The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions: A Critical Discursive Perspective (Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology) 3030890651, 9783030890650

Table of contents :
Preface
Praise for The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions
Contents
Notes on Contributors
1 Introduction: The Far-Right Discourse on Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions
Right-wing Populism in the Nordic Context
Discursive Research on Political and Lay Discourse Around Issues of Multiculturalism
Aims of the Book: Confronting the Challenges of Studying the Power of Contemporary Political Communication
Outline of the Book
References
2 Mobilising Gender Equality and Protectionism in Finnish Parliamentary Sessions and Online Discussions Around Immigration: An Intersectional and Critical Discursive Psychological Analysis
Equality and Migration
Intersectionality and Critical Discursive Psychology in Dialogue
Methods
Methods of Analysis
Materials
Analyses
Repertoire of Gender Equality as Finnishness
The Repertoire of Protectionism
Discussion
References
3 Underdogs Shepherding the Flock—Discursive Outgrouping of ‘the Internal Enemy’ in Online Discussions
Introduction
Contextualisation of the Empirical Cases: The Vigilante Group Soldiers of Odin and the Election of the Finns Party Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho
Analysis
Traditional Ethnocultural Constructions of the Ingroup and Outgroups
‘Liberal Women’ as the Pivot Point from ‘Victims’ to ‘Enemies Within’
‘Corrupt Elite’ and Other Discursive Particularisations for Purging the Ingroup
Conclusions
Appendix A: Extracts in Finnish
Appendix B: Codes
References
4 A Critical Discursive Psychological Study of Dialogical Constructions of Hate-Speech in Established Media and Online Discussions
The Contested Meanings of Hate-Speech
Analytical Approach
Material
Analytic Procedure
Analysis: Dialogical Constructions of Hate-Speech
Production: Hate-Speech in Established Media
Reception: Social Media Users’ Responses
Condemning Hate-Speech
Denial of Hate-Speech
Reversal of Hate-Speech
Legitimizing Hate-Speech
Discussion
References
5 Trying to Ignore the Bullies and the Buzz: A Critical Discursive Study of How Pro-migration Activists Cope with and Contest Right-Wing Nationalist Interference
Introduction
A Critical Take on Discourse in Blended Environments
Materials and Method
The Analysis, Part 1: The Interviews
The Analysis, Part 2: Online Manoeuvres for Coping and Contestation
Conclusion
References
6 Making Enemies: Reactive Dynamics of Discursive Polarization
From Focusing on Right-Wing Nationalism to Analysing the Making of Enemies
Flocking to the Poles
The Attractions of Conflict and the Sense that ‘They’re to Blame’
Doubles and Double-Talk
Conclusion
References
7 From Angry Monologues to Engaged Dialogue? On Self-Reflexivity, Critical Discursive Psychology and Studying Polarised Conflict
Introduction
The Refusal of Dialogue
Speaking in Anger, on Anger, to Anger: Some Lessons from Dialogical Engagements
Finding one’s Own Voice: Dialogue as Critique of Ideology
The Peculiar Productivity of Dialogue
Conclusion
References
8 Affective Visual Rhetoric and Discursive Practices of the Far-Right Across Social Media
Introduction
Affective Economies and Practices
Visual Communication as Affective Practices
Visual Dimensions of Soldiers of Odin
Affective Authenticity of Anti-Immigration Online Videos
Affective Economy of Circulating Visuals
Conclusion
References
9 “A Counterforce Against Hate”: A Discursive Analysis of Affective Practices in Mobilization Against the Radical Right in a Context of White Innocence
Critical Analyses of Antiracism and Affective Practice
Antiracist and Anti-Fascist Mobilizations in Finland
Material and Methods
Counterforce Against Hate, Refraining from Affect
Practice of Disgust and a Quest for Hope
Conclusion
References
10 Concluding Remarks: The Future of Multiculturalism?
The Turn to Discourse and Rhetoric in Psychology
Self-Sufficient Rhetorical Arguments
Strong Borders Are Necessary for ‘Successful’ Multiculturalism and Social Cohesion
Reason Versus Emotion as a Discursive Affective Practice
More Future Directions
References
Index

Citation preview

PALGRAVE STUDIES IN DISCURSIVE PSYCHOLOGY

Edited by Katarin na Petttersson · Emma Nortio

Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology

Series Editors ˘ Social Sciences & Humanities, Cristian Tileaga, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK Elizabeth Stokoe, Department of Social Sciences, Loughborough University, Loughborough, UK

Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology publishes current research and theory in this established field of study. Discursive Psychology has, for the past 30 years, established an original and often critical understanding of the role of discourse practice for the study of psychological, social, and cultural issues. This book series will provide both introductions to discursive psychology for scholars new to the field, as well as more advanced original research for those who wish to understand discursive psychology in more depth. It is committed to the systematic representation of discursive psychology’s contemporary ethos into all things social – from everyday interactional encounters to institutional settings and the analysis of wider social issues and social problems. Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology will therefore publish ground-breaking contemporary contributions on the relevance of discursive psychology for key themes and debates across psychology and the social sciences: including communication, social influence, personal and social memory, emotions, prejudice, ideology, child development, health, gender, applied interventions, institutions. The series editors welcome contributions from ethnomethodology and conversation analysis, as well as contributions more closely aligned to post-structuralism, approaches to analysis combining attention to conversational detail with wider macro structures and cultural-historical contexts. We invite junior and senior scholars to submit proposals for monographs and edited volumes that address the significance of discursive psychology in psychology, communication, sociology, applied linguistics. Please contact the series editors (c.tileaga@ lboro.ac.uk; [email protected]) or the commissioning editor (grace. [email protected]) for more information.

More information about this series at https://link.springer.com/bookseries/15475

Katarina Pettersson · Emma Nortio Editors

The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions A Critical Discursive Perspective

Editors Katarina Pettersson Swedish School of Social Science University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Emma Nortio University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland

Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology ISBN 978-3-030-89065-0 ISBN 978-3-030-89066-7 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: Panther Media GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Preface

This book delves into a topic that has become one of the most prevalent societal issues of the twenty-first century: the discourse of multiculturalism. From a critical discursive social psychological perspective, the book explores how multiculturalism and the related topics of immigration, intergroup relations, prejudice and racism are constructed and discussed in both political talk and various forms of intergroup interaction. Specifically, the book focuses on how these topics as articulated by far-right political actors are received—accepted, contested, circulated and reproduced—in intergroup discussions both on- and offline. In so doing, the book builds a bridge between the two fields of discursive research focusing on either political or lay discourse, thus offering a much-needed contribution to the discursive psychological literature. Through utilizing empirical material from the Nordic context, the contributions to this book shed light on this specific setting and relate these insights to international research on the discourse of multiculturalism. Finally, in bringing the discursive perspective into interplay with media and communications, sociological, philosophical and gender studies perspectives on (political) discourse, the book makes a strong

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case for interdisciplinary research initiatives in the field. We hope that this book will be useful for scholars, students and professionals with an interest in the complex interplay between political and lay discourse in the current era of digitalization. Helsinki, Finland June 2021

Katarina Pettersson Emma Nortio

Acknowledgements We would like to thank all contributors to this book for their dedication and hard work during the covid-19 pandemic. We also thank Cristian Tileag˘a for inspiring us with the idea of this book in the first place. Our final thanks go to our families—David and Amélie, Jouni and Veikko— for all their support during this project.

Praise for The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions

“At a time when populist and far-right rhetoric so permeate the public sphere, this is a book for the ‘must-read’ list. Carefully dissecting language and imagery, those contributing to this edited volume take a serious look at the digital world and provide an interdisciplinary masterclass on how to explore contemporary rhetorical attacks on multiculturalism and the options for counter-argument.” —Professor Nick Hopkins, University of Dundee, Dundee, Scotland, UK “As the social sciences come to terms with the realisation that ‘oldfashioned’ racism may be depressingly prevalent in the third decade of the 21st century, this new and exciting volume presents a collection of fascinating analyses of the intertwining of discourses of race, racism and multiculturalism in the online and offline contexts of contemporary political debate. Drawing on the tools of critical discursive and rhetorical psychology, the authors shed light on how the language of extremism and exclusion is enacted, reproduced and reinforced, but also how it can be challenged and resisted. It will be essential reading for scholars interested

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Praise for The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism …

in matters of race and racism, the stubborn persistence of the far right, and in the analysis of political discourse more broadly.” —Professor Stephen Gibson, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, Scotland, United Kingdom “In the current cultural and political conjuncture it is more important than ever to analyse the discursive formations and affective practices which sustain right wing extremism. This richly layered exposition of contemporary research from leading scholars is essential reading for all those who seek to understand the power of populism and far right discourse.” —Margaret Wetherell, Emerita Professor, The University of Auckland, New Zealand and The Open University, UK

Contents

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Introduction: The Far-Right Discourse on Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions Katarina Pettersson and Emma Nortio Mobilising Gender Equality and Protectionism in Finnish Parliamentary Sessions and Online Discussions Around Immigration: An Intersectional and Critical Discursive Psychological Analysis Satu Venäläinen and Rusten Menard Underdogs Shepherding the Flock—Discursive Outgrouping of ‘the Internal Enemy’ in Online Discussions Gwenaëlle Bauvois, Niko Pyrhönen, and Jarkko Pyysiäinen A Critical Discursive Psychological Study of Dialogical Constructions of Hate-Speech in Established Media and Online Discussions Inari Sakki and Eemeli Hakoköngäs

