Gender and Far-right Nationalism: Historical and International Dimensions. Introduction

Abstract

This special issue explores the entangled history of contemporary far-right nationalism and gender. Seven case studies apply a distinct historical perspective and analyse gender as a meta-language for xenophobia, racism, and anti-Semitism since the 19th century, while solidifying patriarchy as a foundation of the contemporary as well as historical far right. Topics include family motifs in the propaganda of Alternative for Germany that draws on rhetoric and images used by the National Socialist Regime, the salience of ‘Mother India’ to Hindu Nationalism since the middle of the 20th century, the anti-Semitic subtext of anti-gender discourse in contemporary Poland that seeks to undo any attempts to integrate ‘liberal’ gender norms into official Catholicism since the 1960s, the amalgamation of anti-Semitism and homophobia in the American far-right since the 1970s, the historical roots of identitarian gender concepts in Austria, a historical take on the relationship between ‘metapolitics’ and gender, and an intellectual history of how today's neo-fascism engages in perpetual historical reflexivity. The special issue – while attentive to the transnational and transatlantic dimensions of the contemporary far-right – is both integrative and organized in distinct case studies. Methods used are archival research and analysis, critical review of discursive and political strategies, media content analysis, and mapping of national and transnational networks. Several authors underscore the crucial role of social media platforms and memes in the making and messaging of contemporary far-right nationalism, others rely on more ‘traditional’ media such as journal articles, political speeches and texts. Taken together, the papers in this volume highlight several overlapping themes relevant to the historical study of far-right nationalism and gender and its contemporary transformations: (1) essentialism, (2) racism, and (3) and memes and discourses.