ABSTRACT
This chapter is centred on a hope-draining aspect of the Swedish state’s exploitation of people’s hope. The focus is on how bureaucratic actors within the asylum system use both standardised and cruel bureaucratic acts and logic that contribute to and derive from an institutionalised racism and exclusion process that fragilises people’s hope. This chapter also applies a critical perspective on theories arguing that bureaucrats are non-cruel people doing jobs with negative consequences. While this can often be the case, the chapter demonstrates how bureaucratic officers in the Swedish asylum system can indeed engage in acts of deliberate cruelty towards people seeking asylum.