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Trying to Ignore the Bullies and the Buzz: A Critical Discursive Study of How Pro-migration Activists Cope with and Contest Right-Wing Nationalist Interference Camilla Haavisto Making Enemies: Reactive Dynamics of Discursive Polarization Joel Backström, Karin Creutz, and Niko Pyrhönen From Angry Monologues to Engaged Dialogue? On Self-Reflexivity, Critical Discursive Psychology and Studying Polarised Conflict Salla Aldrin Salskov, Joel Backström, and Karin Creutz Affective Visual Rhetoric and Discursive Practices of the Far-Right Across Social Media Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Jenni Hokka, Matti Nelimarkka, and Kaarina Nikunen “A Counterforce Against Hate”: A Discursive Analysis of Affective Practices in Mobilization Against the Radical Right in a Context of White Innocence Minna Seikkula Concluding Remarks: The Future of Multiculturalism? Martha Augoustinos

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Notes on Contributors

Martha Augoustinos is a Visiting Professor in the School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Australia. Her research has detailed the contradictory nature of the everyday sense-making practices people use to argue, explain and justify their views about contentious issues that generate polarized public debate. This has included the analysis of political and everyday discourse on gender, race, asylum seekers and national identity. Joel Backström is an Associate Professor in philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He is the author of The fear of openness: An essay on friendship and the roots of morality (ÅAUP, 2007), and co-editor of Moral Foundations of Philosophy of Mind (Palgrave, 2019). He has published on ethics, on Wittgenstein and the philosophical dimensions of psychoanalysis, on the dynamics of collective identities and on the dialogical, morally engaged nature of human understanding in everyday life and scientific research. Gwenaëlle Bauvois, Ph.D., sociology, is a Researcher at the Centre for Research of Ethnic Relations and Nationalism (CEREN) based at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki. Her research

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interests include politicization of immigration, hybrid media space, right-wing populism, countermedia and post-truth politics. Karin Creutz is a Ph.D. candidate and Project Rresearcher at the University of Helsinki. Her ongoing research focuses on experiences of polarization in oppositional milieus, and on conflict and consensus in media debates. She has conducted ethnographic fieldwork with for example radical nationalist actors, right-wing populists and anarchists on experiences of authority measures and has a special interest in methodological development for research in securitized communities. Camilla Haavisto (D.Soc.Sc.) is a University Lecturer in Communication at the Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research relates to minority claims-making, antiracist advocacy and the circulation of news between the Global South and the Global North. She is also interested in media literacy, particularly from the perspective of inequalities and technology integration. Eemeli Hakoköngäs (Dr. Soc. Sci., Docent, University of Helsinki) is a Lecturer in Social Psychology at the University of Eastern Finland. His research interests include visual rhetoric, collective memory and political psychology. In his research, Hakoköngäs has recently addressed the role of Internet memes in the communication of Finnish extremist groups. In addition, he has analysed everyday consumer goods advertising as a source of banal nationalism. Jenni Hokka works as a Researcher at the Department of Design, Aalto University. She holds a Ph.D. in media studies and a M.A. in general history. She has wide research expertise in the field of media studies from multiplatform productions to circulation of racism on social media. Her current research interests include affectivity, creative work and privacy in a data-driven society. She has published several articles on social media and television in journals such as New Media & Society, European Journal of Communication and International Journal of Digital Television. Currently, she is working in a project called Intimacy in a Data-Driven Culture, funded by the Strategic Research Council (SRC) of the Academy of Finland.

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Salla-Maaria Laaksonen (D.Soc.Sc., Docent) is a Researcher at the Centre for Consumer Society Research, University of Helsinki. Her research areas are technology, organizations and new media, including political communication in the hybrid media system, the organization of online social movements and the use of data and algorithms in organizations. She is also an expert in digital and computational research methods. Rusten Menard is a Senior Lecturer of social and critical psychology in the sociology department at University of Portsmouth, UK. His research interests are focussed on social justice issues and are approached using critical discourse analytic and critical discursive psychological methodologies. His current research project deals with understandings and experiences of sexual victimization among LGBTQI+ young persons (age 16–25). Matti Nelimarkka (Ph.D.) is a social computing scholar focused on digital democracy and computational social sciences. His work spans across human–computer interaction, political science and communication and media studies. Nelimarkka leads the Helsinki Social Computing Group at the University of Helsinki. He is also affiliated with the Digital Content Communities research group at Aalto University, Department of Computer Science and Helsinki Institute for Information Technology HIIT. Kaarina Nikunen is a Professor of Media and Communication Research at the Faculty of Information technology and Communication at Tampere University. Her research explores the ways in which digital media construct an understanding of the world and possibilities of participation. She has long expertise in ethnographic research on migration and media, as well as studies of participatory cultures and practices in a digital context. Her current research focuses on questions data and inequalities. Emma Nortio, D.Soc.Sc., is a Researcher in social psychology at the University of Helsinki. She has studied the lay discourses of multiculturalism online and offline. Her research interests focus on discursive dynamics of intergroup relations, as well as qualitative and arts-based

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methodologies. Emma is also a member in the Puhekupla collective that brings together artists and scholars to study polarization and dialogue in the context of cultural diversity and immigration. Katarina Pettersson (D.Soc.Sc., Docent) is a University Lecturer in social psychology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research has involved the discursive analysis of nationalist and radical right political rhetoric, hate-speech and political communication and persuasion in the online sphere. Her work has been published in journals such as the European Journal of Social Psychology, Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology and Discourse & Society. Niko Pyrhönen is a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Helsinki. His areas of expertise include radical right activism, hybrid media space, politicization of immigration, transnational countermedia coverage and news framing practices. He currently works in the research project Extremist Networks, Narcotics and Criminality in Online Darknet Environments (2020–2022). Jarkko Pyysiäinen, Ph.D., social psychology, is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His research interests include relational agency theories, discursive and rhetorical social psychology, social psychology of entrepreneurship and social scientific approaches to questions of sustainability in general and social sustainability. Inari Sakki, (Ph.D./docent, University of Helsinki) is Professor in Social Psychology at the University of Eastern Finland. Between 2020 and 2024 she leads two projects on populism “Populist Appeal” funded by Kone Foundation and “Mobilising Populism: its representations, affects and identities” funded by the Academy of Finland. Her research interests include political communication, nationalism, populism, national and European identity, collective memory, social representations, discourse and multimodality. Salla Aldrin Salskov is a Ph.D. candidate and Project Researcher at the University of Helsinki. Her work has been published in Sexualities, NORMA: International Journal for Masculinity Studies, NORA— Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research. She has edited a special

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issue on feminist epistemic habits and critique, for Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics (with Marianne Liljeström) and a special issue on concepts and history for SQS-journal of queer studies in Finland with Leena-Maija Rossi & Riikka Taavetti. Minna Seikkula works as a Postdoctoral Researcher at CEREN (The Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism) at the University of Helsinki, Finland. Her research interests entail anti-racist and migrants’ rights activism and critical analyses of racism and whiteness. Her previous work has been published in international scientific journals such as Ethnic and Racial Studies and The Sociological Review. Satu Venäläinen is a Postdoctoral Researcher in social psychology at the University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, Finland. Her research interests are focused on discourses, intersectionality, identities and affects linked specifically with gender and violence both in online and offline contexts. Her current research project explores meanings and affective experiences of sexual harassment among young people.

1 Introduction: The Far-Right Discourse on Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions Katarina Pettersson and Emma Nortio

This is a book about the discourse of multiculturalism. Its main endeavour is to explore the shifting ways in which issues related to this concept become negotiated in both institutional discourse and informal discussions and intergroup encounters. As such, multiculturalism is a concept that has been the topic of vivid academic and political debates for decades (Bloemraad & Wright, 2014; Verkuyten, 2007; Vertovec & Wessendorf, 2010). In their work entitled The crises of multiculturalism (2011) Alana Lentin and Gavan Titley argue that the malleability of the term multiculturalism and the debate around its successes and failures has opened up a discursive space for mobilizing anxieties related to K. Pettersson (B) Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] E. Nortio University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_1

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migration and for legitimizing racist hierarchies. As Martha Augoustinos (this volume) concludes, the future of multiculturalism is at a crossroad, as the concept has, on the one hand, been hailed as an important value orientation in contemporary Western societies, and on the other, as it has become increasingly criticized and contested as an ideological and political concept. Therefore, there is a pressing need for researchers to develop innovative, interdisciplinary methods for studying how the concept is constructed, contested and negotiated in political and informal interaction. This book is a step towards this endeavour. In the context of the Nordics, the question of whether and how to promote cultural diversity has become a hotly debated political and societal issue. Often-times ‘pro-multiculturalist stances’ of the left- and liberal-leaning stand against nationalist-populist and far-right political agendas that articulate multiculturalism and its alleged proponents as the fundamental threat to the ‘nation and the people’ (e.g., Nortio, 2020; Pettersson, 2017; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). In exploring discursive meaning-making around issues related to multiculturalism at different societal levels in the Nordic context, the present book seeks to examine the ways in which far-right political articulations of such topics become received and interpreted, adapted, contested and transformed in both institutional talk and in informal, intergroup interactions. This book has a two-fold aim. First, in relying on previous (critical) discursive psychological research in the areas of political and lay discourse around multiculturalism, and incorporating insights from the fields of media and communication studies, sociology, gender studies and philosophy, the book seeks to contribute methodologically to discursive psychological research on online communication, and to promote interdisciplinary research initiatives in the field. Second, in focusing specifically on the Nordic region, the book aims to shed light on the peculiarities of this context when it comes to debates around multiculturalism, and in so doing, to enhance our knowledge of a phenomenon that is both global and local in character. In this introduction, we will briefly review previous (critical) discursive research on political and lay discourse about issues related to multiculturalism. Next, we outline the theoretical and methodological standpoints

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of the book and discuss the contributions it aspires to make to the literature. Moving on, we describe the main contents and foci of each chapter and how the individual chapters contribute to the overarching aims of the book. First, however, we will introduce the context in which this book has been written.

