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Far-Right Contestation in Australia: Soldiers of Odin and True Blue Crew
Abstract
This chapter critically considers two contrasting far-right groups in Australia: Soldiers of Odin and True Blue Crew. Both are stridently anti-Muslim. True Blue Crew members organise protests, incite racial intolerance and try hard to attract press coverage. Soldiers of Odin practice street vigilantism while dispersing food to the inner city homeless. Differences aside, both groups amplify claims of border incursion, immigrant crime waves, Islamist terror plots and domestic security weakness, all issues that have long generated political capital in Australia. Both groups recruit members and supporters primarily from disenchanted ‘anglo’ men. The exotic Norse mythology of Soldiers of Odin constitutes the main distinction between them, which means they target their online rhetoric differently to attract far-right supporters willing to take public action.
... TBC emerged out of the anti-Mosque protest movement, most prominently led by the group 'Reclaim Australia'. Similar to Reclaim Australia, TBC held a strong anti-Mosque stance but also promoted a more aggressive form of ethno-nationalism that privileged white, Anglo-Saxon men (Nilan 2019). Campion (2019, p. 12) has situated the schism from Reclaim Australia as the result of a more extreme set of adherents forming 'their own organisations, which appeared to be further committed to violence', and, as Mcswiney (2021, p. 36) describes, TBC became more of a 'violence-prone street-level organization'. ...
Far-right extremism transpires in virtual and physical space. In this study, we examine how the Australian far-right extremist group ‘True Blue Crew’ attempted to coordinate their offline activities with their social media activism. To this end, we conducted a thematic content analysis of administrator posts and user comments present on the group’s Facebook page prior to and following an organised street rally in June 2017. This online analysis was partnered with ethnographic field work to gauge the perceptions of group members and supporters during the rally in Melbourne, Victoria. The results highlight the multi-dimensional and intimate manner in which online and offline contexts are coordinated to support far-right activism and mobilisation. This study offers an empirical account of how far-right attitudes, activism, and mobilisation transpired in Australia in the years prior to an Australian committing the Christchurch terror attack. It reveals a growing frustration within the broader far-right movement, leading to later strategic adaptation that can be interpreted as an early warning sign of an environment increasingly conducive to violence. This provides a more nuanced understanding of the context from which far-right terrorism emerges, and speaks to the importance of maintaining a level of analysis that transverses the social and the individual, as well as the online and the offline spaces. Implications for security and government agencies responses are discussed.
This chapter looks at how the Far Right appeals to the imagination of young people by leveraging the fantasy genre in popular culture. Thus, the ordinary young white man is invited to become a hero fighting for his people and his land. Aryan and Viking warrior myths grant heroic masculine status and the promise of transcendence. The chapter provides coverage of some extreme Far Right groups and utopian fantasies. Although small in size, hyper-violent Neo-Nazi, and militant vigilante groups represent a subcultural vanguard in the Far Right movement. The extreme renegade identities and actions of their primarily male members provoke the imagination of a range of white youth, drawing them towards less extreme fantasy strands of the Far Right movement such as the Soldiers of Odin and the online cult of the Frog-God Kek.
This chapter introduces the topic of young people and the Far Right, pointing out that it is not the young raging Neo-Nazi that dominates the ranks of the Far Right movement, but rather ordinary young people, especially young white men, who are drawn in by the forceful propaganda. Although women are certainly present, the Far Right is more popular with men. I first provide some definitions for critical analysis: discourse and subject position. Four important themes are then discussed: Youth, class, masculinity, and race. The politics of hate speech are considered using the lens of necropolitics from philosopher Achille Mbembe. Finally, the Far Right is examined as an example of a social movement, one that may pull in young people rather like a subculture.
This chapter looks at how the ultra-nationalist discourse of the Far Right reaches out to young people by considering examples from Germany, France, the UK, the USA, Canada, and Australia. Ultra-nationalism proclaims the superiority of one’s own racial constituency, and white victimhood in the face of continued immigration. According to white supremacist discourse only the white people (variously defined) should hold the reins of sovereignty. The Far Right encourages sentimental attachment to the imagined nation of traditional working people who have been betrayed by uncaring elite leadership. Palingenetic ultra-nationalism proposes that a rebirthed ultra-nationalist regime—forged in conflict—will prioritize youth, heroism, and national greatness. That represents both a promise and a vigilante adventure for angry young people seeking answers. The endgame is a white ethnostate.
