‘A beggar’s banquet of unsavoury things’: Review of Erik Hansson’s The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Response to the Roma Destitute

Abstract

A book review essay is provided, centring on Erik Hansson’s 2023 book The Begging Question: Sweden’s Social Response to the Roma Destitute. Noting precedents of geographers critiquing the ‘Swedish model’ of an equality-based, anti-racist ‘welfare state’, the review encapsulates – and in places queries – key moves taken across the two main parts of the book. Special attention is paid to the psychoanalytic perspectives adopted in part one to dovetail with the political-economic critique offered in part two, acknowledging the gains and challenges in splicing together theories of ‘abjection’ with theories of ‘the Other’. Hansson’s final proposals for a new stance on ‘equality’, different from the fantasy of Sweden’s originary ‘exceptional equality’, are also inspected.