“Is a person’s destitution a result of individual or societal failure?” 

- Art has a crucial role at SSE, leading us to reflect empathetically on the global challenges of contemporary times. A Place in Europe circles around scarcity, despair, belonging and migration and I´m glad that both our students and the pedestrians on Sveavägen gets a chance to experience and ponder it. It raises questions some of our researchers try to answer, says Lars Strannegård, President of Stockholm School of Economics.

To continue the discussion, SSE is arranging a seminar about wealth inequality and the role of art in democracy on January 22, 2020. 16 – 17.30 in room Ragnar. The artists of A Place in Europe and SSE researcher Jesper Roine will be in conversation with Stefan Jonsson, a professor of ethnicity from Linköping University. Open for all.

Cecilia Parsberg's introduction

What does a passerby see? In front of Stockholm School of Economics mighty portal, designed by Ivar Tengbom (1920) stands a house in golden brass. But it has overturned. The underside shows a film, the passerby comes closer. It is a film of a person's existence that overturns. Thomas speaks to us, not only for himself, he is also a spokesperson for some fifty people whose sleeping places are evicted while we are watching. People from within and outside Europe who today move within EU's borders through the free movement and look for jobs, live here temporary in this place in central Stockholm. A state of exception seems to be in effect at this place. Thomas is not an EU citizen because only the citizens of the member states can obtain the legal status. He is called "Third-country Citizen". It is the term that is most widely accepted. It is used both legally and in EU jargon. He has the legal right to stay in Europe and use the free movement. He has a Swedish number and may work legally in Sweden.[1]

There were about ten sections under the loading dock, four of them were used as sleeping places, Thomas tells that ”for three years this has been my home” and points at one of the sections. Others slept in huts, shelters and caravans. Why does these people not have a place in society? in the community, in the law and in the economic structure? The notion Home encompasses all these aspects.

Injustice is revealed, how can justice be administered?, as Thomas asks. Introduce me to law and justice, he says. Justice and rights also have to do with recognition in different ways – both to speak and to be listened to, and to be taken seriously. In Thomas's case, he does not find justice in being evicted from a place where he thinks he is not disturbing anyone. He has had enough, he sees the camera and he walks to us and starts talking, he talks through the lens as if it is a window possible to open. Is it? He gives us an assignment to mediate his request and image further. He wants to be treated equally, like any other human being in society, but this society does not approve of Thomas and his fellows. That's why he demands his right as a human being - introduce me to a court. Then I'll speak for myself. I haven't done anything wrong, I'm just trying to live. He is poor. He believes in democracy. In equal rights. After the film the question arise: what is not working? Who can be held accountable? It is an open and broad question. Not to give blame but to ask for investigative thinking.

–      The system, the political, the economic system, is one answer. [2]

Society is organized in systems and systems are made by people. Systems should not create people, systems should form a whole with parts that in a functional way are spaces for people to create their existence. And the principles on which the systems are based are democratic values and respect for human rights.

At this place there are workers, they change into work clothes here and walk to the new Biomass plant hundred meters away. There is a border at this place, not like a concrete wall even though it feels like it, it does not cut through the landscape, it cuts between people; it is invisible, but it is there, between those who have work and those who have not. We wanted to make this invisible border visible. Belonging is one of man's fundamental needs. To belong to a community. One may call this wall a border space of non-belonging. Society is structured by laws to provide navigable paths for individuals, based on negotiated common concerns. But whose law is it? or to put it another way, for whom is the law?

Thomas is asking for justice. Justice at one level can lead to injustice at another level in different systems, economic and political. Justice between states can lead to unfair treatment of individuals; justice between EU member states can lead to unfair treatment of migrants/refugees trying to enter Europe. A sustainable society means, among other things, that everyone can have an honest chance to develop their abilities in the present as well as in the future in a fair way. And justice is thus about the distribution of resources and assets. A human right is not the same as a civil right, says philosopher Hannah Arendt. Today, some people seem to lack the "right to have rights". The question then is whether they are excluded from humanity itself, ie. treated inhumanly. How should we think about this, how should we act? Justice has to do with ethics, with reciprocity. Where there are people in a social environment, there is also ethics.

Cecilia

[1] According to Peo Hansen, Professor Institute for Research on Migration, Ethnicity and Society, REMESO[1]

[2] System: composite, carefully prepared whole eg. tax system, education system, alarm system, computer system. Coherent whole with parts that stand in certain relationships to each other and that work according to certain principles.