This chapter looks at how the Far Right reaches out to young people online. Those aged 15–24 are the most connected users of social media worldwide. Far Right discourse uses the technological affordances of digital platforms to draw in both floaters who enjoy causing trouble and angry young people looking for political answers. Algorithms and bots channel youth interests, encouraging belief in white victimhood, anti-feminist, and homophobic propaganda, and alleged wicked corruption of government, intellectual, and scientific elites. Online anonymity guarantees the wide dissemination of fake news, conspiracy theory, and hate speech. Memes, trolling, hacking, doxxing, and clickbait are then used by young Far Right supporters in the propagation of hate discourse generated by right-wing influencers.
This final chapter reveals much about the radicalization journey of young people in the Far Right by focusing on how they exit. Using publicly available accounts, I consider push and pull factors for both recruitment and departure. For committed members, getting out requires a decision with serious consequences. When youth first engage with the sphere of politics-in-action they usually want to express something about themselves and their lives, and join a heroic cause that will change the world. Yet once the thrilling rebellious possibilities have started to fade, disillusioned young supporters may start to see little future for themselves in the movement. This is true for both young men and young women. I conclude with reflections on how the Far Right ultimately crushes youthful hopes and fantasies.
‘In this brilliant book, Pam Nilan provides a transversal overview of key dimensions to understand Far Right appeal among young white men in the 21st century, from the gamification of hate to social media, from conspiracy theories and fantasy stories that re-enchant their world to the quest of belonging and agency.’
—Geoffrey Pleyers, F.R.S.–FNRS Professor of Sociology, Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium
‘“Let’s face it, mate, if we don’t do something about it right now, in 20 years we’re going to be forced to speak Arabic and under Sharia law.” The words of the homeless, white young man aged 21, who had never had a job, took me by surprise in 2017. They would not surprise me now. Nilan’s scholarly and engaging text has appraised me of the sense of “aggrieved entitlement” held by the “lost” white working class, youth in particular, who can become recast as the heroic defenders of a lost white utopia.’
—Professor Howard Williamson, CVO CBE FRSA FHEA, Professor of European Youth Policy, University of South Wales
This book looks at how young people get attracted to the Far Right, especially young white men. We may never know why a young individual ends up there, yet two things are obvious. First, Far Right propaganda appeals to the fantasy imagination and to the emotions. Second, supporting the Far Right is a decision often made by digitally-networked 15-25 year olds looking for answers and wanting to express their anger. However, many later become aware of a yawning gulf between the ideal future they envisioned, and what happens in the here and now. Accounts of the Far Right often focus on terrorist events, plots or extreme acts of violence. However, the emphasis here is on rather ordinary young people and how they get involved in a social movement that promises adventure and belonging. The aim is to better understand how their hate practices are framed and channeled by the persuasive discourse of the Far Right.
This paper analyses the social media networks and content of four Australian parties, assessing their relationship to the far right at the time of the 2019 Australian federal election. Using social network analysis, I map their relationship to a broader network of far-right actors in Australia on Facebook and Twitter, identifying pathways of communication, mobilisation and recruitment. The structure of the parties’ networks points to highly centralised, leader-centric organisations, placing them in a vulnerable position in terms of sustainability. This is combined with qualitative content analysis, which finds little evidence of party organisation or campaign mobilisation on either platform, despite the context of a first-order election. Instead, these parties use social media primarily for the construction of collective identities and the development and dissemination of interpretive frames, practices typically associated with social movements rather than political parties.
While the historical impact of rumours and fabricated content has been well documented, efforts to better understand today’s challenge of information pollution on a global scale are only just beginning. Concern about the implications of dis-information campaigns designed specifically to sow mistrust and confusion and to sharpen existing sociocultural divisions using nationalistic, ethnic, racial and religious tensions is growing. The Council of Europe report on “Information Disorder: Toward an interdisciplinary framework for research and policy making” is an attempt to comprehensively examine information disorder and to outline ways to address it.
