Panel session at RGS-IBG Annual Conference 2021
Chairs: Anke Schwarz (TU Dresden) and Jan Simon Hutta (University of Bayreuth)
The far right has long been organizing across national borders, from European fascists and white-supremacist advocates of colonialism to the far-right supporters of global anti-communism. With the ascendancy of far-right politics in many parts of today’s globalized world, far-right transnational networking seems to be intensifying. Most of the discussion on far-right transnationalization has emanated from political-science and social movement studies perspectives, revolving around the analysis of opportunity structures, actor interactions or frame analysis. These perspectives have been coupled with works from history and sociology (e.g. Durham and Power 2010), as well as cultural and media studies (e.g. Hokka & Nelimarkka 2019; Caiani & Kröll 2015; Doerr 2017). Geographical works have been remarkably scarce, despite the discipline’s long-standing interest in globalization, transnationalism and re-scaling. Where multiple national contexts have been engaged in geography and adjacent disciplines, the perspective has largely been a comparative one, bracketing the formation of transnational articulations and networks. Likewise, analyses that adopt space-sensitive, ethnographic, critical-race, feminist as well as political-economic approaches have been rare in the literature on far-right networking. This session therefore seeks to contribute to a more profound discussion of far-right transnationalization from a critical-geography perspective.
Virtual panel session, Thursday September 2, 2021 – 15:00 – 16:40 BST
After a short introduction by the session conveners, three panelists – Jason Luger (Northumbria University), Lisa Santosa (University of Minnesota) and Johann Braun (University of Erlangen) – will draw on their research to elaborate on the following questions: What is the relationship between local territorialization strategies of right-wing radicals and transnational articulations? How do discursive and political strategies such as anti-immigration, white supremacy, ‘anti-genderism’, educational campaigns or anti-elite rhetoric travel among different contexts? How do current forms of transnationalization relate to or differ from historical alliances? Subsequently, Bethan Johnson (University of Cambridge) will respond to issues brought up by the panelists before we open the discussion to the audience.
Session sponsored by the Race, Culture and Equality Working Group and the Political Geography Research Group