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Anna Lundberg.

Anna Lundberg

Head of department

Anna Lundberg.

“They Stopped the Lives of Others”: Stateless Palestinians Facing Bureaucratic Violence in Sweden

"De stoppade andras liv": Statslösa palestinier som utsätts för byråkratiskt våld i Sverige

Author

  • Anna Lundberg

Summary, in English

Official calls for “failed” asylum seekers to leave Sweden ignore the difficulties and harms befalling stateless people who cannot return to previous countries of residence because they lack citizenship. Stateless people are caught in limbo, a position where they have no prospects of return or of attaining a residence permit in a predictable future. To learn the underlying logics and consequences of such limbo and how it is (re)produced in the Swedish migration bureaucracy, this article investigates three data sets: interviews with seven stateless Palestinians, the Swedish Migration Agency’s internal guidelines for the return process, and the same agency’s country reports on stateless people’s situation in the assigned deportation countries. Inspired by Hannah Arendt’s reflections on statelessness and modern bureaucratized societies, the article reveals that there are great challenges to access rights for stateless persons and in holding anyone accountable for decisions adopted by Swedish migration authorities. Moreover, the article shows how limbo induces two interconnected and multilevel technologies in migration authorities: ignorance and repressive consent. As communicating vessels, these technologies form a bureaucratic violence. While diminishing migrants’ access to safety and a dignified life, violence is sustained by legislative changes and insidiously hidden from public debate.

Department/s

  • Department of Sociology of Law
  • LU Profile Area: Human rights

Publishing year

2023-12-11

Language

English

Pages

1-16

Publication/Series

Refuge - Canada's Journal on Refugees

Volume

39

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

York University Libraries

Topic

  • Law and Society

Status

Published

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1920-7336