This introductory article examines how research on terrorism and violence from the extreme right has evolved over the past two decades by comparing the contents of the present Special Issue with those of a previous Special Issue from 1995. This comparative review is divided into three sections: (1) concepts and definitions; (2) data; and (3) theory. Conceptually, the article finds considerable divergence between scholars in the field, and therefore proposes a definition of extreme-right terrorism and extreme-right violence meant to apply across all contexts and actors. Empirically, the article recognizes the inherent challenge of gathering reliable and comparable data on extreme-right violence. At the same time, it finds that considerable advances have been made with regards to generating systematic events data suitable for analysing variation across time and place. The article also outlines some of the most important findings emerging from these new data. Theoretically, the article finds some overlap between the two Special Issues concerning proposed causes of extreme-right terrorism and violence. At the same time, many theories do not speak to each other, or even investigate the same types of outcomes. The article therefore concludes by proposing a conceptual distinction between three distinct types of violent outcomes: (1) violent radicalization, (2) violent events, and (3) aggregate levels of violence. By being more explicit about the types of outcomes one seeks to explain, scholars in this field will hopefully move towards a more unified future research agenda.
The article traces the history of racialist Odinism and its differentiation from Asatru, which shares both pantheon and rituals, but which rejects racism or exclusionary beliefs. It includes both archival and field work, including interviews with adherents of both camps.
In Australia since about the turn of the millennium, discrimination against Muslims has been increasingly normalized, made respectable, and presented as prudent precaution against violent extremism. Vilification of Muslims has posed as defending ‘Australian values’ against those who will not integrate. Liberal political leaders and press leader-writers who formerly espoused cultural pluralism now routinely hold up as inimical the Muslim folk devil by whose otherness the boundaries of acceptability of the national culture may be marked out and policed. The Muslim Other is positioned not only as culturally incommensurate, but dangerously so: dishonest, criminally inclined, violent, misogynist, homophobic, backward, uncivilized. On the far right, extremist nationalist organizations incite racist hatred under cover of this rhetoric, often cloaked as reasonable common sense. This paper undertakes an ideology analysis of political and media discussion, and examines the forms of social control that they advance and sustain.
Incel, shorthand for 'involuntarily celibate, ' is a violent political ideology based on a new wave of misogyny and white supremacy. These (mostly) young men are frustrated at a world they see as denying them power and sexual control over women's bodies. In their eyes, they are victims of oppressive feminism, an ideology which must be overthrown, often through violence. Incel ideology presents a mythologized view that prior to the sexual revolution in the '60s, every man had access to a female partner; subsequent to the women's empowerment movement, fewer and fewer men have access to a partner. They frame this shift as a profound injustice to men who cannot find a sexual partner, suggesting that society has failed to give men what they are entitled to (access to women's bodies) and that the only recourse is violent insurrection.
To understand and contextualize Donald Trump's election as President of the United States, we must place his election in the context of a white counter-revolutionary politics that emerging from the specific geographic configurations of the US racial state. While academics and political commentators have correctly located the election of Trump in the context of white supremacy, I argue we need to coordinate our understanding of white supremacy and the electoral politics that fueled Trump's rise in the context of anti-Black racism by examining how the US racial state turns to whiteness to prevent change. Throughout the development of the United States, whiteness has long stood as a bulwark against progressive and revolutionary change so much so that when the US racial state is in economic and political crisis, bourgeoisie capitalism appeals to the white middle and working classes to address that crisis.
Using a new regional database of national and European parliament elections on NUTS 2 level in 28 countries, we test the main theories explaining the electoral support for the European far right. Accounting for differences between the extremist (ER) and populist radical right (PRR), we find evidence in support of both economic insecurity and cultural backlash theses. The ER vote is associated mostly with economic insecurity and the PRR vote mostly with cultural backlash. Whereas micro and macro-level analyses have often produced conflicting results, unemployment, immigration and income inequalities have significant and robust effects at the meso level, indicating that the factors determining the far right vote might at large be operating at a sub-national level. In line with the " contact " and " salience-of-change " hypotheses, the effects of economic insecurity are more pronounced in regions that undergo sudden changes compared to those with high levels of immigration.
