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Paper short abstract:

This paper explores Sweden's early COVID-19 anti-bordering regime and the onset of a new dynamic that not only exacerbated existing borders but set the path towards an increasingly hierarchical social order, and spelling peril to all aspects of life.

Paper long abstract:

An outlier among global efforts to control the Corona virus, the Swedish government's early no-lockdown logic was considered successful despite exceptionally high deathrates. Now reports and literatures identify multiple failures, however the relationship between the seemingly contradictory dynamics that emerged in relation to the rejection of bordering remain unexplored. This paper explores the relationship between Sweden's pandemic no-border policy during the first wave of the pandemic vis-à-vis its biopolitical historical context, folkhemmet (the People's Home), a nationbuilding project associated with Swedish social democracy. Aided by Brian Massumi's concept ontopower, I draw attention to that while the country's early COVID-19 approach sprung from its biopolitical history, this frame is inadequate for fully grasping the situation. I argue that whereas biopolitical techniques were deployed to manage the population during the early stage of the pandemic, ontopowers by-passed enhancing life, and re-activating folkhemmet's exclusionary mechanisms, they charged the population with pre-empting and eliminating not-yet-existing future threats. I conclude that although Sweden's response to COVID-19 ensured freedom of movement, it signalled the arrival of new exclusionary borders and a form of violence that emerged within the population, rather than against democratic forms of government. While a unique case, it contributes to debates on rights and bordering experiences.