The Power of Vulnerability: A Case Study of Direct Action within the Swedish Extra-Parliamentary Left

This article, based on a case study of direct action within the Swedish extra-parliamentary left, offers an investigation of political resistance as an embodied activity heavily associated with bodily vulnerability. In doing so, the article challenges the description of the extra-parliamentary left as a ‘violent extremist environment,’ offered by Swedish state authorities. The case study draws upon ethnographic field work, carried out through a combination of focus groups and in-depth interviews with activists from a range of groups within the Swedish extra-parliamentary left. The activists’ embodied experiences of participating in direct action are analysed through the theories of Barbara Sutton, Sara Ahmed, and Judith Butler. This analysis suggests that putting one’s own body at risk, as the activists do when making themselves targets of state-sanctioned police violence, strengthens the argument of the activists, their incentives to further resistance, as well as the relationships within the movement. The community building and care practices called upon by this exposure to police violence are suggested to be among the most dangerous features of the extra-parliamentary left.