Endangered Swedish Values: Immigration, Gender Equality, and “Migrants’ Sexual Violence”

Abstract

This chapter examines the relation between welfare and culture by examining Swedish debates about sexual violence, immigration, and gender equality in the wake of reports about large-scale sexual harassment in Cologne on New Years’ Eve 2015 and at a summer festival in Stockholm. Looking at newspaper representations on the one hand, and at party leaders’ speeches on the other, the chapter shows how the trope of “migrants’ sexual violence” contributed to a narrative portraying “Swedish values” of gender equality as endangered by immigration. I argue that the circulation of the “migrants’ sexual violence” trope constituted a bordering practice, implicitly or explicitly confirming the necessity of the stricter border regime introduced in November 2015. The idea of “endangered gender equality” was part of a securitization process where immigration was portrayed as an existential threat to the Swedish welfare model, which effectively closed off the possibilities to argue for a return to previous asylum policies.