From the website of Encylopedia Britannica, gleaned by K.- 99 11 07 in malicious delight. (Article does no longer appear to be available)
THE SWEDISH WAY OF LAUNDERING
By Ian Taylor
Ian Taylor is Professor of Sociology at the University of Salford in Greater Manchester. This article arises out of his tenure of a visiting professorship in criminology at the University of Stockholm.
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The homogeneity of Swedish culture and the satisfactions which that homogeneity, alongside the securities of welfare state provision, produces for citizens ….has been evidence of the kind of social solidarity produced by a full-blown `social democracy'--unavailable in competitive free market societies.…
I was staying in Stockholm (in rented accommodation) for a period of nearly three weeks, and, after a few days, I had some laundering to do. But I soon discovered that Stockholm, a city of over one million inhabitants, has only two launderettes, both some distance from where I was staying. I then was able to ascertain that visitors to Sweden are in effect expected to follow the local example and make use of the laundry rooms which are provided, usually in the basement, in most blocks of flats or other residential buildings. Special keys to these laundry facilities are routinely provided in rented accommodation, and, locating mine, I duly made my way one evening to the laundry room in my building. The first impression, as with so many things Swedish, was of a clean, modern space, very well-equipped with four gleaming automatic washing machines and a similar number of dryers: a typical example, I quickly decided, of good social democratic collectivism and modernity.
I was equally quickly disabused. A young woman, presumably from another apartment, entered the washroom with her pile of laundry, looking at me with some bemusement. After a halting exchange in Swedish and (mainly) English, she directed my attention to a chart attached to the wall, a neatly written calendar in which, it seemed, the whole month was divided up into two-hour slots. It was firmly explained by the young woman that she had booked the current slot, and she also made it clear that, even though four large and empty washing machines were available, I was certainly not invited to begin my own laundry endeavours during her personal slot.
Subsequent investigations revealed that there was nothing unusual or untoward about this interaction. Nearly all Swedish residential buildings have such washroom booking calendars (wascator bokningstavlas), sometimes rather elaborate constructions made from good Swedish wood (often involving the use of special wooden pegs or keys). At the start of each month, in effect, residents or tenants are invited to identify a two-hour slot sometime over the forthcoming four weeks when they intend to make solitary use of that time for laundering purposes. This clearly involves a high degree of rational and forward planning of one's personal life, and would appear to altogether eliminate the idea of doing one's laundry spontaneously.
…to proceed in ignorance of these taken-for-granted rules for the social organisation of laundering is to invite a fairly firm, not to say, stern response.……..…….. troubles had occurred very largely in and round the basement laundry rooms. Residents of the Bocentrum building were not doing their laundry `properly' and the consequence, inevitably, was conflict and violence. Implicit, all the while, in the conversation was the powerful sense that in Sweden there is only the one way of doing laundry, and that this is self-evidently, taken-for-granted and centrally to do with the project of being Swedish.
Later enquiries around this theme with Dr. Ingrid Sahlin, a researcher in social policy at Lund University, to my absolute astonishment, revealed that the Ministry of Immigration in Sweden for some years has been funding local authorities to provide `laundry lessons' for new immigrants on quite an extensive and continuing basis.
Quite clearly, however, the struggle to educate immigrants in the proper way of laundering in Sweden has had uneven consequences…..Compromises have obviously emerged….Just in case there is a problem, however, the laundry has been located on the ground floor--in full view of the Swedish superintendent and the front hall reception desk.
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