The chapter sets out from a discussion of a so-called ‘Swedish exceptionalism’ (Schierup and Ålund, 2011) in terms of a changing character of power and governance. From there we take a step back to a principled discussion of ‘racial capitalism’; a concept that in Black Marxism Cedric Robinson (2000) picked up from the South African debate on apartheid in the 1970s (e.g. Wolpe, 1972; Alexander, 1979; Nkosi, 1973). This, we argue, was a debate with potential for reaching an understanding of what we call the ‘neo-apartheid city’ related to today’s Swedish social and political-economic urban reality. Proceeding from there we record segregation, racial stigmatisation, predatory housing policies and precarious labour, conditioning livelihoods in Sweden’s most disadvantaged urban neighbourhoods. We reflect on the positionality and voices of the subaltern, confronted by epistemic violence under conditions of an expropriative racial capitalism, reproduced by political discourse and institutional practice. We offer an approach to subaltern struggles centred on a local case, focusing on movements contending the financialization of housing and the precarization of labour.

The chapter starts by revisiting visionary Swedish political reforms of the 1970s phrasing social, cultural, and political rights of migrants and ethnic minorities in terms of citizenship on equal terms, and it discusses discrepancies between vision and political practice. This pertains to an incremental erosion of the Swedish welfare state, connected with the dominance of commodifying neoliberal politics. The authors bring out how this development has progressed through several stages of critical cognizance and reform; yet, in consequence, come to frame increasing austerity of migration, social and labour market policies, incremental social inequality, accompanied by securitisation and racialised stigmatisation of migrants and post-migrants. The conflucing part of the chapter explores how this transformation of the so-called “Swedish model” of an inclusive welfare state , has, in turn, provoked the rise of protest movements focusing issues of social justice . These movements, initiated by a post-migrant generation in Sweden’s disadvantaged suburban neighbourhoods, have branched both translocally and internationally. It is a development that has become a shared experience across the European Union . It has its roots in systematic discrimination and stigmatisation of migrants and racialised others, reflected, as indicated, in an inflamed debate on multiculturalism across Europe. But it provides, as well, arguments for how multiculturalism could be “decolonised” as a resource for transversal conviviality.

The article discusses empirical evidence and theoretical perspectives on structurally andspatially ingrained racial capitalism, dispossession, and precarisation in what is identified as‘neo-apartheid’ Sweden. Theoretically, the argument rests on a critical re-engagement of thenotions of ‘racial capitalism’ and ‘neo-apartheid’ in contemporary critical research, inspired,historically, by rich research on racial capitalism in South Africa under apartheid. The argumentis illustrated, empirically, by a scrutiny of processes of segregation, racial stigmatisation, and‘the return of primitive accumulation’ reflected in predatory housing policies and superexploitationof labour, conditioning livelihoods and opportunities of subaltern Others indisadvantaged urban neighbourhoods. Through a local case in the region of Järvafältet inmetropolitan Stockholm, the paper addresses subaltern struggles contesting these realities ofracial capitalism in a society that used to be an international showpiece of social equality andinclusive diversity policy.

Kritisk blick på diskriminering av migranter och etniska minoriteter i en motsägelsefull svensk utveckling. Kapitlet beskriver hur tillämpningen av 1970talets mål för svensk reformpolitik avseende migration och integration i en mångkulturell och välfärdsstatlig ande komt att konfronteras med växande motsättningar mellan ideologi och politisk-institutionella praktiker. Det som en gång framstod som ett framsynt inkluderande välfärdssamhälle står idag vid ett vägskäl, mer avgörande och ödesdigert än någonsin  där kolonialiteten som ideologi, diskurs och institutionell praktik bekräftar sin närvaro i nutiden. Samtidigt pekar detta på nödvändigheten att rikta blicken mot nya horisonter och i samma veva även ta vara på det förflutnas och nutidens positiva erfarenheter.

The chapter discusses shifting trends in global migration and the precarization oflabour on the background of processes of commodification and recommodification, against a theory of a neoliberal ‘regulatory state’. It explores aspects of the other side of thi sproblem in terms of perspectives for, to paraphrase Polanyi (2001 [1944]), a countermovementof, for, or with the migrant precariat. Reviewing processes leading up to the confirmation of the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM 2018 ) and the subsequent  UN International Migration Review Forum, the authors ask what space there is for migrant rights movements in the global governance of migration and discuss the handling of the discursive emblemof ‘human rights’ in the context.

This chapter delineates the spaces, positions, strategies, and alliance-making of a composite movement in transnational civil society, which has developed in parallel with, and in intersection with an emerging global governance regime on migration supported by the United Nations, intergovernmental forums, and international organisations. With reference to an overall critical understanding of the political economy of international migration, the chapter charts the changing conditionality of a dominant ideoscape of ‘participatory governance.’ This is complemented by an examination of ideopolitical positions and possibilities for building counterhegemonic spaces through a global social movement, critically confronting a systemic hegemony of ‘managed migration.’

This chapter discusses trends in global migration on the background of processesof commodification and recommodification and the rise of a neoliberal «regulatory state».It explores perspectives for a contemporary countermovement of, for, or with a global «mi-grant precariat». Through a review of current research advances relating to the ideopoliticalprocesses leading up to the confirmation of the Global Compact for Migration, and thesubsequent International Migration Review Forum, the authors ask what space there is forcivil society in the global governance on migration? Therefore it explored potentials andpitfalls of the memento of «human rights» related to the claims of civil society.

Se analizan tendencias de la migración global en contextos de procesos de mercan-tilización y de auge de un «Estado regulador» neoliberal. Asimismo, se analizan perspectivasreferentes a un contramovimiento contemporáneo de, para o con una «precariedad migrante»mundial. Con fundamento en una evaluación de los avances actuales de la investigación acer-ca de los procesos ideopolíticos que condujeron a la confirmación del Pacto Mundial para unaMigración Segura, Ordenada y Regular (gcm), y al posterior Foro Internacional de Revisiónde la Migración (imrf, por sus siglas en inglés), los autores formulan una pregunta central:¿dentro de la gobernanza mundial de la migración qué lugar ocupa la sociedad civil? En esesentido, se exploran las posibilidades y los tropiezos de la compilación de los «derechos huma-nos» con relación a las demandas de la sociedad civil.