedish housing policy.
Social injustices and violations evoking emotions
As mentioned earlier, the housing company was perceived as putting tenants un-
der heavy pressure by using a complex system of master suppression techniques.
Here, we call these violations. We use the concept of violation as it illustrates the
transgression of a set of rules, an oence or misdeed, or simply a violent act ex-
erted by somebody—in this case, the representatives of the housing company.
It is close to the objective violence discussed by Baeten and colleagues, as it ap-
pears neutral, necessary and “forces people to either accept increased rent levels
or leave and live with all the physical and psychological disruption this entails”
(2017: 642). Intertwined and expressed by tenants in our interviews, we identied
strong emotional responses to these violations. Our analysis, distinguished by the
tenants experiencing expansive renovation, builds upon a theoretical understan-
ding inspired by Ås (2004) and her theory of master suppression techniques, in
which she has distinguished: making invisible, ridicule, withholding information,
double-punishment, and projection of guilt and shame. ese ve techniques were
developed for a dierent context but have served as a source of inspiration for our
formulation of the enactment by the housing company. e violations presented
here are based on examples and descriptions given in the interviews, represented
especially through the violent practices of making invisible; withholding informa-
tion; threat, or threat of force and sanctions; inaccessibility of the housing compa-
ny; and rule by division. ese violations are also clearly reecting the positions of
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power and access to power, inuence, and control in the renovation situation. e
representatives of the housing company are by our interviewees described as those
exerting power, not always justiably or fairly.
Making invisible the needs of tenants
Tenants did not perceive themselves as involved in the planning process, instead
notions of a housing company that did not listen were expressed: “ey don’t show
any interest in our opinion” (5). Tenants trying to express their opinions were ig-
nored or met by an evasive attitude: “XX [housing company] pretend they don’t
understand our critique” (1). Others, however, described the housing company re-
presentatives as hard and impermeable: “ey’re so tough, rock-solid. ey don’t
respect other people’s hearts” (22), and that all important decisions had already
been made over the heads of the tenants.
Information letters and meetings were generally perceived as enacted “for
show,” a mere formality without relevant content. Information was provided in
Swedish only, and some expressed this as an exclusion strategy (6). Tenants ques-
tioned the extent of the planned renovation and regarded the answers given by the
housing company as unsatisfactory: “is is not necessary. Why do they do it like
this? It is not necessary to do this much” (6).
Withholding information and not giving full answers
Written information from the housing company was described as meaningless
and one-sided/biased. Tenants felt uninformed and perceived it as intimidating,
and misguiding. Tenants described situations where they were not informed of
their rights, regarding, for example, nancial compensation during renovation:
“ey didn’t know about their right to compensation (. . .), they have not gotten
any information” (6). Questions were not adequately answered during meetings
where, according to the tenants, housing company representatives did not add
any relevant information. It was common among the tenants to stress that “We
have gotten the information, but they just repeat the same things, over and over
again. Nothing is new,” (20) or “I’ve been to XX [housing company] information
meetings. Some questions are actually le without answer. ey can’t answer our
questions! Perhaps they don’t want to reveal things?” (16)
Threat, or threat of force and sanctions
Representatives of the housing company were portrayed as exerting pressure to
make tenants sign an approval letter. Without the tenants signing this formal pa-
per, the housing company is not, in theory, allowed to go ahead with the planned
rent increase. Other ways of exerting pressure described in the interviews were,
for instance, harassing telephone calls from representatives of the housing com-
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pany, threats that tenants will be removed from the queue for another (cheaper)
apartment. ese threats were perceived by the tenants as “a method of making
people sign the letter of approval, because as soon as you sign, “poof,” the lock
[on the website] is removed” (31). is practice also included indirect threats in
the written information given to tenants (cf. Westin 2011) or the threat to take
the conict to the Rent Tribunal (Hyresnämnden). In Sweden, conicts between
tenants and housing companies regarding renovations are solved in this tribunal,
and the tenants are oen aware of the minimal possibility of winning at the tribu-
nal and thus fear ending up in court in the rst place:
Unfortunately, we had to sign as my husband felt extremely scared af-
ter having seen the letter from Hyresnämnden [the Rent Tribunal]. As
the letter came, he immediately got scared, and he didn’t want to go to
Tingsrätten [local court]. He didn’t want that. (3)
e sanction of a tough inspection of apartments when moving out has been
stressed by the tenants and functioned as a discouraging example for others:
“ey told us we would have to sign the letter of approval, or we would have to pay
for the inspection” (6). Tenants perceived themselves as being punished for their
“lack of collaboration” with high and unfounded nancial penalties. In some ca-
ses, tenants were promised help in moving but whenever they did not cooperate,
the threat of withdrawing the help was stated by the company. Conversely, some
tenants were oered privileges if collaborating.
Inaccessibility of the housing company
Tenants described diculties in reaching the housing company at their oces or
via telephone or email, and perceived the housing company as more or less inac-
cessible. is was also described as a lack of response and answers when contact
was initiated. is specic violation was described together with a practice of not
giving full answers. Tenants also spoke about constant worries to not receive help
from the housing company, and about agreements that were not fullled: “You
have to nag and keep getting back to them for help” (1). Tenants were concerned
about the energy they put into getting in touch with, or being heard. Some told
stories of housing company representatives shuing their questions around to
others, and described themselves as powerless in the situation, incapable of get-
ting through.
