Intersectional Perspectives on the Extreme Right Metapolitical Project in Sweden
Ov Cristian Norocel (Lunds Universitet, MSH guest professor)
Abstract
In this lecture, I present the main parameters of my recently started project (E-META), which aims to examine how actors of the Swedish extreme right environment (think tanks, parties, vigilante organizations, individuals) engage in a coordinated effort to construct an alternative worldview, better known as the extreme right metapolitical project. The point of departure lies in acknowledging the importance of digital technologies for the extreme right’s success, oftentimes manifested as misogyny, homophobia, racism, and antidemocratic violence. The project’s aim is to maps out the digital interaction between a) the metapolitical project’s intellectual sources, b) the propagating channels, and c) the project’s digital resonance with individuals (likes, comments). I do this by means of an innovative intersectional methodological apparatus, aware of the interplay between gender, sexuality, race, and class, suitable for rich sociopolitical contextualization and ethnographic research concerning digital environments. This enables the triangulation of the analyzed digital material: they are first anchored into the broader sociopolitical and historical context, and then placed within the specific contextual situation they were created.
Biography
Ov Cristian Norocel is Associate Senior Lecturer in the Department of Gender Studies, and is a former MSCA postodoctoral fellow at ULB. His research applies an intersectional lens to issues of right-wing populist political communication during election periods; political discourses aimed at normalizing extreme right opinions; as well as the creation and maintenance of various power hierarchies within these discourses. Norocel has published in international peer-reviewed journals such as European Journal of Cultural Studies, Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, Men & Masculinities, NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Studies. Most recently, he has co-edited Nostalgia and Hope: Intersections between Politics of Culture, Welfare, and Migration in Europe (Springer Open).