You can't live long in Sweden before coming across the word förening: at work you may be covered by a fackförening (local trade union), your apartment is in all likelihood part of a bostadsrättsförening (housing association), and if you take your kid to gymnastics class it will probably be at the local gymnastikförening (gymnastics club).
From these examples you can tell, if you didn't already know, that förening means "club, group, or association." But the fact that it can be translated into so many different English words depending on the context doesn't mean that förening is vague or broad as a concept.
Actually, its meaning is so specific that it's one of those words without a good single translation into English.
Föreningar – that's the indefinite plural (so, "associations" or "clubs") – are at the core of Swedish civil society and often social life as well. They range from big sports organisations, to a collective running an apartment block, to an organisation fighting for human rights, to a group of friends meeting monthly to play advanced board games.
To be an official förening in Sweden, you have to register with the Swedish Tax Agency and hold formalised meetings, including taking minutes.
Why would you do this? Well, for one, you could get money from the Swedish state – to buy your specialised board games, for example. For another – it is The Way (the Swedish way, that is). It's a stereotype that Swedes prefer organised fun, but one with some truth to it.
A basic socio-cultural principle in Sweden is that it is rude to interfere or impose on another person's space, a principle that often extends to avoiding making social overtures unless you're certain the other person wants to participate in said socialising. In this context, organised socialising, in the form of föreningar, is the perfect answer.
The word förening itself comes from the verb att förena, which means "to unite," and entered Old Swedish through an earlier form of German (the Middle Low German word vorenen). But in its current incarnation, förening is one hundred percent Swedish.
Comments