Right-wing Populism in the Nordic Context Support comes via clarity, honesty and trustworthiness. Trustworthiness comes through being consequent. Let others rattle, the caravan continues. Thank you, party friends and supporters!1 Jussi Halla-aho, Tweet December 3 rd , 2020

The quote above is a tweet by Jussi Halla-aho, the then leader of the populist radical-right Finns Party (Fin: Perussuomalaiset / Swe: Sannfinländarna) upon the announcement of a national opinion poll indicating that the party had—again—become the largest in Finland in terms of voter support (Finnish Broadcasting Company YLE, 2020). Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, during which support for the Social Democratic led Finnish government had been strong, the party’s return to the top in terms of popularity was immediately regarded by political commentators as a ‘return to normal’ (Turunen, 2020). It is indeed possible to speak of the triumphs of populist and radical right-wing political parties as a ‘normal’ state of affairs in the twentyfirst century, as examples across the globe—from Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Pauline Hanson in Australia and Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines to Geert Wilders and Marine Le Pen in Europe—show. The power and extent of these triumphs is exceptionally clearly illustrated by the fact that they have taken place also in the Nordic countries, including Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland, during the past decade (cf. Augoustinos, this volume). During the twentieth century the Nordics gained international reputation through the 1 Finnish original: Kannatusta tulee selkeydellä, rehellisyydellä ja uskottavuudella. Uskottavuus tulee johdonmukaisuudella. Muut räksyttäkööt, karavaani kulkee. Kiitos puoluetovereille ja kannattajille!

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development of their extensive welfare systems—‘the Nordic model’ (Hellström, 2016), and the national political arenas remained dominated by social democratic, liberal-conservative, agrarian, and, occasionally, communist parties (Demker & Svåsand, 2005; Hellström, 2016). Ten years into the new millennium, however, populist radical right-wing parties disrupted this hegemony, increasing their electoral support at the expense of both social democratic and conservative parties, as well as through mobilizing ‘sleeping voters’ (those who tend not to vote in democratic elections) (Kinnunen, 2020), soon counting themselves among the major political players in their respective countries (Jungar & Jupskås, 2014). In his classic formulation of populism, Cas Mudde defines populism as ‘an ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, “the pure people” versus “the corrupt elite”, and which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale of the people’ (p. 543). As for the Nordic populist right-wing parties, Ann-Cathrine Jungar and Anders RavikJupskås (2014) contend that albeit being diverse in terms of backgrounds and specific aims, these parties are united by a nationalist, conservative ideology that opposes anything and anyone that may be regarded as a threat to the ‘true’ national people—be it immigration, sexual minorities or the economic consequences of globalization. With rhetorically appealing and persuasive political articulations of these messages, the Nordic populist radical right parties have successfully mobilized substantial shares of the electorates for their political causes. Further still, social scientific research has highlighted that these parties have managed to significantly influence both the political (e.g., Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021; Pettersson & Sakki, 2020) and the societal everyday debates about issues pertaining to immigration and cultural diversity (e.g., Horsti & Nikunen, 2013; Nortio, 2020). In line with these findings, in the present book, we lean towards a conceptualization of contemporary populism in its radical-right shape not as a feature of individuals or parties, but as a discursive practice (cf. Laclau, 2005) and political style (Moffitt, 2016) that is able to traverse cultural, political and contextual boundaries, and be performed by actors across the social and political spectrum.

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The Nordic context constitutes a particularly interesting setting for examining the influence of far-right discourse around multiculturalism on societal debates, be they formal or informal, offline or online. As discussed above, it is indeed a curiosity of sorts that the Nordic countries with their legacy as social democratic welfare states (e.g., Jungar & Jupskås, 2014) have in the twenty-first century experienced the rise of populist and far-right parties. Operating in countries with particularly high, and evergrowing, Internet and social media penetration in international comparison (Strandberg & Carlson, 2021), the success of these parties has at least partly been attributed to their skilful use of the social media, which has enabled them to claim media space and mobilize popular support for their political agendas (e.g., Horsti & Nikunen, 2013; Horsti & Saresma, 2021; Pettersson, 2017). The rather rapid increase in humanitarian immigration to the Nordic region, not least during the so-called European refugee crisis in 2015, added fuel to this development. Research has shown that the spread of the antiimmigration and anti-multiculturalist ideologies of these parties has contributed to the mainstreaming of their rhetoric among the political ‘elite’ (Sakki & Pettersson, 2018), as well as to the societal normalization of nationalist and xenophobic discourse (Horsti & Nikunen, 2013). In conjunction, the discursive climate—both in terms of the political and societal debates—has hardened at a general level, with incidences of hate-speech increasing drastically in the twenty-first century (ECRI, 2019), creating discursive space for radical and extremist movements (cf. Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021) and even justifying direct violence (Saresma et al., 2021). One of the foci of this book is to gain a deeper understanding of this worrying trend, including how online debates in the hybrid media system, where possibilities for anonymity allow for particularly fierce discursive acts (Bilewicz & Soral, 2020; Cervone et al., 2021), on one hand, and political debates in formal, offline settings, one the other, mutually affect and reinforce each other.

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Discursive Research on Political and Lay Discourse Around Issues of Multiculturalism Discursive psychological research on political discourse was introduced by the pioneering work of Michael Billig (e.g., 1978, 1995) and his rhetorical approach to social psychology (Billig, 1987). Billig emphasized the role of language and argumentation in human social interaction in general, and in the transmission of political ideologies. In his book Fascists: A social psychological view of the National Front, for instance, Billig (1978) demonstrated how the ideology of fascism was reproduced by the British far-right party the National Front in its rhetoric that constructed immigrants, Jews and black people as the ‘enemies’ of the British people. The tradition within discursive psychology of focusing on how racism and discrimination are produced in political talk grew stronger through the work of Martha Augoustinos and colleagues in Australia (e.g., Augoustinos et al., 1999; Every & Augoustinos, 2007), Ineke Van der Valk (2003) and Maykel Verkuyten (e.g., 2003, 2013) in the Netherlands, and various scholars in the British context (e.g., Condor et al., 2013; Wood & Finlay, 2008). Drawing inspiration also from the work of discourse analysts Teun van Dijk and Ruth Wodak (e.g., Richardson & Wodak, 2009; Van Dijk, 1993; Wodak, 2015; Wodak & Richardson, 2013; Wodak & van Dijk, 2000), much of this research has focused on the discourse of far-right and nationalist political parties, and how their discourse serves to promote and (re)produce racism, power inequalities and different forms of intergroup hostility. Discursive research on racist and discriminatory political discourse has provided important insights into the various ways in which matters of race have become concealed in such discourse (Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Reeves, 1983), for instance, in talk about the interests of the ‘nation’ and its heritage (e.g., Billig, 1995; Pettersson, 2017; Wodak & Forchtner, 2014; see also: Reicher & Hopkins, 2001), in talk about cultural rather than racial differences (typically, between the ‘authoritarian’ Islam and the ‘liberal’ West: e.g., Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Verkuyten, 2013; Wetherell & Potter, 1992; Wood & Finlay, 2008) and in self-sufficient rhetorical arguments (cf. Augoustinos, this volume) and appeals to ‘common sense’ claims about the perils of immigration

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and multiculturalism, and how various ‘others’ pose a threat to ‘us’ and ‘our’ welfare (e.g., Billig, 1995; Goodman & Burke, 2011). Further, far-right discourse that opposes immigration, asylum-seeking and a multicultural society, represents not only immigrants of colour, refugees and asylum seekers and religious minorities (particularly Muslims) as unwanted others, but also constructs political adversaries—leftists, green party representatives, feminists and liberals—as enemies of the nation and the people (Augoustinos, this volume; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Petterson & Sakki, 2020; Wood & Finlay, 2008). Political discourse continues to be a central area of investigation within more recent streams of discursive work, not least because of the electoral fortunes of far-right, populist and nationalist political parties in the past decade. Continuing the tradition of the early work of Billig and others, current DP research often deploys a critical perspective, focusing also on ‘macro’, societal level implications of political discourse on people’s lived experiences. Researchers have investigated, for instance, how (national) identities are constructed and outgroup hostility warranted within the discourse of far-right political leaders (e.g., Burns & Stevenson, 2013; Verkuyten, 2013), how refugees and the European ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015 are constructed in political talk (e.g., Goodman & Kirkwood, 2019), how denials of hate-speech and racism against minorities are constructed (e.g., Pettersson, 2019, 2020; Gibson, 2020) and how, in recent years, the antagonistic rhetoric of far-right parties has become adapted by politicians across the political spectrum (Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021; Sakki & Pettersson, 2018). Intriguingly, in a recent study on the media reporting of the political debate around Brexit in the UK, Simon Goodman (2021) demonstrates how talk about the far-right can serve a variety of discursive functions for both pro- and anti-brexit argumentators, for instance, how the alleged threat of the far-right can be used to further rather than oppose far-right agendas. Another example of such paradoxical rhetorical manoeuvres in political discourse is the use of arguments about the necessity for strong national borders to ‘protect’ a peaceful multicultural society from the ills of uncontrolled migration (Augoustinos, this volume). Discursive psychologists have, furthermore, begun to show increasing interest in the ways in which far-right and nationalist politicians use