Rule by division
Tenants described situations where the housing company organized small-scale
local meetings, avoiding larger assemblies; giving out dierent and ambiguous in-
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formation; or spreading rumors, creating frustration. Several felt that this kind of
practice was confusing, creating divisions and distrust: “At the general meetings,
they [referring to the housing company] say it is all speculation. I don’t believe
that. ey say they might change things, but rst they have to organize things
more. Who should I believe?” (24). But it was not only with regards to the infor-
mation given by the housing company, it was also described as practices of sepa-
rating tenants physically. Tenants told of relatives and friends who used to live on
the same street, now scattered all over town (6), and described the current state of
their neighborhood as being emptied: “I see many empty apartments everywhe-
re,” (8) or “Yesterday, I saw eight trucks, people just move. Look around, it’s only
empty apartments everywhere” (25).
Conclusions
e emotions expressed in our interviews, by tenants facing extensive renovation
in Sweden, are interpreted by us as responses to the violations exerted by the hou-
sing company. Our study shows that the most recurrent emotions were anxiety,
angst, anger, and loss, all together attached in a common feeling of shock. Most
importantly, emotions and the descriptions of violations exercised by the housing
company were intertwined in our interviews, demonstrating how they are part of
a larger systemic violence currently being exerted against residents of poor areas
in Sweden, as described by Baeten and colleagues (2017).
We would like to argue that the shock and feeling of being unjustly treated and
violated has its origin in the Swedish emotional regime, characterized by a com-
mon and exceptionally high trust towards the state and its institutions, as well as
widespread condence in the welfare system and the universalistic Swedish mo-
del (cf. Trägårdh 2009). e dominant emotional regime is characterized by the
assumption that Swedish society is well-functioning and fair to its citizens, and
that excessive emotional responses are unnecessary. is is also evident among
tenants facing forced renovation. We have chosen to conceptualize this situation
as a fractured trust to understand the emotional reaction of tenants experiencing
and living in the midst of these processes. Moreover, we argue that today’s top-
down approach exercised by housing companies in the renovation of rental neig-
hborhoods in Sweden, not allowing tenants to voice their concerns and needs or
even silencing them by exerting their power and using the violations described,
is one of the main causes of this fractured trust. e collision of the dominant
assumptions of a fair and democratic society and the violations carried out by the
housing company is a mirror reection of the incompatible features inherent in
the “monstrous hybrid” combining state-regulation (and, for instance, the tradi-
tionally strong position of tenants) with components of the market (Christophers
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2013); in this case, prot-driven renovation, causing a state of shock among expo-
sed tenants.
is is also, in our interpretation, why tenants’ narratives in this study lack
the emotion of guilt and shame. We understand this as a remnant of the country’s
past progressive housing policies and the subsequent trust in the state and welfare
system. e collision of the expectations of fair treatment and democratic inuen-
ce and the forced nature of the renovation could be interpreted as a result of “the
reengineering and redeployment of the state as the core agency that sets the rules
and fabricates the subjectivities, social relations and collective representations su-
ited to realising markets” (Wacquant 2012: 66). Studies have demonstrated that
the Swedish housing system has been undergoing deregulation and neoliberali-
zation since the 1990s (Hedin et al. 2012). e ongoing and widely spread pro-
cesses of forced renovations of rental housing in Sweden has resulted in deepened
segregation and could be described as an example of “the centaur-state” put in
motion, namely a state “that practices liberalism at the top of the class structure
and punitive paternalism at the bottom” (Wacquant 2012: 66). is is particularly
manifest in areas undergoing renovations, where the support oered to tenants
by the state comes mainly as individual housing allowances alongside the recent
introduction of a relatively small state fund directed to housing companies with
moderate renovation rent increases (in 2016). What we see taking place in Sweden
today is the successive eradication of past housing policies, holding equality and
universality as ideals, and the crass takeover of the economic reason of neoliberal
governing rationality. Tenants in neighborhoods under renovation, in public as
well as private housing, experience this eradication of common values rst hand,
played out as displacement—whether temporal, permanent, actual, or potential.
is rationality has been described by Wendy Brown as hollowing out democratic
principles in the Euro-Atlantic world by “undoing basic elements of democracy”
and replacing them with economic ones (2015: 17). In our case, the planning and
decisions regarding how these renovations are carried out is done without the
participation of those most aected, the tenants themselves, thus legitimizing the
circumvention of democratic practices by use of mainly economic, environmen-
tal, and technical arguments.
However, in the last few years, we have observed an increased awareness re-
garding renovation and displacement, and mobilization among Swedish tenants
outside the established institutions and traditional civil society organizations. In
our understanding, this development is the start of a growing housing movement
in Sweden, forming a response to the intensication of socioeconomic inequali-
ties and, in particular, housing inequalities, during a severe housing shortage in a
country where the myth of equal and universal housing prevails.
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Dominika V. Polanska is a sociologist and a research fellow at the Institute for
Housing and Urban Research at Uppsala University. Her research interests en-
compass urban transformation, housing policies, civil society, and social move-
ments related to issues of housing. E-mail: dominika.polanska@ibf.uu.se
Åse Richard is a PhD student in human geography at the Institute for Housing
and Urban Research at Uppsala University, with focus on urban transformation in
Sweden, and a special interest regarding feminist and intersectional perspectives
on displacement processes, domicide, renoviction and civil society organization.
E-mail: ase.richard@ibf.uu.se
Notes
We have chosen not to use the name of the housing company in our study as we
believe that the situation in Gränby is in no way unique to the area or to the housing
company referred to in the interviews.
A letter of consent is sent to tenants when renovation is being planned by a housing
company. Tenants need to approve the renovation before it starts.
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