ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the nature of fear of crime by placing it in a broader context using Swedish rural areas as a case study. It focuses on particular groups in Swedish rural areas: the farmers, the Sami young adults and local residents in relation to temporary newcomers, the 'berry pickers'. The chapter also discusses how fear and anxieties take shape by looking at particular groups. Anxieties are fed by multi-scale factors, which make fear a difficult issue to be tackled as a policing matter. However, fear of crime and other overall anxieties are rarely considered as priority issues by these local crime prevention councils. Equally important is to better understand the mechanisms linking everyday practices with othering and discrimination as generators of fears and other anxieties. The inflow of berry pickers is characterised by a number of fears. Berry pickers have long been associated with images of crime and problems of social order in the Swedish media.