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the social media, for instance, political blogs (Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, 2020), Facebook (e.g., Burke, 2018; Burke et al., 2020), YouTube (Sakki & Martikainen, 2020) and Internet memes (Hakoköngäs et al., 2020) in their strives to persuade the electorate and mobilize support for their political agendas. In their recent book Analysing Digital Interaction, Meredith et al. (2021) bring together scholars that deploy a wide range of qualitative methodologies—including discursive psychology, conversation analysis and microanalytic methods—to study various forms of interaction-focused online communication, for instance, on Facebook and Twitter and in online discussion and dating forums. The book presents not only the methodological possibilities and challenges that the study of these digital forms of interaction entail for researchers, but also discusses the various ethical considerations involved in such research, including issues of distinguishing between the public/private domain, anonymity and informed consent, and data management (Ditchfield, 2021). Importantly, this newer line of research described above has started to consider the multimodality of (far-right) political discourse, that is, how not only verbal but also various forms of (audio-)visual and digital elements contribute to the forcefulness of political messages (e.g., Burke, 2018; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Lennon & Kilby, 2020; Pettersson, 2017; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, 2020; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020). As we will discuss in the next section, a key endeavour of the present book is to build upon and develop this area within (critical) discursive psychological research on political communication. Studying the intersections of political and lay discourse is a fruitful avenue for DP, which has a long tradition of investigating the ways in which ordinary people talk about societal and political issues related to intergroup relations, immigration and multiculturalism (Augoustinos & Goodman, 2017). In their classic study on racist discourse in New Zealand, Wetherell and Potter (1992) showed that lay discourse on race-related matters is always situated in a wider socio-political context and, more importantly, that it has social and political implications. By revealing that the white majority of New Zealanders legitimized the oppression of the indigenous minority with seemingly liberal and benevolent arguments, Wetherell and Potter (1992) paved the way for (critical)

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discursive psychological research that sees language use as a form of social action that not only reveals taken-for-granted cultural assumptions, but that can also either fortify or shatter the status quo. Consequently, and just to name some of the prevailing themes within this field of research, DP research has examined lay discourse of race and prejudice (for reviews of this research, see Augoustinos & Every, 2007; also e.g., Durrheim et al., 2015), negotiations of immigrants’ citizenship and belonging (Andreouli & Dashtipour, 2014; Gibson & Hamilton, 2011; Varjonen et al., 2013), asylum seekers and the processes of seeking asylum (Lynn & Lea, 2003; Goodman, 2010; Goodman et al., 2014) as well as acculturation and immigrant integration (Bowskill et al., 2007; Sapountzis, 2013). While the discursive psychological field of research widely acknowledges that lay discourse is intertwined with political discourse, discursive studies that would specifically focus on the intersections of political and more informal communication remain scarce. Among the exceptions, Eleni Andreouli and colleagues (Andreouli et al., 2020) have studied the negotiations of the connections between support for Brexit and prejudice among British citizens. Emma Nortio and colleagues (Nortio et al., 2020) examined how an anti-multiculturalist political message was interpreted in an online discussion forum targeted at Finnish lay audiences. Both studies show the variable ways in which political discourse is circulated and challenged in lay discourse and reveal the need for further research on these meaning-making processes.

Aims of the Book: Confronting the Challenges of Studying the Power of Contemporary Political Communication The present book is a collection of (critical) discursive psychological research focusing on the topic of how far-right discourse on issues related to multiculturalism becomes received, interpreted, adapted and contested in informal talk in both online and offline contexts. Scholarly

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interest in these issues has been increasing for instance within sociology and media studies, where the circulation of far-right messages in the era of digitalization and the ‘hybrid media system’ (Chadwick, 2013) have been at the focus of attention (e.g., Hatakka, 2017; Horsti, 2017; Meredith et al., 2021; Titley, 2019). As discussed above, however, although DP has a long tradition of studying both political (e.g., Condor et al., 2013; Every & Augoustinos, 2007; Verkuyten, 2013) and lay discourse pertaining to multiculturalism (e.g., Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Goodman & Burke, 2010, Nortio et al., 2016), research bringing these two fields together remains scarce (cf. Nortio et al., 2020). Additionally, DP research that considers the role of various non-verbal, for instance, visual, forms of communication in political discourse (online), is only an emerging area of research (see e.g., Burke, 2018, Meredith et al., 2021; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, 2020; Richardson & Wodak, 2009; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020) that needs urgent attention. Aiming to fill this gap in the DP literature, the present book takes a multi-level perspective on the circulation of far-right messages in informal talk and intergroup interaction. Given its focus on the construction of reality through locally situated, discursive practices (e.g., Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter & Wetherell, 1987), DP constitutes a particularly well-suited approach to examining at a micro-level how the adaptation, reproduction and also contestation of political discourse takes place in informal talk and intergroup interaction. Increasing our understanding of these issues is of both academic and societal relevance, as the ways in which multiculturalism is understood, negotiated and communicated at the political level and among the public have implications for the everyday practices and relations of different ethnic, cultural and religious groups and for the well-being of minorities (Augoustinos, this volume; Bloemraad & Wright, 2014; Howarth, 2016). Indeed, the discursive psychological approach of this book relies to a great extent on the work of scholars who have engaged in a more critical form of DP (e.g., Burke, 2018; Burke et al., 2020; Edley, 2001; Edley & Wetherell, 1997; Pettersson, 2019; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016, 2018; Wetherell, 1998). We align with this stream of research in advocating critical discursive psychology (CDP) as a particularly useful approach for endeavours to analyse (political) discourse. Indeed, in contrast to the more traditional

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research conducted within DP, its critical cousin adheres to a poststructuralist perspective that takes into account not only the ‘micro’ context of discourse, but also the broader cultural, political and historical context within which it is embedded, including a sensitivity to issues of power inequalities (e.g., Edley, 2001; Wetherell, 1998). For the sake of exploring our present topic—how far-right political discourse pertaining to issues of multiculturalism is negotiated in various forms of informal talk—we argue that this critical lens is particularly important, as it allows for investigating how discourse is both produced within and continues to (re)produce societal power relations. Despite the aforementioned benefits of CDP when it comes to studying contemporary political discourse (see also: Demasi et al., 2021), we do maintain that the approach needs to be strengthened in order to grasp the complexities of such discourse. This holds true especially for detailed analyses of political discourse in the online sphere, as such discourse relies to a great extent on forms of communication that go beyond the verbal (see e.g., Pettersson, 2017; Pettersson & Sakki, 2020). In far-right and nationalist political communication, for instance, the utilization of forceful imagery that portray asylum seekers, refugees and other groups of people categorized as ‘others’ as threatening to the nation and its ‘rightful people’ has become an important mode of persuasion and of expressing issues that because of their socially and politically sensitive nature are difficult or politically risky to express in words (cf. Pettersson & Sakki, 2017). Indeed, the social media with its vast array of visual and digital affordances (Chadwick & Stromer-Galley, 2016) offer for both politicians and lay users platforms in which articulations that promote discrimination of ethnic and cultural minority groups may be produced in harsher forms than in face-to-face interactions (cf. Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021; Bilewicz & Soral, 2020; Burke & Goodman, 2012; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Hatakka, 2019), yet with similarly adverse consequences for social and intergroup relations (cf. Bilewicz & Soral, 2020). Thus, on one hand, online political communication can take forms which ‘conceal’ discriminatory messages (e.g., in the visual form), thus allowing politicians to dodge accusations of prejudice or hate-speech (e.g., Pettersson, 2019; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017), and cater to specific constituencies with elaborated multimodal messages

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that may seem both socially acceptable, politically correct and persuasive (cf. e.g., Burke, 2018; Forchtner & Kolvraa, 2017; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Pettersson, 2019, 2020). On the other hand, the online sphere, with its possibilities for anonymity and avoiding confrontation with the targets of the discriminatory or hateful speech, allows for exceptionally strong forms of verbal assault (e.g., Goodman & Burke, 2011). The developments described above pose significant challenges for researchers of contemporary political communication, as such communication, in all its complexity, needs to be studied at multiple levels and from multiple angles. This is why we argue that an interdisciplinary approach, bringing together insights from various social scientific disciplines, is necessary (Pettersson & Sakki, 2020; Tileag˘a, 2019). When promoting such interdisciplinarity it is important to bear in mind, however, that different approaches carry with them their own specific ontological and epistemological assumptions, and that the mission of bringing these into dialogue may induce difficulties (see also: Pettersson, 2019; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, for further discussions). What is meant by the term ‘discourse’, for example, varies depending on the perspective(s) that the individual scientist applies. Chapters 7–9 in this volume seek in line with the work of Wetherell (2012) and Wiggins and Osvaldsson Cromdal (2020) to bridge the gap between DP’s traditional focus on non-psychological, discursive practices on one hand, and embodied experiences, such as affects and emotions, on the other. This is a challenging yet highly important endeavour for research on online (political) communication and persuasion, as it strives specifically to mobilize audiences through appealing to their emotions, be it through verbal or visual communication (cf. Augoustinos, this volume). In sum, by discussing how the perspectives applied in the individual chapters relate to the DP understanding of discourse as social action, with social and political consequences (e.g., Potter & Wetherell, 1987), this book considers the ontological complexities and possibilities involved when ‘stretching the boundaries’ of (C)DP to fruitfully capture the multifaceted character of online and offline discourse on multiculturalism (cf. Augoustinos, this volume). Thereby, we hope that the following pages will illuminate that such interdisciplinary dialogue is both possible and important for scholars of political discourse.

