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Anarkrew: an Anti-Archives Göteborg Carnival Spirit on Record

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Anarkrew: an Anti-Archives Göteborg Carnival Spirit on Record Claire Tancons AnarKrew: An Anti-Archives Göteborg Carnival Spirit on Record Sonia Boyce (UK, 1962) Andreas Gedin (Sweden, 1958) Nicoline van Harskamp (the Netherlands, 1975) Johan Heintz (Sweden, 1953) Jean-Louis Huhta (Sweden, 1965) Deimantas Narkevičius (Lithuania, 1964) New Beauty Council & MYCKET (Sweden, est. 2008/2011) Roberto Peyre (Sweden, 1971) Psychic Warfare (Sweden, est. 2010) Karol Radziszewski (Poland, 1980) Per Zennström & Lennart Sjöberg (Sweden, 1961/1961) 108 109 AnarKrew: An Anti-Archives Stockholm is burning. Sweden is on fire. The ethnic, economic, and religious backgrounds and Masthugget neighborhoods and continued Göteborg Carnival Spirit on Record Swedish model is under scrutiny, if not in might be led by a common instinct to scrape with the resettlement of its working class popu- By Claire Tancons jeopardy. So read newspapers hot off the press away at the so-called Swedish model? lation, later followed by immigrant populations, in the days of the unrest that allegedly began in the Angered suburb. 2 As the Million Dwellings with the police killing of an elderly immigrant What does the Swedish model look like from Program areas are undergoing gentrification, in the Stockholm suburb of Husby on Sunday, Göteborg in the first place? Göteborg, like further population displacements await even May 19, 2013. In scenes reminiscent of similar other Swedish cities, was marked by post- as the city center expands, always, alas, at the occurrences across Europe over the last decade, war efforts to contain the discontents of the expense of Swedish nationals of immigrant most iconic among them the 2005 Paris Fall and industrial decline and incipient migratory waves, background not recognized as part of model the 2011 London Summer, groups of first gener- initially from impoverished or politically unstable national construction schemes. ation Swedish-born immigrants were reported neighboring European countries (Eastern and to set the suburbs of Sweden’s capital city Southern Europe in steady flows since the ablaze. Whether in Husby, Clichy (Paris suburb) 1960s), later from global warfare zones (Latin Party thieves and urban incendiaries or Hackney (London borough), the death of American political refugees in the 1970s and Göteborg’s city center was hardly the place immigrants at the hands of the police triggered Middle Eastern and East African asylum seekers where these Swedish populations of diverse civil unrest usually referred to as urban riots. 1 in the 1990s), and as a result of the deregulated backgrounds, so close yet so far (a couple labor market (Southeast Asian berry pickers for of tramway stops away), could meet. Yet, in In Göteborg in June 2001, protests against the the last decade). In a historical narrative that has the mid-1980s an event of unprecedented EU and EU-US summits ended rather than be- become customary, the latter populations came dimensions (but not without antecedent or gan with the shooting, in the back, of a 19-year- in to escape the ripple effects of geopolitical untraceable genealogy) brought them together. old Swedish national, Hannes Westberg, by the turmoil or were brought in to replace the former The circumstances under which I came to Swedish riot police, during a Reclaim the Street to perform work that had become undesirable, discover the existence of this event, from which party on Vasaplatsen. The young anti-corporate could be compensated less, or simply needed AnarKrew: An Anti-Archives originates, bear globalization activist was not of immigrant more labor than the national work force could narrating as they epitomize the demise of a background—other than the migratory path his handle. Whether the native jobless dockers model based upon privilege for the majority forebears likely followed like most populations of old or the laid-off immigrant Volvo factory native-born Swedes, segregation for the mi- during millennia of human migration. What then, workers of new, they where simultaneously nority immigrants to Sweden (a large one at an beyond the youth factor, might ally Swedish driven away from, or never allowed into central estimated 15% of the population) and the myth nationals of Swedish and immigrant descent in housing, and relocated, or settled on the of multiculturalism for all. Not unsurprisingly, the country’s cities and suburbs during these outskirts of the city. The Million Dwellings the story of my discovery begins with individ- related, though distinct, manifestations of Program (1965–1974) has become emblematic uals who have a doubly distinct background, opposition against the state and its police force? of a politics that, in Göteborg, began with the through their activities and their ancestry, and a What if the youth despite difference in class, destruction of the inner city working class Haga connection with this event. When they still lived 1 At the time of writing this