In the wake of the international refugee crisis, racist attitudes are becoming more publicly evident across the European Union. Propelled by the attacks in Köln on New Year’s Eve 2015 and harsher public sentiments on immigration, vigilante gangs have emerged in various European cities. These gangs mobilize through social media networks and claim to protect citizens from alleged violent and sexual attacks by refugees. This article analyzes how racist actors use social media to mobilize and organize street politics targeting refugees/immigrants. The aim is to explore the relation between social media and anti-refugee mobilization in a time of perceived insecurity and forced migration. The study uses the vigilante network Soldiers of Odin as a specific case, looking at (1) how they communicate through social media, (2) how they are represented in the large “alternative” space of right-wing online sites, and (3) how they are represented in traditional mainstream news. Using a critical adaption of Cammaerts’ theory of “mediation opportunity structure,” the article explicates the (inverted) rationale of racist online networks. Using quantitative and qualitative content analysis, both social media content and traditional news media are examined. The results show that although racist actors succeed in utilizing many of the opportunities embedded in social media communication and protest logic, they are also subject to constraints, such as a lack of public support and negative framing in news media. The article calls for more research on the (critical) relationship between uncivil engagement and social media networks.
In 2015, Europe experienced the worst refugee crisis since the Second World War. Along with terrorist attacks in Europe over the last decade, the refugee crisis has fueled a rise in the popularity of both far-right political parties and extremist groups—such as Finland’s Soldiers of Odin (S.O.O.). The group debuted in late 2015, but quickly spread throughout Scandinavia. The popularity of S.O.O. coincided with a resurgent interest in Viking culture, and new country groups have been reported worldwide. This article explores the contested identity of the Norwegian chapter, Soldiers of Odin Norge (S.O.O.N.), in national news (Norge) and networked spaces (social media). The mediated discourse was analyzed using ethnographic content analysis, with an appreciation for the intertextuality of the ambiguous political rhetoric. We found social media to be an important site for contesting the dominant narrative of ‘vigilante’ identified in the news articles. Drawing from cultural criminology, we further explored the contrast between mediated images, where Viking culture became the symbolic identifier for S.O.O.N., and the collective construction of meaning in the discourse. Finally, we argue that because the group’s identity was forged from, and exists because of, media-related communications, S.O.O.N. could be characterized as a ‘media-based collectivity’ (Couldry and Hepp, 2017).
The commentary examines the roots of electoral shifts towards right wing populist parties and groups in the West. It shows how legitimate economic grievances of lower classes have been strategically appropriated by political elites to project xenophobic discourses and how globalist-capitalist parties capitalize on such sentiments. It discusses the British Brexit vote as a quintessential example of strategic misplacement of migration issue as the main problem to disguise the democratic deficit of a hyper-normalized neoliberal economic order. The commentary also examines the links between technological design of Social Media technologies and the notion of post-politics era.
This report was compiled by the Centre for Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing (CCDW), Victoria University, Melbourne, together with the Australian Multicultural Foundation (AMF), Melbourne, commissioned by the State of Victoria, Community Resilience Unit of the Department of Premier and Cabinet.
The Stocktake Report identifies key themes and findings from a systematic literature and selected programs review, as well as critical knowledge gaps and practical recommendations that can guide policymaking, research and program investment and direction.
The systematic research literature review examined research conducted 2011-2015 in order to answer two key questions:
1. What factors influence, lead to, or protect against racial, ethnic or religious exclusivism?
2. How do social cohesion and community resilience address these factors in ways that mitigate socially harmful dimensions of exclusivism such as racism, intolerance and violent extremism?
Racism and Islamist-based violent extremism have emerged as the most prominent themes arising from the literature search. Beyond Australian scholarship, the search yielded research evidence and perspectives from the United Kingdom, European and North American scholarly sources. Many valuable insights and findings from these sources also apply directly to or resonate in the Victorian context. Key themes identified in recent research revolve around:
• Understanding ‘new’ or cultural racism, including Islamophobia
• Violent extremism: causes, influences and protections
• The role of social cohesion in addressing exclusivism
• The role of community resilience in addressing exclusivism
The selected program review involved a combination of electronic database and manual search strategies to identify relevant national and overseas programs designed to redress exclusivism, strengthen social cohesion and inclusion, and counter violent extremism (CVE).
This research report was commissioned by the State of Victoria through the Community Resilience Unit of the Department of Premier and Cabinet in order to assist understanding these complex issues. The research report does not constitute Victorian Government policy.
In 2016, the Victorian Multicultural Commission contracted La Trobe University to produce a study of the 2015 Bendigo mosque protests.