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In sum, in investigating both political and institutionalized discourse (in the form of news media material, parliamentary and other political debates, politicians’ social media discourse) as well as grassroot-level informal talk and discussions among ‘ordinary people’ and far-right and pro-migration activists in online as well as offline settings, the book aims, firstly, to offer both theoretical and empirical knowledge on the discourse of multiculturalism in contemporary Western societies in general, and the Nordic ones, in particular. Secondly, in deploying a CDP perspective, and combining this with insights from media and communications research (e.g., Chadwick & Stromer-Galley, 2016), sociological media research (Pyrhönen & Bauvois, 2019), intersectionality theory (Hancock, 2007) and philosophy (Backström et al., this volume), a two-fold aim of the book is to contribute methodologically to CDP research on online communication, and to promote interdisciplinary research initiatives in the field. Thus, by examining a timely topic of global concern; by utilizing empirical material from both political, media and more informal online and offline settings; and by adopting an integrative CDP approach to issues of cross-disciplinary interest, the book aims to provide a contribution to the social scientific understanding of contemporary politics.

Outline of the Book This book comprises a set of chapters that offer a multitude of perspectives on the reproduction and contestation of far-right articulations of topics related to multiculturalism—such as hate-speech, gender equality, asylum seeker and anti-racist activism, the 2015 European refugee crisis, and polarization and radicalization—in political talk and informal intergroup interactions. Below, we briefly introduce these chapters and discuss the specific ways in which each of them contributes to the central aims of the book outlined in the previous section. In Chapter 2, Satu Venäläinen and Rusten Menard examine how online forum discussion participants and members of the Finnish Parliament take up discourses on gender equality and protectionism in their talk about immigration. The authors examine this talk through a critical

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discursive psychological approach that is sensitive to intersecting relations of privilege and disadvantage. Through their analyses, Venäläinen and Menard demonstrate how two interpretative repertoires—a repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness and a repertoire of protectionism—are drawn upon in both research materials in ways that enact various exclusions along intersecting lines of gender, nationality, political orientation and race. In conjunction with the different positions that speakers claim for themselves and assign to others in their talk, these repertoires function to distinguish between those who are or are not entitled to claim ownership of definitions and practices around gender equality. The chapter provides an important contribution to discursive research that seeks to analytically grasp the intersectional character of productions of inequalities in institutional and non-institutional discourse. In Chapter 3, Gwenaëlle Bauvois, Niko Pyrhönen and Jarkko Pyysiäinen look at how lay discussants articulate their objections to multiculturalism when discussing news events featuring radical right talking points on intergroup relations. The authors analyse social media discussions that evolved from two articles in the largest daily newspaper in the Nordics, Helsingin Sanomat: the first around the emergence of the far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin in January 2016 and the second around the election of Jussi Halla-aho as the chairman of the radical right populist Finns Party in June 2017. Informed by a social identity perspective, the authors shed light on the lay discussants’ discursive constructions of a category of ‘internal enemies’, who are presented as multiculturalist traitors of the nation, and discuss these discursive patterns in relation to far-right and populist political discourse. In Chapter 4, Inari Sakki and Eemeli Hakoköngäs examine how meanings related to ‘hate-speech’ are constructed by politicians in a televised debate, and how these constructions are received—rejected, accepted and re-constructed—by social media users. The authors rely on work in critical discursive psychology for their analysis of the dialogical construction of interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions between an elite-led, TV broadcast discussion and grassroots-level online discussions. In conceptualizing hate-speech as a social representation, the study captures how the term is constructed in

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and between these groups in a dialogical relationship that is characterized by tension, debate and dialogue (Marková, 2003). The authors demonstrate the polarization that marks these constructions of the meanings of hate-speech: a hegemonic version associating hate-speech with discrimination and racism in the TV show is challenged by social media users, who instead construct hate-speech as an ‘invention’ and a ‘weapon’ of ‘the tolerant’. Through its methodological approach, the chapter bridges the gap between discursive and social representation approaches to studying the argumentative and functional aspects of discourse around contested topics, such as hate-speech. Chapter 5 by Camilla Haavisto focuses on how asylum seeker activists and their allies cope with and contest right-wing nationalist rhetoric and interference. Examining two sets of material—research interviews with migrant activists and their allies as well as posts from two promigration Facebook pages—Haavisto identifies three discursive manoeuvres through which asylum seeker activists position themselves in relation to the antagonism they face: denying fear, constructing safe spaces and focusing the narrative on the state. The findings bring to the fore the interplay between psychologically aligned coping mechanisms and strategic communication on one hand, and face-to-face communication and digital interaction on the other. The chapter makes an important argument about the advantages for researchers of a framework in which media studies, social movement studies and discursive psychology intersect. In Chapter 6, Joel Backström, Karin Creutz and Niko Pyrhönen shed light on discursive-relational aspects involved in the dynamics of polarization that tend to be neglected in social scientific research. Through examples from empirical materials and previous research on discourses about right-wing nationalism, the authors approach polarization as a historically evolving process of identity-construction and action and re-action between the parties of polarized conflict. More specifically, the chapter examines the various ways in which discourse in polarized settings tends to become deadlocked and limited, with ensuing mutually hostile relations where opposing parties actively (re)produce their enemies.

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Chapter 7 by Salla Aldrin Salskov, Joel Backstöm and Karin Creutz presents an approach called engaged dialogue for research on polarised conflict. Drawing upon insights from ethnographic literature and their own ethnographic material and research experience with far-right and nationalist actors, the authors highlight the need for a sustained, selfreflective dialogical engagement on the part of researcher with the people who are studied. The chapter concludes that the lack of such a perspective risks reifying popular, mediatized representations and selfpresentations of parties in conflict, as well as reproducing and fomenting, rather than unlocking, the deadlocks of polarised conflict. In Chapter 8, Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Jenni Hokka, Matti Nelimarkka and Kaarina Nikunen discuss the ever more important role played by the multiple forms of visual communication for far-right movements. Building on three empirical studies in the context of the so-called European refugee crisis in 2015–2017, and illustrations of the more general societal circulation of racist discourses, the authors explore the strategic uses of still images and videos in the communication of Finnish anti-immigration and far-right movements and examine their wider circulation in the media system. In this chapter, the visual rhetoric of the far-right is examined as an important aspect of the technologymediated affective economy of the political immigration question and digital racism. The authors conclude by discussing the methodological challenges of studying visual content, from both technical and psychological perspectives. In Chapter 9, Minna Seikkula analyses the circulation of affects in online discussions of Silakkaliike—(Herring movement), a mobilization that drew inspiration from the Italian Movimento delle sardine (Sardines movement) against the far-right and that quickly gained popularity in Finland during the last days of December 2019 and early January 2020 (when the discussion about whether or not to repatriate Finnish citizens from the al-Hol camp in North-eastern Syria began). The chapter examines the affective practices that constitute anti-racist mass mobilization in these discussions, thus striving to make an argument about affectivity and anti-racism that has a broader significance in critical scholarly discussions on anti-racism.

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In the final concluding chapter Martha Augoustinos—a global leader in the field of discursive research on both political and lay discourse— reflects on the contribution of the book and points forward to future considerations around DP work on the discourse of multiculturalism, both theoretically and analytically. The individual chapters in this book can be read in any order, and grasped as separate, unique contributions to the scholarly literature on political and lay discourse about multiculturalism. However, it is our hope that the joint contribution of this book is to lay the ground for future discursive psychological research endeavours in the field of both offline and online discussions around multiculturalism, encouraging these endeavours to be (self-)critical, interdisciplinary and multimethodological in nature.