paper, the name of the immigrant sparked the London unrest, and with that of 15-year-old stock by one million new dwellings. The outcome of who was killed, the circumstances of his death, and the Bouna Traoré and 17-year-old Zyed Benna, of African and housing policies aimed at solving the ever-growing over- relationship between his death and the unrest hadn’t been North African descent respectively, who died by electrocu- crowding problem due to the decay of older housing on fully established. Elderly (69), of Portuguese descent, and tion while being chased by the police in a Parisian suburb, the one hand and population migration on the other hand, long established in Sweden (thirty years), the profile of this sparking the unrest there. the program, though it did exceed its initial numerical goal Swedish citizen contrasts with that of Mark Duggan, the of a million new dwellings, is by now widely recognized as 29-year-old black Briton—not exactly an immigrant, but 2 The Million Dwellings Program is the name of the near having polarized the populations of Sweden’s major cities rather the descendant of Afro-Caribbean former British co- decade-long housing program carried out by the Swedish and contributed to record levels of segregation. lonial subjects—whose killing by the police at a traffic stop Social Democratic party to increase Sweden’s housing 110 111 in Göteborg (they moved to Stockholm in the Hannes Westberg, as well as GIBCA producer with each other, that of freak show sets in when of mediation with youth organizations such as early 1990s) visual artist and DJ Roberto Peyre Sarah Hansson from Göteborg and Andreas analyzing the relationship between residents in Pantrarna (The Panthers). 5 and DJ Jean-Louis Huhta, the former of Latin Gedin, Roberto Peyre, Jean-Louis Huhta, Annika and visitors to Hammarkullen during the carnival. Following the Husby Committee’s analysis American descent and the latter of Caribbean Enqvist of the New Beauty Council and Karl The performance of the gaze from the Göteborg of Sweden’s contemporary social circum- descent, both current “members” of the Sjölin of Psychic Warfare, provided the inaugural onlooker onto the Hammarkullen spectacle in- stances, I suggest that Göteborg epitomizes AnarKrew, participated in the Göteborg Carnival meeting and original members of the AnarKrew. 3 scribes the phenomenon of exclusion within this “socially segregated urban environments (1982–1993). It left such a profound mark on segregated landscape even as it tries to ascribe where a deep social inequality has taken on a Roberto, then a teenager experimenting with Carnival in Göteborg—until I met Roberto and to it the rhetoric of diversity in the space of spatial expression in the form of a divided city.” recreational drugs, that he credits the carnival Jean-Louis and spoke with Johan—meant a folk the Hammarkullen Carnival within which urban I further advance that the carnival phenom- with making him into an artist. Jean-Louis, festival taking place in Hammarkullen, a section Afro-Swedes and downtown hipsters try to mix enon in Göteborg acts as a further revealing already a practicing DJ, has vivid memories of of the Angered housing project. When I went with Somali teenagers and Turkish families as I factor of the city’s condition. In an earlier and his sets for the carnival on Götaplatsen. Roberto to the Hammarkullen Carnival (1974– ) in the witnessed on May 25, 2012. unprecedented sociological survey of Göteborg and Jean-Louis then led me to the carnival’s spring of 2012, I began considering, politically called (Re)-searching Gothenburg featuring founder, former drummer, DJ, events organizer, incorrect though it may be, replacing the notion The relationship between the unrest in the Husby Committee members Catharina Thörn, and social worker Johan Heintz. A quick look at of folk festival with that of freak show, so strong suburbs of France, the UK, and Sweden was Håkan Thörn, and Ove Sernhede among others the neatly organized yearly press clippings from was the feeling of alienation I was immediately swiftly established by a group of British and published by Glänta Produktion in 2010, the folder Johan brought to our first meeting at immersed in the minute I stepped off the tram. and Swedish academics from such fields as neither the Hammarkullen nor the Göteborg Röda Sten, the headquarters of the Göteborg It emerged not so much from being faced with sociology, urban studies, and cultural studies Carnivals were taken into consideration. Essays International Biennial of Contemporary Art a poster series showing the transformation of including Paul Gilroy (who had already been focusing on a variety of aspects, including one (GIBCA), on December 3, 2012, was enough for a young, assumedly Caucasian, woman into a involved in debates about the 2011 London specifically about the so-called “Göteborg me to know that there was something of mo- carnival creature of indeterminate ethnicity by unrests) and Les Blank from the University of events” of 2001 and about other civil disobe- mentous significance there.
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