The chief aims of the Swedish municipality-based Facebook network SEM, ‘Solidarity with EU migrants’ [Solidaritet med EU migranter!] are
to fight for better conditions and humane treatment of migrants primarily from Romania, who came to Sweden in hope of finding work and the ability to provide for their families. The site is to transmit relevant news, actions, organise money collections, political actions and alike.
Those volunteers active in the group believe that ‘righteousness and solidarity’ should apply, even those who are in the grip of European Union bureaucracy.1 Using theories of civil movements in the IT age, I elaborate on how the activists on the site respond to the challenges of the criminalisation of vulnerable European Union citizens, by balancing their engagement between the dimensions of ‘pragmatic voluntarism’ versus ‘subversive humanitarianism’. Furthermore, I explore how the site counteracts hegemonic master narratives on Roma as both idle and victims, who need to be saved from begging, by providing alternative narratives of subjectivities and identities to the Roma men and women they work with and for, seeing them as agents struggling to improve the lives of their families.
AndrewsM (2007) Shaping History: Narratives of Political Change.
Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
3.
AsztalosMorell I (2015) Self-sacrificing motherhood: Rhetoric and agency in the era of collectivization in two parallel life-histories. In: IlicM andLeinardD (eds) The Soviet past in the Post-Soviet Present.
London:
Routledge, pp. 179–198.
4.
AsztalosMorell I (2018 forthcoming) The securitization of asylum-seeking in Sweden after 2015 in light of experiences of asylum-seeking adolescent girls with roots in Afghanistan. In: FeischmidtMPriesL andCantatC (eds) Refugee Protection and Civil Society in Europe.
London:Palgrave Macmillan.
5.
BambergM (2004)
Form and functions of ‘Slut Bashing’ in male identity constructions in 15-year-olds. Human Development47: 333–353.
6.
BambergM andAndrewsM (eds) (2004) Considering Counter-Narratives, Narrating, Resisting, Making Sense.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia, PA:
John Benjamins Publishing company.
7.
BarkerV (2017)
Nordic vagabonds: The Roma and the logic of benevolent violence in the Swedish welfare state. European Journal of Criminology14(1): 120–139.
8.
BeltránC (2009)
Going public: Hannah Arendt, immigrant action, andthe space of appearance. Political Theory37(5): 595–622.
BoreviK (2012) Sweden: The flagship of multiculturalism. In: BrochmannG andHagelundA (eds) Immigration Policy and the Scandinavian Welfare State 1945–2010.
London:
Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 25–96.
11.
BoreviK (2014)
Multiculturalism and welfare state integration: Swedish model path dependency. Identities, Global Studies in Culture and Power21(6): 708–723.
CantatC (2015) Contesting Europeanism: Discourses and practices of pro-migrant organisations in the European Union. PhD Thesis, School of Law & Social Sciences, University of East London, London.
14.
Castells M (2001) The InternetGalaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
15.
CastellsM (2003) The Internet Galaxy: Reflections on the Internet, Business and Society.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
CorndahlK andKarlssonLE (2015)
Roma empowerment and social inclusion through work-integrated learning. Sage Journals5(1): 1–10.
18.
CRD (Civil Rights Defenders) (2015) Civil Rights Defenders, December, 2015, Vulnerable Union Citizens in Sweden: The State’s Obligations under Swedish Law, EU Law and International Human Rights Law.
Stockholm:
CRD.
CunninghamT (2010)
Strategic communication in the new media sphere. JFQ59(4): 110–114.
21.
DavisMF andRyanN (2017)
Inconvenient human rights: Water and sanitation in Sweden’s informal Roma settlements. Health and Human Rights Journal19(2): 1–12.
22.
Delgado R (1995) Legal storytelling: Storytelling for oppositionists and others: A Plea for narrative. In: Delgado R (Ed.) Critical race theory: The cutting edge. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, pp. 64–74.
23.
DimitrovR (2006) Poor resources, rich communication: Public relation strategies by four refugee advocacy organisations in Australia. In: Paper presented at the Australia and New Zealand third sector research conference, Adelaide, Australia, 26–28 November 2006.
24.
Directive (2004) Directive 2004/38/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the right of citizens of the Union and their family members to move and reside freely within the territory of the Member States. Available at: www.eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2004:158:0077:0123:en:PDF (accessed 1 March 2018).
25.
DjuveABHorgen FribergJTyldumGet al. (2015) When Poverty Meets Affluence: Migrants from Romania on the Streets of the Scandinavian Capitals.
Oslo:
Fafo.
