Denna studie analyserar uppkomsten, konsekvenserna och bemötandet av territoriellt stigma som konceptualiserat av Loïc Wacquant (2008b) hos invånare bosatta på Hertsön, ett bostadsområde som ibland omnämns genom stigmatiserande termer som ”ghetto” eller ”problemområde”. Syftet är att använda Hertsön som fall i undersökningen av territoriellt stigma och hur det tar sig uttryck i ett bostadsområde som i en svensk kontext kännetecknas av en viss grad av marginalisering. Studien består av två delar. Genom en inledande historisk undersökning analyseras först framställningar av Hertsön som i sin tur stämplade bostadsområdet som avvikande och marginaliserat. Därefter görs en beskrivning och analys av områdets materiella och symboliska utveckling i relation till Luleå kommun som helhet under 2000-talet. Studiens andra del är baserad på data från 9 semistrukturerade intervjuer genomförda med invånare från Hertsön. Först undersöks stigmats eventuella konsekvenser för invånarnas relation till bostadsområdet och andra invånare i kommunen. Därefter undersöks vilka strategier invånarna använder i sitt bemötande av territoriellt stigma. Studien visar att invånarna, till följd av Hertsöns jämförelsevis milda grad av social och ekonomisk marginalisering, utvecklat en rad strategier som används i syfte att neutralisera och bekämpa de stigmatiserande förhållningssätt som riktas mot dem och deras bostadsområde. Detta har sannolikt medfört att man hos intervjupersonerna inte finner starka uttryck för det territoriella stigmats konsekvenser, som förakt mot sitt bostadsområde och dess invånare. Snarare ser man bevis för starka band mellan intervjupersonerna till Hertsön som bostadsområde och till områdets invånare. Avslutningsvis diskuterar studien huruvida det territoriella stigmat riskerar att intensifieras i framtiden om Hertsöns materiella och symboliska utveckling fortsätter i samma spår som under 2000-talets inledande 20 år. / This study analyzes the emergence, consequences and response to territorial stigma as conceptualized by Loïc Wacquant (2008b) by residents of Hertsön, a residential area sometimes referred to by stigmatizing terms as "ghetto" or "problem area". The purpose is to use Hertsön as a case in the study of territorial stigmatization and how it manifests itself in a residential area that in a Swedish context is characterized by a certain degree of marginalization. The study consists of two parts. By means of an initial historical survey, stigmatizing representations of Hertsön which are thought to have labeled the residential area as deviant and marginalized are analyzed. Subsequently, a description and analysis of the area's material and symbolic development in relation to Luleå municipality as a whole is made during the 2000s. The second part of the study is based on data from 9 semi-structured interviews conducted with residents of Hertsön. First, possible consequences of stigma for the residents' relationship with the housing area and other residents in the municipality are examined. Second, strategies used by residents in addressing territorial stigma are examined. The study shows that, as a result of Hertsön's comparatively mild degree of social and economic marginalization have enabled the inhabitants to develop a number of strategies that are used to neutralize and combat the stigmatizing approaches directed at them and their housing area. This has probably been the cause behind the interviewees not expressing strong consequences of territorial stigma, such as contempt for their residential area and its inhabitants. Rather, one finds evidence of strong links between the interviewees to Hertsön as a residential area and its inhabitants. Finally, the study discusses whether the territorial stigma may be intensified in the future if Hertsön's material and symbolic development continues in the same vein as during the early 20s of the 21st century.

Events of social unrest and violent crime increasingly draws attention to the urban periphery of Swedish cities. Media and politicians depict a homogenized image of the suburbs as problem estates and ‘no-go zones’. This aggravates the urban integration process as well as creates a stigma for the individual resident. This could lead to misconceptions among the decision makers and policies based on skew presumptions. Urban marginalization is part of the consequences of political priorities. Despite this fact, there is a lack of research on urban marginalization in Sweden. Studying also the negative consequences of policies is one of the most important missions of political science. Accepting this challenge, this study uses Loïc Wacquant’s analytical concepts ghetto and anti-ghetto, to chart the structure and function of marginalized suburbs in Sweden. This analysis, which is more systematic than Wacquant’s original study, shows that Swedish suburbs can be classified as anti-ghetto, which gives reason to question the homogenized media image and gives important insights for future urban policy. Applying Wacquants theory on the Swedish case also means testing his claim that all Western European cities can be classified as anti-ghetto. The study finds that anti-ghetto is a fruitful concept for the understanding of Swedish marginalization. Consequently Wacquants assertion is strengthened, thus this study constitutes another proof European cities are not converging the American ghetto. Thereby this study makes a substantial contribution to Wacquant’s project of creating a comparative sociology of urban marginality.

