Positioning antagonistic discourses in the (de)bounded spaces of power

Abstract

Scholarship has underlined how radical right-wing populism (RRWP) emphasizes border control aiming to protect the “people”. Although increasing attention is being paid to the discursive dimensions of border construction, the complexity of the phenomenon suggests the need for further analysis in an interdisciplinary perspective and with an emphasis on the geometry of spatial powers ( Massey 1999 , 2005 ). Understanding power dynamics in space is all the more important now that radical right-wing populism (RRWP) is becoming a key political phenomenon. The use of the border in right-wing populist narratives draws on the representation of power struggles in space concerning the management of flows (people, goods, services, capital, ideas, values, etc.). The scope of the introduction to this special issue is to address the connection between radical right-wing populism, borders, and spaces of power, and to present the research articles investigating this link through a series of different case studies.