Bendigo attracted international attention from 2014 - 2016 because the regional Victorian city became the site of multiple anti- mosque and/or anti-Islam and anti-racism protests that distilled national debates about safety, security, multiculturalism and Australian identity.
Centred on a planning application for a mosque to service the population, some local people mobilised to protest against the proposed development through formal planning objections and street rallies together with external protestors.
As an invesigation into the events, La Trobe University used two stages of research to identify potential strategies or a model for effectively managing, negotiating and mediating community-based conflict related to urban change in multicultural societies.
From :http://multicultural.vic.gov.au/regional-advisory-councils/rac-publications
Undoubtedly, populist political candidates from the right and the left, including Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders, changed the tenor and direction of the 2016 presidential contest in the US. Much like Barack Obama’s electoral successes that were credited at least in part to his savvy social media campaigning in 2008 and 2012, since Trump’s victory, the notion that social media ‘helped him win’ has been revitalized, even by Trump himself [McCormick, R. (2016a). Donald Trump says Facebook and Twitter ‘helped him win’. The Verge. Retrieved from http://www.theverge.com/2016/11/13/13619148/trump-facebook-twitter-helped-win]. This study therefore explores citizen support for populist and establishment candidates across the ideological spectrum in the US to specifically examine if using social media was related to an increased likelihood of supporting populist presidential political candidates, including Trump. Differing forms of active, passive, and uncivil social media were taken into account and the findings suggest active social media use for politics was actually related to less support for Republican populists, such as Trump, but that forms of both passive or uncivil social media use were linked to an increase in the likelihood of support to a level roughly equivalent to that of the traditional television viewing. These patterns are almost the inverse of support for Democratic populists, in this case namely Sanders.
In recent years, far-right organisations have formed in response to what they believe to be the threat from the rise of Islam in Australia. Parallel movements have spawned an extensive literature internationally. In this study I investigate this movement in Australia using automated text analysis of all public posts from two of the most popular Australian anti-Islam groups on social media. This approach complements traditional polling methods by offering access to large samples of the spontaneously generated opinions, allowing subjects to speak in their own words. My analysis finds evidence that concerns about terrorism and the perceived political threat from Islam are paramount in these groups’ discussion of Muslims. I conclude by discussing the implications for counter-messaging strategies.
Gender consistently has been advanced by sociologists as the strongest predictor of criminal involvement: it explains more variance in crime cross‐culturally than any other variable. As an explanatory variable, then, gender would seem to be critical. Yet early theoretical works in the sociology of crime were gender‐blind. That is, although acknowledging that the vast majority of those who commit crime are men and boys, the gendered content of their legitimate and illegitimate behavior was virtually ignored (Messerschmidt 1993).
Focusing on the three monotheistic religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Douglas Pratt argues that despite a popular focus on Islam, extremist Jews and Christians can also enact terror and destruction. Religion and Extremism stresses that the ideological rejection of diversity underlies religious extremism resulting in violent behaviours and, increasingly, in hardening social and religious attitudes and responses.
An analysis of religiously-driven terrorism reveals the presence of a distinctive and rigid form of exclusivity found in these religions. In this regard, the contemporary resurgence in totalising claims of fundamentalist ideologues is cause for particular concern. Pratt reasons that however expressed, the motif of the ‘Absolute’ is central to all, but how that absolute is and has been received, interpreted and responded to, is a matter of great diversity. The author asserts that theological ‘Absolutism’ displays an underlying dynamic whereby these three religions may be led into extremism. Religion and Extremism also explores contemporary issues of Islamophobia and mutual extremism, identified as ‘reactive co-radicalization’, and concludes by reflecting on how extremism today might be countered.
As with so many technologies, the Internet’s racism was programmed right in—and it’s quickly fueled the spread of White supremacist, xenophobic rhetoric throughout the western world.
Why the troll problem is actually a culture problem: how online trolling fits comfortably within today's media landscape.
