(De)colonial Sweden in the World: an email conversation

This chapter reflects on the need for a decolonial turn in Sweden’s foreign policy. The growing ecological emergencies that we are faced with call on us to recognise and address quite profound global inequities, many of which are rooted in histories of European colonialism. In a sprawling conversation about the coloniality of the global economy and Sweden’s role in it, the chapter addresses such topics as what the empirical studies of ecological unequal exchange (EUE) reveal about the structure of the global economy, racial and gendered stereotypes in describing labour conditions in value chains from the Global South to the North, the extent to which the Swedish economy and economic growth has benefitted from unequal economic relations to the Global South and why it matters, public awareness of the coloniality of Sweden’s international relations, and how Sweden can become decolonial in its politics of development and international affairs.