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An introduction is presented in which the editor discusses various reports within the issue on topics including racist populism, populist far-right politics and ethno-nationalism in the Netherlands.

The paper approaches the rise of far right populism in Europe with a feminist lens and on the background of the discursively constructed sexist and racist features of the current moral panic. It is argued that we can follow up a continuum of normalised culturalist gendered discourses in Europe, and for some time, in the Netherlands in particular. The paper is organised by looking, first, at the place of gender in far right discourses and the role of women in far right-wing populist parties. Second, a feminist critique of processes of normalisation is presented, helping to clarify the term ‘culturalism’. To illustrate the dynamics of gendered culturalism and the way it impacts the everyday life of Muslim women in the Netherlands, some interview sequences of an empirical study with female Dutch-Moroccan citizens are discussed. The experiences of the women illustrate how far right populist perspectives and prejudices entered their daily lives, and which counter strategies, the women used to resist intimidation. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The paper is meant as a timely intervention into current debates on the impact of the global pandemic on the rise of global far-right populism and contributes to scholarly thinking about the normalisation of the global far-right. While approaching the tension between national political elites and (far-right) populist narratives of representing "the people", the paper focuses on the populist effects of the "new normal" in spatial national governance. Though some aspects of public normality of our 21st century urban, cosmopolitan and consumer lifestyle have been disrupted with the pandemic curfew, the underlying gendered, racialised and classed structural inequalities and violence have been kept in place: they are not contested by the so-called "hygienic demonstrations". A digital pandemic populism during lockdown might have pushed further the mobilisation of the far right, also on the streets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]