Managing urban unrest: problematising juvenile delinquency in multi-ethnic Sweden

The focus of this article is representations of unrest among youth in Swedish multi-ethnic areas. Using interviews with informants from the social services, police, schools and voluntary organisations involved in work on the social inclusion of youth in one multi-ethnic area in Sweden, we analyse discourses of the causes of urban unrest and the means to solve these. With an analytical framework on governing as problematising activities as the point of departure, the analysis indicates a strong focus on the suburb and migrant parents among the informants as a problem and as in need of normalisation to Swedish core values. Such conceptualisations of problems and solutions are quite symptomatic of ongoing changes of welfare policy, where the main responsibility for the welfare of citizens is put on the individuals themselves, rather than on the collective and the state.