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2 Mobilising Gender Equality and Protectionism in Finnish Parliamentary Sessions and Online Discussions Around Immigration: An Intersectional and Critical Discursive Psychological Analysis Satu Venäläinen and Rusten Menard Our chapter presents an analysis of anti-immigration, nationalist meaning-making in two different contexts in Finland, online discussions and parliamentary sessions. We approach this meaning-making from a theoretical and methodological framework based on critical discursive psychology and an intersectional viewpoint and specifically utilize the concepts interpretative repertoires and subject positions. We illustrate how two interpretative repertoires we interpreted from both datasets, a repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness and a repertoire of protectionism, are drawn upon in the research materials in ways that enact various exclusions along intersecting lines of gender, nationality, political S. Venäläinen (B) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] R. Menard University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_2

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orientation, and race. These exclusions work together with positioning in distinguishing those who can claim ownership of definitions and practices around gender equality from those whose ownership of these is denied. Politics of fear (Wodak, 2015) and rhetoric of security against threats associated with immigration are central mechanisms of racialised and ethnicised othering in both right-wing, populist political discourse, as well as in the everyday talk of the general public (e.g. Sager & Mulinari, 2018). The discursive construction and management of understandings and positionings in such rhetoric rests heavily on evoking racialised and ethnicised images of threatening intruders, whose societal exclusion is then deemed justified in the name of protecting the nation’s citizens and values (Di Masso et al., 2014). In Nordic contexts, a primary reference point and tool in discursive othering practices is an ideological conception of gender equality. Here equality is taken as an already achieved project that is inherent to Nordicness (e.g. Tuori, 2007), while also seen as in need of protection against perceived threats to equality that are very often attached to migrant bodies (Menard, 2016). Reproducing notions of migrant men racialised as non-white as potential perpetrators of gendered and sexual violence has also figured in Nordic right-wing rhetoric as a tool for constructing white masculinities via intersecting, hierarchical distinctions (Norocel et al., 2020)—with the function of downplaying the fact that specifically in Finland, gendered and sexual violence committed by non-migrant men remain major concerns (Venäläinen & Virkki, 2019). As Ojala et al. (2019) have demonstrated, such constructions of ‘foreign’ threats may be persuasive among the general public due to being linked with anti-elite anger and accusations of politicians failing to take adequate measures to protect citizens by imposing strict immigration policies. Studies that have focused on the discursive construction of such threats in Nordic contexts have for the most part employed macroanalytical perspectives focused on broad discursive patterns. The number of studies engaging with more micro-oriented approaches is nonetheless growing. Sakki and Pettersson (2016) for instance used tools from rhetorical and discursive psychology in an analysis of populist radicalright Finnish blogs, demonstrating that Muslim immigrants in particular

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are constructed as the ultimate violent and threatening others. Relatedly, Nortio et al. (2020) used both a frame analytic and discursive psychological approach to show how raising the issue of purported dangers associated with multiculturalism can be discursively framed in online discussions—by both Finnish politicians and members of the general public—as normal political conduct that aligns with the interest of the citizens, hence normalising xenophobic political talk. In this chapter, we use empirical examples from online discussions on one hand, and Finnish parliamentary sessions on the other, in examining how repertoires of both threat and Finnish gender equality are built and mobilised in discussions around migrants. The perspective of critical discursive psychology (CDP) has provided us with conceptual analytical tools capable of simultaneously highlighting how languageusers mobilise particular meanings in contextually shifting ways, as well as the ways in which those mobilisations are strained by societal-level discursive systems (Edley, 2001; Wetherell, 1998). At the same time, we carry out our interpretations through an intersectional lens. Our aim is to pay particular attention to the ways in which racialised, ethnicised and gendered macrostructures of domination intersect in framing those meanings and mobilisations. We suggest that this combined lens fruitfully facilitates our aims of attending to the complex dynamics between the reproduction of macrostructural relations of power and privilege on the one hand, and discursive-level (re)constructions of situated meanings in their simultaneous variability and social embeddedness on the other. Shedding light on these dynamics allows an understanding of both how far-right ideologies gain their power to enact societal exclusions, and how—as dominant ideological structures—they frame sense-making in similar manners across varying contexts. We proceed by situating the study in relation to how discourses on equality and migration have been previously shown to intersect in antiimmigrant rhetoric. We then outline our understanding of the ways in which critical discursive psychological research can benefit from paying attention to intersecting relations of privilege and disadvantage. After describing our methods, we analyse how online forum discussion participants and members of the Finnish Parliament take up discourses on

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gender equality and protectionism in their talk about immigration. We conclude by discussing how our interpretations contribute to both critical equality studies and methodological developments in critical discursive psychology.

Equality and Migration Conceptions of gender and sexuality equality are often entangled with those of ‘Europeanness’, ‘Nordicness’ and ‘Finnishness’, as well as mobilised in nationalistic and exclusionary rhetoric (e.g. Lähdesmäki & Saresma, 2014; Vuori, 2009). Similarly, welfare nationalist discourses— in which the Nordic welfare model is characterised as egalitarian, exceptional and exportable—have been implicated as tools for constructing idealised national identities to the detriment of racialised ‘foreigners’ (e.g. Keskinen, 2016; Kuisma, 2007). Homonationalist discourses (Puar, 2007) are referenced in more recent trends in using equality to build Nordic nations, where equality and tolerance for sexual diversity are brought into the definition of the nation-state so as to exclude and repress those perceived as lacking commitment to such values (e.g. Jungar & Peltonen, 2017). Frequent references to gender equality in discussions on immigration thus enable distinction-making between purportedly progressive and equal Finnish citizens on the one hand, and those immigrants portrayed as less progressive and threatening the valorised Finnish gender equality on the other (Lähdesmäki & Saresma, 2014; Menard, 2016; Venäläinen & Virkki, 2019). As Nordic and Finnish identities are also deeply embedded in concepts of whiteness (Keskinen, 2013; Leinonen, 2012) and cultural homogeneity (Häkkinen & Tervonen, 2004), the separation of ‘us and our values’ from ‘immigrants and theirs’ is quite often racially marked. Discourses on equality are seemingly readily available tools for building and justifying anti-immigration standpoints. At worst, networks of discourses on equality are drawn upon and used as rhetorical tools to separate ‘Us’ from ‘Others’ in identity constructions built with essentialising, subjugating and intersecting categorisations

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of race, ethnicity, culture, religion, gender, sexuality and nationality (Lähdesmäki & Saresma, 2014; Menard, 2016; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Tuori, 2007). These ways of ‘doing equality’ have extensive ramifications for cohabitation and dialogue between those who can freely claim Finnishness, and those whose access to it is routinely strained and denied.

Intersectionality and Critical Discursive Psychology in Dialogue We therefore start with the assumption that discursive constructions of identities are not only interpersonal negotiations that are more or less freely formulated according to interpersonal power dynamics. Identifications are also strained by macrostructures of domination and subjugation that may be both symbolic and material (Foucault, 1981; see also Hook, 2001). We suggest that critical discursive psychology offers an approach to studying discourse that is particularly well-equipped to address the connection between the variability characterising the discursive realm and its material constraints that (re)produce inequalising effects. This is due to the combined micro- and macro- emphasis in CDP (see e.g. Wetherell, 1998), which is one of the main aspects of the approach that distinguishes it from the more narrowly defined micro-analytic orientation of general DP (see also the introduction chapter in this volume). Indeed, in his critical discursive psychological work on masculinities, Edley (2001) problematises distinctions that have been made in discursive psychology between symbolic and material realms. To construct someone as ‘mad’, for example, may aid in positioning that person in ways that result in both symbolic and physical exclusion from particular identities, social relations, public spaces and so on. Just as particular positions are more readily available to some than they are to others, material resources that are habitually linked to such positions are also unequally available and distributed. Edley’s (2001) work resonates with insights from intersectional theory such that categories of subjugation and privilege are taken as operating in multiple ontological dimensions— e.g. those of the interpersonal, representation and subjective experience (Yuval-Davis, 2006). The inequalities operating in each dimension may

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be either material or symbolic, or both material and symbolic (YuvalDavis, 2006). In large part motivated by discontent with the lack of sensitivity and dialogue in mainstream feminism around black women’s lived experiences of multiple dimensions of oppression, intersectional theory reflects the social and political contexts within which black feminists produced it (see e.g. Collins, 1990/2000, 1993; Crenshaw, 1990). A fundamental contribution of intersectional theory is the proposal that power imbalanced categorisations related to, for example, race, gender, class, ethnicity, religion, sexuality, ability and so on do not operate in isolation, but rather intersect in endless yet irreducibly different ways in specific individuals’ lives (see Collins, 1993). Intersectional feminists have been key in theorising the mechanisms involved in the shaping of individual experiences in contexts of structural differences in power and privilege. It is perhaps unsurprising that in the bulk of mainstream versions of psychology there has been virtually no consideration of how macrostructures of oppression intersect at the level of individual experiences. However in critical social psychology, some attention has been given to the essential task of analysing how power unbalancing structures and categories intersect at the level of individual experience (e.g. Bowleg, 2017; see also Wetherell, 2008). We argue that attunement to such intersections has, nevertheless, been taken as essential by far too few critical discursive psychologists. More specifically, critical discursive psychological research could be much more attuned to how categories of ‘penalty and privilege’ (Collins, 1990, 2000) intersect in our empirical data. In this chapter, we aim to take intersecting relations of power and privilege as primary. In recognition that intersectionality has become a catchphrase at high risk of appropriation (Lewis, 2013), and as able-bodied feminists racialised as white, this makes our task both discomforting and necessary. We thus feel that the ways in which we take intersectional theory into critical social and discursive psychological work are in need of ongoing critical reflection. Taking these points into the context of this chapter, one of our primary starting assumptions is that whiteness is necessarily at play in discursive contexts of and around Finnishness and migration (e.g. Rastas, 2005). Our focus is on how Finnish equality repertoires are taken

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up and used as tools in identity constructions along intersecting axes, such as nationality, gender, race, ethnicity, sexuality and religion. We ask how speakers and writers take up positions in distinguishing between Finnishness and non-Finnishness; between proper citizens acting on behalf of the Finnish nation and ‘non-Finnish others’ who threaten the assumed existence of gender equality.