Internet trolls live to upset as many people as possible, using all the technical and psychological tools at their disposal. They gleefully whip the media into a frenzy over a fake teen drug crisis; they post offensive messages on Facebook memorial pages, traumatizing grief-stricken friends and family; they use unabashedly racist language and images. They take pleasure in ruining a complete stranger's day and find amusement in their victim's anguish. In short, trolling is the obstacle to a kinder, gentler Internet. To quote a famous Internet meme, trolling is why we can't have nice things online. Or at least that's what we have been led to believe. In this provocative book, Whitney Phillips argues that trolling, widely condemned as obscene and deviant, actually fits comfortably within the contemporary media landscape. Trolling may be obscene, but, Phillips argues, it isn't all that deviant. Trolls' actions are born of and fueled by culturally sanctioned impulses—which are just as damaging as the trolls' most disruptive behaviors.
Phillips describes, for example, the relationship between trolling and sensationalist corporate media—pointing out that for trolls, exploitation is a leisure activity; for media, it's a business strategy. She shows how trolls, “the grimacing poster children for a socially networked world,” align with social media. And she documents how trolls, in addition to parroting media tropes, also offer a grotesque pantomime of dominant cultural tropes, including gendered notions of dominance and success and an ideology of entitlement. We don't just have a trolling problem, Phillips argues; we have a culture problem. This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things isn't only about trolls; it's about a culture in which trolls thrive.
Harold Bloom’s 1973 essay The Anxiety of Influence posits a poetics of ‘great poets’ who use and deny the prototype-poets and prototype-texts that influence them. Bloom’s understandings of poetic composition and reception offer a strikingly sympathetic account of much political discourse. This article focuses on the ‘Eulogy’ that Noel Pearson delivered at the funeral for Gough Whitlam in 2014, whose poetics were conspicuously informed by motives of emulation and of competitive distancing. That makes Pearson’s eulogy a particularly helpful case for testing the applicability of Bloom’s poetics in the political sphere. It also casts new light on the interrelationship between production and reception in the field of rhetoric – and, in so doing, on the importance of further research into rhetorical reception.
This article theoretically illustrates the relationship between sexual violence in armed conflict, hypermasculinity, and the establishment of sustainable peace. Using a practice theoretical background and recent findings on socialisation and violence, I conceptualise sexual violence as a practice, hypermasculinity as a gender identity, and armed groups/forces as strongly socialising institutions. After demonstrating that the same gendered dynamics that lead to sexual violence within intrastate armed conflict evolve in prisons, I use criminological research to formulate expectations about the connection between sexual violence and the re-mobilisation of ex-combatants for renewed conflict: Sexual violence as an ingrained practice influences the gender identity and behaviour of ex-combatants, thus endangering peacebuilding endeavours. I demonstrate that there is evidence to claim that those tentative statements hold true and that further research on the connection of sexual violence and the establishment of sustainable peace could inform peacebuilding efforts.
The overwhelming majority of jihadists identified in Australia across the last two decades form an interconnected network which transcends time and geographic locations. Close peer relationships appear key to understanding how Australian jihadists recruit and how the network evolves. More recently the Australian network has grown significantly, and with this increase in size has come a concurrent escalation in the level of threat posed. This article analyses the factors that have coalesced together to drive this increase. In doing so, it challenges some underlying assumptions regarding radicalisation in Australia that may not be backed by empirical research, or are based on anomalous case studies not representative of the larger network. It also highlights the recent emergence of a new cohort of Australian jihadists: teenagers. An analysis of the emergence of these teenage jihadists is then conducted, along with a discussion of the implications for policing strategies and the future of countering violent extremism programs in Australia.
In 2016, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States. The right-wing support online was particularly of influence in this event. Indeed, some argued that the biggest winner of the 2016 US presidential election was the ‘“alt-right’, an extreme right-wing community that communicates through online image boards like 4chan and social news sites like Reddit. By close-reading images and memes from the Facebook pages and Instagram, we traced the circulation and impact of these memes, as well as their visual connections and themes. We argue that the communities that share these memes adhere to a masculine iconography. By drawing inspiration from different texts, such as games and historical portraits, Trump is glorified by his supporters as the ultimate saviour, aided by other politicians such as Putin. In its framing of patriarchy, sexism, racism, and even racial purity as a heroic and cartoonish narrative, the alt-right renders its memes as part of a powerful male story. We argue that the use of parody to discredit an opponent is what allows memes to be read as an incredibly powerful, persuasive medium, which has led to them being adopted by the alt-right to justify a racist and sexist discourse.