This essay intervenes in the politics of urban segregation in Stockholm. The main aim of the essay is to analyze and describe how advanced marginality and territorial stigmatization are expressed in the lived experiences of four unemployed youths, that have participated in a labor market training program located in the “social vulnerable” area Rågsved. With a theoretical framework based in Henri Lefebvre’s production of social space the empirical findings are interpreted in regard to how the youths produce social space in dialectical interplay with urban politics, advanced marginality, territorial stigmatization, and their local neighborhood. The empirical material in the study was collected through qualitative interviews with the youths. The method of interviewing, analyzing, and presenting the result is grounded in a phenomenological approach. The historical background for the essay is the politics of urban segregation that has emerged in the metropolitan areas of Sweden. The post-industrial society and advanced sectors in the economy are transforming the labor market, city landscape, and the requirements on workers. This deep transformation process has resulted in social exclusion and inequalities between different groups in the urban city. Unemployment and poverty has been concentrated to the urban periphery of the metropolitan city. The urban periphery is marginalized areas with high concentration of immigrant residents with post-colonial status. The Swedish Metropolitan Committee committed a proposal 1998 for a new urban politics in the beginning of the millennium, which main purpose was to intervene in the ongoing process of ethnic and socioeconomic segregation in the urban landscape. This political-institutional background, within the context of post-industrial society and neoliberal politics, situates the historical framework for the present study. The result in the study points out that the youths are in an insecure position in the contemporary labor market, and constantly reflect their ways of living through the dominated norms of active labor market policies. The youths participation in the labor market training program Rågsved Community Center are described as a positive experience, and they describe how they are fully recognized as individual subjects of the employees. Within the geography of urban segregation, the youths are constantly in a process of mental negotiating about how to determine the space of Rågsved. The space of the “social vulnerable” suburb Rågsved is produced by the youths in the conflict of territorial stigmatization and their feelings of belonging.  The main result from the study is that the youths lived experiences of participation in Rågsved Community Center reflects a political need for something different. They discredit the way that Arbetsförmedlingen approach them as unemployed and lack confidence in their methods. In the social space of Rågsved Community Center the youths are recognized as individuals and are also taking initiative to help their friends in Rågsved to find a way out of unemployment. These spatial practices in Rågsved produce a social space and constitute a local institution that could be an embryo for collective representation and organization in relation to urban segregation and youth unemployment in the urban periphery.

This thesis investigates how the ambiguous concept of ‘structural racism’ has attained its popular status within Swedish social science during the incipient decades of the 21st century. Drawing on the analytical framework for conceptual analyses presented by Loïc Wacquant in his book The Invention of the “Underclass” (Wacquant 2022b), this investigation examines the use and understanding of ‘structural racism’ by agents in the social fields of journalism, politics, social science, and the state. It reveals that ‘structural racism’ initially became a tool among journalists to highlight and explain the heretofore unprecedented levels of marginalization and exclusion of Sweden’s immigrant population during the mid-to late-1990s. The ambiguous nature of the concept allowed it to be widely applied to all forms of inequities displayed among immigrants, so aiding in its dissemination. Journalistic usage brought attention to ‘structural racism’ of prominent politicians, who in turn utilized the powers of the state to combat it. It is argued that the state’s validation of ‘structural racism’ led to the wide acceptance of ‘structural racism’ among social scientists seen today. Additionally, it is also argued that ‘structural racism’ arose as a “counter concept” to ‘multiculturalism’ and its constituent element of immigrant marginality as being an issue of “cultural deficiency” on the part of the immigrants, to being an issue of structural barriers on the part of society. In conclusion, the study proposes that ‘structural racism’ be replaced with more precise conceptual tools. Additionally, social scientists are urged to be watchful of external powers, such as the state, which can steer academic interests to potentially faulty concepts.