Methods Our empirical examples come from two separate sets of material: Finnish online forum discussions and Finnish parliamentary sessions. Both sets of discussions took place around the time period known as the ‘European migrant crisis’ that peaked particularly in 2015. An analysis of these two sets provides unique insight into how individuals located in differently empowered social positions nevertheless draw upon shared repertoires in constructing identities. Parliament members are in central positions for reinstating, upholding and transforming common understandings of Finnish equality. These understandings are also taken up and used by members of the general population for positioning themselves and others in various relations of power and competence. We thus take Finnish online forums as providing a platform for Finnish speakers to participate in maintaining or reformulating dominant understandings of Finnishness and gender equality. Similar to Nortio et al. (2020), we also assume that these different discursive genres are in continuous interaction. One of our main starting points is therefore that, at least in the relatively small-scale Finnish national and linguistic context, social and power distances between Parliamentary members and ‘common people’ are not so great that entirely separate discussions around particular topics are produced.

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Methods of Analysis We work with the conceptual tools from CDP of interpretative repertoires and subject positions. Interpretative repertoires can be described as part of a culture’s ‘common sense’, as building blocks that are always available for use in constructions of situated versions of actions, meanings and identifications (Edley, 2001; Wetherell & Potter, 1988, p. 172). An analysis of interpretative repertoires should be attuned to patterned uses of meaningful terms delivered in specific styles, often signalled by particular tropes or figures of speech (Wetherell & Potter, 1988, p. 172). The concept of subject position here refers to the process of drawing upon those building blocks of interpretative repertoires in building situated versions of identities. Subject positions can be seen as locations in conversations that are made available by particular interpretative repertoires (Edley, 2001). An analysis of subject positions may proceed by asking what sort of person is implicated in the way that a particular interpretative repertoire is taken up and used, and what particular utterances imply about identities being constructed by the person uttering them. Intersectional theory contributes to our analyses to the extent so that we start with the idea that the ways in which specific ‘culturally commonsensical’ building blocks used in identity work become relevant for particular individuals in specific situations, and intersect, is variable, and thus should be approached as ongoing empirical questions (see e.g. Hancock, 2007, p. 251). Structures of domination are approached in our analyses as both historically specific and continuous (Collins & Bilge, 2016), and as operating and intersecting in multiple ontological dimensions (Yuval-Davis, 2006, p. 198). In our analyses, we are thus attuned to how social divisions are framed through formalised structures such as laws, institutions and family structures, and what kinds of embodied, subjective and relational experiences are made available through them. In line with CDP, ‘subjective experience’ is thus taken as embedded in material realities, social relations and social meaning-making rather than being somehow inside the heads of individuals (e.g. Brah & Phoenix, 2004).

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Materials Material 1 consists of transcripts from Finnish parliamentary sessions, from the years 2015–2016. Specific transcripts during those years were chosen and downloaded from the Language Bank of Finland (kielipankki 1 ) for preliminary analysis according to qualification that the term gender-equality was brought into discussions that also referred to one or more of the following terms: immigrant/immigration, refugee, asylum/asylum seeker or foreigner. The material was then reduced according to whether the discussions were in fact relevant to our aims here. Thirty-two transcripts were taken into the final analysis, each one of which consists of an entire Parliamentary session. The publically available transcripts include a speech from prominent politicians and other public figures and have also been made freely available for research purposes. Material 2 is composed of online discussion threads from the years 2015–2017 that specifically focus on the issue of immigration in relation to violence committed by migrant men in Finland.2 It was collected in 2017 by means of Web searches conducted with Google and sitespecific text-search tools. The search terms were ‘violence+migrants’ and ‘violent migrants’, and the sites from where the material was obtained include five popular Finnish discussion fora and eight comment areas of blog sites. The included sites are purposefully diverse to give a broad view of sense-making among the general population (for more details, see Virkki & Venäläinen, 2020). For this paper, specifically, the commenting with references to gender equality were examined closely to discern any patterns in uses of such references in meaning-making around immigration and gendered violence. Twenty-one discussion threads, where such references in connection to immigration were made, were taken into the final analysis. For the purposes of protecting the posters’ anonymity, the sites from which the materials were obtained are not identified, and the extracts in the analysis are accompanied only with the date of each post. Furthermore, the fact that the materials are not presented here in their original language makes it more difficult to trace the original writings, and thus works to further protect the posters’ anonymity. Both sets of materials can be considered as texts within the public realm; they were publicly accessible at the time of data collection, and

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therefore also available for research purposes without any specific restrictions. For both sets of material, the original Finnish texts were taken into analysis. The extracts presented in this chapter were translated by the authors.

Analyses Our analyses illustrate how two primary interpretative repertoires, a repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness and a repertoire of protectionism, are drawn upon in discussions on immigration. The repertoires were interpreted by working with both materials simultaneously, after interpreting and categorising different ways of employing talk around equality separately in each of the materials. Below, we specifically demonstrate how these repertoires are mobilised in ways that enact various exclusions along the lines of gender, nationality, political orientation, and race. What unites the mobilisation of these repertoires—which indeed often work together in the analysed discussions—is the ways in which both are used in constructing images of a threat towards Finnish society, its values, and the safety and overall interest of its citizens. In terms of positioning, these repertoires specifically work to enact distinctions between those who can claim ownership of definitions and practices around gender equality, and those whose ownership of these is denied.

Repertoire of Gender Equality as Finnishness The repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness is routinely mobilised in both datasets in efforts to construct the identities and relations between and among migrants and Finnish citizens. This routine manner of employing the repertoire is illustrated by our first two extracts, both of which come from Parliamentary discussions but originate from parties with very different orientations to the issue of immigration policy, the Finns Party (Perussuomalaiset )—who are known for their exclusionary, right-wing nationalist rhetoric—and the Left Party.

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Extract 1 comes from a speech of a politician from the Finns Party and is an example of how this repertoire provides a backdrop for constructing a threat to Finnishness and Finnish equality as a likely outcome of immigration policy that is too lenient. Extract 1, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

It is not in anyone’s interest for us to take in too many asylum seekers in Finland and not be able to invest enough in their integration. At the end of that road await ghettos, riots and, at worst, terrorism on our own soil. Immigration must be controlled and based on national principles. (Riitta Myller, Social Democratic Party: Oh, is this government policy?) [...] Those who come here must study Finnish and our culture more diligently in the future. A person who has been granted asylum must understand that Finland operates in accordance with Finnish law. For example, the equal status of women is an absolute core value. (Juho Eerola, The Finns Party)

In the extract above, Eerola claims that accepting an unlimited number of migrants would unavoidably lead to negative, threatening and violent outcomes such as the emergence of ghettos, riots and even terrorism (1– 3). These scenarios justify the speaker’s claim of the specific need for both restrictive immigration policies and educating migrants as compulsory for their integration into society (4–7). Assertions of immigrants’ assumed underdeveloped knowledge of Finnishness and Finnish lawfulness, particularly in relation to women’s presumed equal status (5–9), are built on the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness. This also allows for positioning Finnish men as an implicit point of comparison to migrant men. Finnish men are thus portrayed as being in equal relation with Finnish women, contrary to immigrants lacking the competence required to act in accordance with the value of gender equality. From an intersectional perspective, what is notable here is how this repertoire draws upon a version of the reality of equitable power relations between women and men for the purposes of building distinctions, which are imbued with power imbalances, between Finns and ‘incoming’ non-Finns. The implications of this distinction are highly racialised and ethnicised, with Finnish whiteness being put to work in imbuing gender equality meaning (for more on the entanglement of Finnishness and whiteness, see e.g. Leinonen, 2012; Rastas, 2005). This illustrates

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the complexity of both rhetorical mobilisations of intersecting social divisions, and their relations to material advantage and disadvantage. Extract 2 shows the uses of the same repertoire in a Parliamentary speech by Paavo Arhinmäki (Left Party). In the beginning of his speech, he criticises anti-immigration talk of other parties’ representatives, and continues: Extract 2, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Madam Speaker! Fortunately, however, there are also parties in the government who understand that we need to look for solutions, not those to blame. When asylum seekers come here to Finland, we must take action and integrate and educate them immediately. […] Family reunification is also very important. Namely, if there is a fear for one’s own family, the future of one’s own family, integration is facilitated if the family is together. […] It is especially important to talk about Finnish law, respect for the law, Finnish culture and that women are equal in Finland. (Paavo Arhinmäki, Left Party)

As one of the most well-known, powerful and popular Left Party politicians, Arhinmäki mobilises the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness (7–8), functioning in positioning immigrants as lacking in competence in relation to it. He takes up positions on family reunification policies as being important in asylum seekers’ integration into Finnish culture (5–7). Yet Arhinmäki puts similar repertoires as the representative of the Finns Party in Extract 1 to work here, with also similar uses of the pronoun ‘we’ in distinguishing ‘Finns’ from ‘others’ as has been identified in previously conducted analyses of Finns Party representatives’ talk (e.g. Pettersson, 2019). There is a focus on ‘educating incoming immigrants to the ways of Finns’—with an agentic ‘we’ who act upon asylum seekers (3–4). Again, a lack in important social values is assumed, resulting in a presumed need to teach. Arhinmäki concludes by similarly positioning immigrants as deficient in competence in gender equality. This positioning contradicts efforts in Extract 2 to position the Left Party and its representatives as responsive to immigrants’ needs, and as distinct from other parties positioned as opposing such responsiveness. The implication here is a conditionality of immigrants’ acceptance into society, thereby underlining their status as outsiders.

