Constructing radical right populist resistance: metaphors of heterosexist masculinities and the family question in Sweden

Abstract

The construction of radical right populist resistance around metaphors ofmasculinity at the beginning of the 21st century is a little researched area. Thisarticle accounts for the discursive redefinitions of Swedishness enabled byconceptual metaphors in order to accommodate centrally located heterosexistmasculinities at the intersection of gender, class, and ‘race’, as heralded by the main Swedish radical right populist party, the Sweden Democrats (SD). The analysis of articles published by the SD leader in SD-Kuriren, the party’s main media outlet, focuses on a well defined timeframe in the recent history of radical right populism in Sweden, from Swedish Lutheran Church elections in 2005, through Swedish Parliamentary elections in 2006, up to the church elections in 2009 and the subsequent Parliamentary elections the following year. The staunchly restrictive definition of the family – examined from the point of view of the Lakoffian ‘nation is a family’ conceptual metaphor – appears as the heteronormative domain of the Swedish male, and bans the existence of family narratives that inlude ethnically diverse or sexually different Others. I maintain that in the Swedish case, the nation metaphor accommodates for the contesting ‘conservative son’ who attempts to replace the mismanaging father of the national family. (Less)