ERRC (2013) Written comments by the European Roma Rights Centre for consideration by the European Commission on the transposition and application of the race directive and on the legal issues relevant to Roma Integration, France. Available at: www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/france-red-writtencomments-5-april-2013.pdf (accessed 26 February 2018).
28.
EU (European Commission Directorate General for Employment and Social Affairs Unit D3) (2004) The Situation of Roma in an Enlarged European Union.
Luxembourg:
Office for Official Publications of the European Communities
29.
Fairclough N (1995) Critical Discourse Analysis. The Critical study of language. London: Longman.
30.
Fivush R (2018) Remembering and reminiscing: How individual lives are constructed in family narratives. Memory Studies 1(1): 49–58.
FranciaG (2016) Social representations of children in the Swedish Police Register of Romani People. In: Paper presented at the 2016 Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society. Stockholm: Södertörn University.
33.
Freedman (2011)
The Réseau Education Sans Frontières: Reframing the campaign against the deportation of migrants. Citizenship Studies15(5): 613–626.
34.
GiugniM andPassyF (2001)
Social networks and individual perceptions: Explaining differential participation in social movements. Sociological Forum16(1): 123–153.
35.
HabulK andNygrenS (2015) Aktivister och boende protesterar mot avhysningen. Aftonbladet, 1 November 2015. Available at: www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/article21686113.ab (accessed 2 March 2018).
HammarbergT (2016) Vi måste lösa frågan om tiggarnas övernattningar. SVT, 14 April 2016.
38.
Hansson E (2015) The threat against the Swedish social contract - How panhandling in Stockholm activates the personal moral responsibility. Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift 92(3): 343–350.
Kaufman E (2015) Punish and Expel: Border Control, Nationalism, and the New Purpose of the Prison. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
48.
Kommittén för ekonomiska, sociala och kulturella rättigheter, avslutande anmärkningar om Sveriges sjätte periodiska rapport, E/C.12/SWE/CO/6, para. 20, 2016.
LauristinM (2004) Lives and ideologies: A sociologist’s view on the life stories of two female tractor-drivers. In: KirssTKoresaarE andLauristinM (eds) She Who Remembers Survives, Interpreting Estonian Women’s Post-Soviet Life Stories.
Tartu:
Tartu University Press, pp. 178–202.
MäkinenV (2013)
Are there fundamental rights for Roma beggars in Europe?Political Theology14(2): 201–218.
55.
Månsson Bentgsson J (2015) Skånes enda öppna härbärge för utsatta EU-medborgare. Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift 92(3): 380–381.
56.
MarchartO (2007) Post Foundational Political Thought: Political Difference in Nancy, Lefort, Badiou and Laclau.
Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
57.
Markovits M and Bjarke T (2015) Råd- och stödcentret Crossroads för EU-migranter: Uppkomst, metod och utveckling. Socialmedicinsk Tidskrift 92(3): 372–379.
58.
MesicN andWoolfsonC (2015)
Roma berry pickers in Sweden: Economic crisis and new contingents of the austeriat. Transfer21(1): 37–50.
59.
NordlingVSagerM andSödermanE (2017)
From citizenship to mobile commons: Reflections on the local struggles of undocumented migrants in the city of Malmö, Sweden. Citizenship Studies21(6): 710–726.
RuistJ (2014) The Fiscal Consequences of Unrestricted Immigration from Romania and Bulgaria, Working Papers in Economics.
Gothenburg:
The University of Gothenburg, p. 584.
65.
SchierupCUHansenP andCastlesS (2006) Migration, Citizenship, and the European Welfare State, a European Dilemma.
Oxford:
Oxford University Press.
SimonsG (2016) Euromaidan and the geopolitical struggle for influence on Ukraine via New Media. In: SuslovM andBassinM (eds) Eurasia 2.0, Russian Geopolitics in the Age of New Media.
Lanham:
Lexington Books, pp. 275–294.
Solidaritet Malmö (2016) Nätverket Solidaritet med EU-Migranters Blogg, Malmö-modellen: polisterror. Available at: www.solidaritetmalmo.wordpress.com/ (accessed 2 March 2018).
TEU (Treaty on European Union) (1992) Article 3(2).
79.
TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) (1957) Articles 20–21.
80.
ValfridssonM (2016) Combating Vulnerability and Begging – No One Should Have to Beg.
Stockholm:
SOU, p. 6.
81.
VandevoordtR andVerschraegenG (2018 forthcoming) Between subversive and professional humanitarisanism. In: FeischmidtMPriesL andCantatC (eds) Refugee Protection and Civil Society in Europe.
London:Palgrave Macmillan.