While popular discourse often frames online harassment as an issue of individuals engaged in abhorrent behavior, harassing behavior is often networked in that it is coordinated and organized. When feminists and female public figures experience harassment, it often originates from members of a loose online network known as the manosphere, a set of blogs, podcasts, and forums comprised of pickup artists, men’s rights activists, anti-feminists, and fringe groups. While the particular beliefs of these groups may differ, many participants have adopted a common language. This paper explores the discourse of the manosphere and its links to online misogyny and harassment. Using critical discourse analysis, we examine the term misandry, which originates in the manosphere; trace its infiltration into more mainstream circles; and analyze its ideological and community-building functions. We pay particular attention to how this vocabulary reinforces a misogynistic ontology which paints feminism as a man-hating movement which victimizes men and boys.
This essay considers the origin and meaning of “social justice warrior” (SJW) memes. Despite each term within the phrase suggesting potentially positive connotations, we argue that as deployed within “alt-right” communities, it implies a kind of monstrous feminine: a woman who is unwieldy and out of control. We catalogue and analyze this meme using a visual discourse analysis of texts gathered through Google Images and Reddit. Our findings suggest that the SJW meme is deployed to emphasize opponents as having non-normative, problematic bodies, different brains (ones ruled by emotion rather than logic), and monstrous characteristics. We argue that such discourse is potentially dangerous, but that feminists may have the tools to recreate the SJW as an image of power.
Populism may seem like it has come out of nowhere, but it has been on the rise for a while. I argue that economic history and economic theory both provide ample grounds for anticipating that advanced stages of economic globalization would produce a political backlash. While the backlash may have been predictable, the specific form it took was less so. I distinguish between left-wing and right-wing variants of populism, which differ with respect to the societal cleavages that populist politicians highlight. The first has been predominant in Latin America, and the second in Europe. I argue that these different reactions are related to the relative salience of different types of globalization shocks.
This book explores Islamophobia in Australia, shifting attention from its victims to its perpetrators by examining the visceral, atavistic nature of people's feelings and responses to the Muslim 'other' in everyday life. Based on ethnographic fieldwork, Islamophobia and Everyday Multiculturalism sheds light on the problematisations of Muslims amongst Anglo and non-Anglo Australians, investigating the impact of whiteness on minorities' various reactions to Muslims. Advancing a micro-interactional, ethnographically oriented perspective, the author demonstrates the ways in which Australia's histories and logics of racial exclusion, thinking and expression produce processes in which whiteness socializes, habituates and 'teaches' 'racialising' behaviour, and shows how national and global events, moral panics, and political discourse infiltrate everyday encounters between Muslims and non-Muslims, producing distinct structures of feeling and discursive, affective and social practices of Islamophobia. As such, it will be of interest to social scientists with interests in race and ethnicity, migration and diaspora and Islamophobia.
This research explores the symbolic production of space by applying Lefebvre’s concept of “representational space” to park users’ urban imaginary about the site. The aim is to identify the extent to which people support cultural and religious expression when designing urban spaces that are more inclusive for religious minorities. This article focuses on responses from urban planners, Muslims, and non-Muslims to one question from face-to-face interviews that asked: “What do you think about applying Islamic design principles to the green open space next to the mosque?” The design principles were introduced to the participants through discussion and presentation of images. Interviews were conducted in a public park located next to a mosque in Melbourne, Australia. The results suggest that participants make distinctions between culture and religion when discussing their views of appropriate representations of diversity in public space. For non-Anglo-European representations in public space e.g., buildings or design elements, participants tended to prefer the presence of multiple cultures, rather than one culture. The representation of one culture in public space, was viewed as “dominating” the landscape.
A new right-wing extremism is on the rise in contemporary Europe and North America. Those who embrace this ideology articulate extreme hatred towards the left, which they consider "treacherous" or "disloyal", and towards Muslims and immigrants, and eventually are prone to violence against them. In Europe, a new movement known as the Counter Jihad Movement has emerged. It is exploiting jihadi terrorism and immigration in order to gain more support, mobilize people and justify their struggle on the Internet, on the streets and even in war zones like Syria and Iraq. This article will examine one of this new movement's main characteristics: the use of crusader symbolism as a source of inspiration, activism and even justification of violence as a religious duty in Europe and in the Middle East.