Ayant la boxe comme objet d’étude, le présent mémoire de maîtrise cherche à mettre en lumière le processus par lequel le boxeur fait l’acquisition de l’habitus pugilistique sous l’angle abordé par Loïc Wacquant, où la boxe est envisagée comme un sport individuel, mais qui s’acquiert sous un mode collectif. Dans une étude combinant observation participante, notes de terrain et entrevues, le mémoire a pour objectif de se pencher sur l’apprentissage de ce sport à travers les relations nouées dans les murs du gymnase de boxe, élaboré sous les notions d’habitus, d’esprit de corps, de sens pratique et de capital agonistique. En effet, c’est sur la base de l’entraînement collectif que se développera un « esprit de corps », sous la forme d’habitus susceptibles de gouverner le corps comme les représentations des boxeurs et, par-delà, de fonder une communauté solidaire en vertu duquel le corps « sauvage » se mue en un corps « habitué ». / The subject of this master’s thesis being boxing, it seeks to shine a light on the process through which the boxer acquires the pugilistic habitus, from Loïc Wacquant’s viewpoint. Wacquant sees boxing as an individual sport even while it is acquired collectively. The thesis aims to analyse the learning of this sports discipline in a study that combines participant observation, notes from the field and interviews, through the relationships fostered within the boxing gymnasium, developed through the notions of habitus, esprit de corps, sens pratique and capital agonistique. It is in fact based upon collective training that the “esprit de corps” is developed, in the shape of habitus likely to govern the body as well as the representation of the boxers, and further to create a united community through which the “wild body” becomes a “habituated body”.

The thesis inquires into the entanglement between the unsettlement of the Greek model of social reproduction that heavily relies on self-regulated property ownership and the emergence of vigilant violence on behalf of local property owners against undocumented migrants in the relegated neighborhood of Ksiladika in Thessaloniki’s West End. It probes the extent to which incidents of vigilant violence can be used as indicators of the structural deficiencies in the Greek housing system and property paradigm. 
 First, the thesis points to the distinct historic trajectory of the Greek housing system and property regime that is carved by a strategy of minimal involvement of state authority since the end of the Greek Civil War (1949). In contrast to the (North) European paradigm, the Greek model of social reproduction is marked by a normalized laissez-faire attitude in the domain of housing and by the hypertrophy of the family institution that emerged as a substitute system of social protection vis- a-vis the atrophy of administration. The thesis then points to a political discourse investing in the figure of the householder, sketched as the ‘normal’ Greek subject par excellence, within which self- government connects up with the imperatives of good government, in times when access to housing has become scarce and social insecurity widespread. 
 I focus my study on the neighborhood of Ksiladika in Thessaloniki, where as of late a vigilant campaign of evictions of undocumented migrant squatters on behalf of local property holders was launched. I suggest that this campaign of vigilance is not an act of ‘pure racism’ but is linked with the unsettlement of the Greek model of social reproduction, the scarcity of outright homeownership as a resource of symbolic and material value and the particularity of Ksiladika, that is at once a stigmatized neighborhood and a land of promise. 
 I rely on data collected through micro-ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation and semi-structured interviews with local property holders in Ksiladika. I use the conceptual tools of social space, field of power and symbolic power found in the work of Pierre Bourdieu and Loïc Wacquant, as heuristic tools to identify the significance of property and home ownership in shaping perceptions of local property holders towards their neighborhood and in defining their actions. I present my empirical findings clarifying the diversity of choices, expectations and actions of different actors, active in this propertied field of power in the studied area. 
 The thesis draws to an end by using the findings from Ksiladika to contribute to a discussion that revolves around Wacquant’s three basic theses on the emergence of advanced urban marginality as an effect of the neoliberal state crafting on a global scale. First, I argue that in regions where the social state was inexistent, the implementation of neoliberal policies did not happen in a way identical to what can be observed in the North and do not entail a reengineering of the state. Then I suggest that Wacquant's schematization of a Janus-like Centaur state that performs liberalism for those at the top of the social scale and punitive paternalism for those at the social bottom immured in precarity does not hold, due to the expanding zone of precarity. Eventually, I suggest that neoliberal governing is not attained merely by the penal apparatus of the neoliberal Leviathan, but via a governing through subjects who internalize the postulates of the entrepreneurial ideology mediated through homeownership in times when the resource is scarce.

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