Not taking ‘no’ for an answer: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Responses to the Roma Destitute

Abstract

Erik Hansson’s book is first described in general terms. The commentary then focuses on three salient aspects: the relentlessly consistent performative character of the narrative; the challenging and innovative combination of historical-materialist, anti-racist and psychoanalytic theoretical frameworks; and finally, the larger symbolic significance both of the issue of begging in 21st century globalized capitalism and of mainstream Swedish political culture’s profoundly damning abdication of the kind of humane social policy for which it had previously been known.