Our People – a Tight-knit Family under the Same Protective Roof : A Critical Study of Gendered Conceptual Metaphors at Work in Radical Right Populism
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Contemporary globalisation processes witness the articulation of an allegedly homogeneous totality that has coalesced in direct opposition to the very globalisation processes that have enabled it. This totality is commonly labelled our people and reunites the citizens inhabiting the political social cultural space of a specific polity. Radical right populist parties - claiming to defend the political interests of the people - have gained increasing visibility and acceptance across Europe. Particularly salient among the symbols these parties have employed to portray their ideological stances is the depiction of the people as the tightly knit family, under the guardianship of a man/father/leader, sheltered together under their home s protective roof. However, there is a lack of gender sensitive research on radical right populist ideology. The present study consequently aims to uncover the means through which both concepts - that of family, and respectively people - are discursively gendered, in the sense that they reify gender based distinctions, thereby naturalising the traditional hierarchal gender binary. The dissertation focuses on two case studies: the Greater Romania Party (Partidul România Mare, PRM) and the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna, SD). It examines how the leaders of radical right populist parties in Romania and in Sweden explain discursively with the aid of conceptual structures particularly, the conceptual metaphor of THE NATION IS A FAMILY and adjoining metaphorical clusters - their ideological conception of the hierarchical gender binary. The present study represents in other words an interdisciplinary dialogue between political science - particularly the study of radical right populism; communication studies - mainly the relationship between the radical right populist leader and contemporary media logic; conceptual metaphor theory - especially the critical analysis of conceptual metaphors, enriched with a genealogical perspective; from a decidedly feminist vantage point.
Source: Työväentutkimus Vuosikirja
Author: Ov Cristian Norocel
Institution: University of Helsinki
Language: English
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1589458261