Planning in settler- colonial countries is always taking place on the lands of Indigenous peoples. While Indigenous rights, identity and cultural values are increasingly being discussed within planning, its mainstream accounts virtually ignore the colonial roots and legacies of the discipline’s assumptions, techniques and methods. This ground- breaking book exposes the imperial origins of the planning canon, profession and practice in the settler- colonial country of Australia.
By documenting the role of planning in the history of Australia’s relations with Indigenous peoples, the book maps the enduring effects of colonisation. It provides a new historical account of colonial planning practices and rewrites the urban planning histories of major Australian cities. Contemporary land rights, native title and cultural heritage frameworks are analysed in light of their critical importance to planning practice today, with detailed case illustrations. In reframing Australian planning from a postcolonial perspective,
the book shatters orthodox accounts, revising the story that planning has told itself for over 100 years. New ways to think and practise planning in Indigenous Australia are advanced.
Planning in Indigenous Australia makes a major contribution towards the decolonisation of planning. It is essential reading for students and teachers in tertiary planning programmes, as well as those in geography, development studies, postcolonial studies, anthropology and environmental management. It is also vital reading for professional planners in the public, private and community sectors.
In this paper, I explore particular public spaces in a country town, the local hotel and public square, and investigate how these sites produce intercultural encounters between long-term regional residents and newer refugee-background migrant communities. These encounters, occurring in spatial contexts, are (re-)subjectivized by long-term residents and new migrants, and where differences and acceptance are contested and (re)constructed. In this paper I argue that the encounters that take place in these spaces, and the affective (dis)connections that are experienced, foster either a sense of belonging or non-belonging, inclusion or exclusion. I further argue that public spaces, as relational spaces, are not simply built environments that facilitate the flow of people and material objects but also spaces that reflect personal, local and national belonging and identities. This paper is based on ethnographic research investigating the experiences and interactions of Afghan Hazara migrants and long-term regional residents in a South Australian country town between 2014 and 2016.
In order to address the lack of quantitative studies pertaining specifically to contemporary Germanic/Norse Pagans, the following article relates the data and conclusions of a recently conducted research survey on those adhering to the various traditions dedicated to the pre-Christian Germanic/Norse deities. The survey, which garnered just under three thousand respondents, was distributed globally in order to gain a broader perspective of the demographics and beliefs of those identifying as "Heathen." The research served as part of graduate studies anthropological fieldwork conducted at the University of Amsterdam, and includes a diverse range of demographic data as well as philosophical analysis. The approach of the article utilizes a comparative reference format, with the goal of highlighting macro-trends and challenging existing stereotypes. The conclusions drawn from the data dismiss any attempts to simplify or relegate contemporary Germanic/Norse Pagans to ideologies of bigotry or exclusion. Additionally, the demographic portrait of "Heathenry" proves to be anything other than marginal. Instead, the survey results display an eclectic range of backgrounds and beliefs that shape the complexity of Heathen discourse and organization. These results call for a critical re-analysis of those identifying as contemporary Germanic/Norse Pagans, what they believe, and how those beliefs are being presented.
Recent decades have seen substantial growth across many developed-world countries of right-wing populist political parties whose policies oppose immigration and multiculturalism as threats to the majority way of life there. These are exemplified in Australia by Pauline Hanson’s One Nation Party, which was successful at elections there at the turn of the twenty-first century and again in 2016. Part of this party’s rhetoric focuses on the geography of immigrant groups in Australia’s cities, with claims that their members live in ghettos. Is that factually correct? Using data from the 2011 Australian census this paper analyses the distribution of Asians and Muslims (the two groups picked out by One Nation and its leader) at four spatial scales within the country’s 11 largest urban areas. It finds no evidence at all of intensive residential segregation of Muslims, and although there are concentrations of Asians—notably in Sydney and Melbourne—most residents claiming Asian ancestry live in neighbourhoods and suburbs where they form a minority (in many cases a small minority) only of the local population.
This article develops a theoretical classification of functions of different Internet applications and plattforms in right-wing populism. Its aim is to understand how the Internet is seen and used by populists and how it contributes to populism. Online communication by both populist leaders or organizations and non-organized actors is discussed. Main functions include the representation of the relationship between leaders and ‘the people,’ justifying the exclusion of outgroups, the conceptual elaboration of the right-wing populist ideology, developing a right-wing populist lifestyle and identity, and circumventing the traditional media.