Från förfall till entreprenörskap : Rinkebyprojektet och Familjebostäders styrning av stadsdelen 1985–1995

Sammanfattning: This thesis investigates the development of entrepreneurialism in the the Stockholm-based municipal housing company AB Familjebostäder’s management of the Rinkeby neighbourhood between 1985 and 1995; chiefly through the rebuilding project called the Rinkeby Project. The thesis shows that Familjebostäder’s management and the Rinkeby Project displayed significant, albeit partial, developments of entrepreneurialism in the period. Crucially, entrepreneurialism was intimately intertwined with a discourse on urban decline, depicting Rinkeby as a neighbourhood marked by decay, and its populations as dangerous and unpredictable racialized Others. Using a discourse analysis informed by theories of spatial dynamics - that is theories of entrepreneurialism and discourse on urban decline - the thesis shows that the discourse on urban decline rationalized and legitimized entrepreneurialism. Contrary to the current scholarly conception, the thesis argues that entrepreneurialism in Stockholm has not been limited in space to the inner city, or in time to the period after the reforms in housing policies of the 1990’s.