Back to Search Start Over

'They will not survive here': Bordering, racialisation, and nature in the politics of the Finnish populist radical right.

Authors :
Pietiläinen, Sonja
Source :
Journal of Language & Politics; 2024, Vol. 23 Issue 3, p369-390, 22p
Publication Year :
2024

Abstract

To justify the hardening of borders the populist radical right sometimes uses environmental rhetoric to frame migrants as a threat. The radical right's environmental politics has been analysed through a focus on state borders, but less attention has been paid to the (re)production of bordering within and beyond the nation-state and to the racialising effects of such rhetoric, in other words how racial differences and hierarchies are (re)produced and justified through language on nature. Drawing on geographical literature on bordering and nationalism and postcolonial theory, this article investigates the semantic structures that convey the racist messaging. The article argues that the 'racialized Other' is bordered from the 'green' homeland and Western space by utilising determinist conceptions of nature, through animalistic and environmental disaster metaphors, and by mobilising an idea of the environmentally conscious Finn as the opposite of the littering migrant. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Details

Language :
English
ISSN :
15692159
Volume :
23
Issue :
3
Database :
Complementary Index
Journal :
Journal of Language & Politics
Publication Type :
Academic Journal
Accession number :
177377033
Full Text :
https://doi.org/10.1075/jlp.23085.pie