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Similar to the Parliamentary speeches, in online discussions the positioning of immigrants as outsiders on the basis of their purported deficiency in gender-equal practices is also frequently employed, functioning to justify their societal exclusion. Extract 3 illustrates how the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness provides the backdrop for constituting the representatives of the gendered, ethnicised, nationalised and (thus implicitly) racialised category of immigrant men as a threat to Finnish women and Finnish gender equality. Extract 3, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Everyone has the right to security and a good life, but if it has to be done at the expense of Finns, then no thank you. The fact now is that men from a culture that considers women inferior will not change their habits even if we try to force it. Who would now want to give away their own ‘rights’ (women can be treated any way one wishes, beaten so that they would do their job, forced to have sex, etc.)? We have been taught from an early age that men and women are equal, and we would stick to that even if we had to move to Saudi Arabia. The same thing happens to immigrants, they bring their own customs and values here with them from the Middle East, which is not at all a positive thing. (August 24, 2017)

The extract begins with acknowledging the universality of rights to security, which works as a disclaimer defending against the positioning made available by the statement immediately following it that prioritises the safety and wellbeing of Finns over those of migrants’ (1–2). The writer thereby constitutes Finns as separate from specifically Middle Eastern ‘others’, and whose needs naturally and righteously precede theirs (2– 10). With the help of the pronoun ‘we’ (6), the purported naturalness of gender equality as an essential feature among Finns (e.g. Billig, 1995) is contrasted with the presumed inequality of non-Finnish cultures— an inequality which is similarly constructed as an inherent feature of particularly those coming from the Middle East (2–9). In contrast to Extracts 1 and 2 from the Parliamentary speeches, here the threat posed by migrants is more explicitly gendered: those violating Finnish gender equality are explicitly identified as men (2), and those who are harmed by these violations as women (5–6). Through this explicit gendering, the writer positions themselves as an advocate of not only the abstract ideal

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of gender equality but also concretely of Finnish women’s rights to security (6–8). This consolidates their self-positioning as competent Finnish citizen who cares for women’s wellbeing, enacted through distinctionmaking in relation to the category of immigrant men who disrespect women. These dialogical positionings gain their rhetorical strength from intersecting subjugations associated with religion, ethnicity, regionality and gender. Reference to the Middle East arguably evokes stereotyped imagery of a Muslim man dedicated to a religious ideology that oppresses women, and that is therefore incompatible with the Finnish national values that the writer aligns their own identity with. Our final extract illustrating the mobilisation of the repertoire gender equality as Finnishness shows that its use is not limited only to the positioning of immigrants as incompetent in relation to it. The repertoire is also used in positioning specific actors as so-called internal enemies (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016), such as those speaking against an antiimmigration stance or, as was frequent in the online discussions, those identified as feminists. It is noteworthy that both of these positionings tend to be feminised in anti-immigration rhetoric (e.g. Venäläinen & Virkki, 2019), and thereby rely heavily on cultural repertoires around gender in enacting the associated othering of those taking part in discussions on immigration. In extract 4, the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness is not only put to work in accomplishing such othered positionings of feminists but it is used simultaneously to favourably position Finnish men as distinct from migrant men. The extract comments on a gang rape of a Finnish woman with migrant men as suspects. Extract 4, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Hah, now I realised something that has amazed me for years: why do feminists so openly support immigration from areas where the status of women is downright outrageous. After all, immigrants bring their attitudes with them. The answer is that the position of women in Finland is already so good that feminists threaten to become irrelevant. The subconscious hope is that those who come to the country from these crisis areas will specifically * bring * with them their attitudes and, with it, into every woman’s daily life again the * real * problems that we need feminists to solve. There was already a solution, all that was needed was a problem.

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This gang rape is the best thing that has happened to feminists for a long time, for in it a woman clearly suffered aggravated violence from men. When the ethnic background of the perpetrators is conveniently forgotten (as so many media have done), one can focus on discussing the flaws and responsibilities of the native Finnish heterosexual men and Finnish society’s sick attitudes, and organising resistance against the mysterious white heteropatriarchy. (March 12, 2015)

With a pointedly sarcastic style common in online anti-immigration rhetoric (Nikunen, 2015), the writer claims authority to truthfully define the state of gender equality in Finland by denying the competence and willingness of other actors such as feminists to do so (1–6). Simultaneously, feminists are instead positioned as endeavouring to maintain a false image of women’s oppression (6–10). The repertoire of Finnish equality serves multiple functions here: First, it assists in positioning feminists as responsible for violence against women in Finland due to purportedly supporting the entry of migrants and the associated problems of inequality into Finnish society that are portrayed as otherwise non-existent—in a very similar manner as in infamous blog posts by Jussi Halla-Aho (Finns Party) a few years earlier (see e.g. Keskinen, 2012). This positioning simultaneously purifies Finnish men from being seen as likely perpetrators of violence against women by insinuating that it was only once migrant men arrived that ‘real’ problems of inequality emerged, such as violence against women. A similar purification is also enacted in the last sentence by positioning Finnish men as victims of a feminist conspiracy that falsely holds them responsible for acts of gendered inequality and violence (13–17). By suggesting that ‘white heteropatriarchy’ is in fact only a product of feminists’ imaginations, the writer refutes the existence of inequalities based on gender, race and sexuality, and instead positions white heterosexual men living in a Western welfare state such as Finland as the victimised group that faces discrimination based on false claims disseminated by feminists. This positioning accomplishes the dialogical positioning of feminists as incompetent in not only truly advancing women’s interests but also in disseminating accurate information regarding the state of racial, gendered and sexual realities in Finland. By constructing such incompetence,

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the writer implies that they themselves as well as other non-feministidentified actors in turn have better capacity to make truthful assessments of the current societal situation. In sum, in a quite contrary fashion to the image of an immigrant man from the Middle East in the previous extract, here the image of a white Finnish heterosexual man draws its rhetorical influence from intersecting categorisations that work together in accomplishing the aforementioned discursive functions (c.f. Norocel et al., 2020).

The Repertoire of Protectionism The repertoire of protectionism was similarly evident in both datasets and works closely with the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness. This repertoire builds specifically on notions of threat to the security of the Finnish nation, as well as to the preservation of gender equality that resides within its borders. With its gendered positionings of Finnish women as specifically threatened by non-Finnish men, this repertoire closely resonates with the gendering and racialising rhetoric of protection discussed, for instance, by Young (2003; see also Saresma, 2019, on its mobilisations in the Finnish context). We claim that in our datasets, this repertoire frequently functions in allowing to claim control and ownership not only of the objects of protection but also to the right to define who is to be included in the category of the protected and how such protection should be enacted. Extract 5 illustrates the use of the repertoire of protectionism in an online discussion commenting again on a gang rape with migrant men as suspects. The extract shows how this repertoire functions in legitimising the act of revealing the ethnicity of the suspected perpetrators in the media or by citizens themselves. It is written in response to other comments in the discussion thread where the appropriateness of revealing such information has been questioned. Extract 5, material 2 1 2 3 4

The act is, in my view, an outrageous crime against the values of the Nordic welfare state, which include resisting violence, integrity, equality (it seems strange to have to spell out such obvious things) and respect. The value base is part of the culture, young people learn it by watching the actions of their

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own community and their consequences. I see a clash of cultures here. That is why we need to talk about it and talk needs to generate change in ways of acting. That’s why I also told who did the act. Not so that their community would be condemned, but because we are not living in India in 2015 but in Finland. We don’t solve things with violence, we respect each other, we value our women (and sometimes men too), we respect our integrity. (March 18, 2015)

Here, gang rape is made sense of by portraying it as an expression of disalignment with the Finnish value of gender equality (1–2, 10). This works to position the non-Finnish perpetrators in the case as disrespectful of and threatening to core Finnish values, and thus implicitly as unfit to be considered as citizens of the Finnish nation. By contrasting Finland with India (8–9), the writer mobilises entwined associations linked with nationality, ethnicity and culture regarding gender equality, and uses these associations in constructing a threatening figure of a likely perpetrator of sexual violence. With these positionings, the writer constructs the Finnish nation as distinct from the countries of comparison in terms of gender equality, and hence ‘does Finnishness’ through the exclusion and moral condemnation of those deemed as lacking knowledge of and commitment to the values of gender equality and non-violence. Here again, expressing concern for women’s wellbeing and aligning with values of non-violence against women and gender equality works as a tool for national identity construction based on exclusionary distinction-making. Extract 6 shows similar uses of the repertoire of protectionism and the related expressions of concern for the security and wellbeing of Finnish women in a Parliamentary speech by Teuvo Hakkarainen (Finns Party) with the function of justifying not only moral but also concrete and legalised exclusion of migrants specified as criminals. The context of this discussion is a citizens’ initiative that proposed that immigrants convicted of crimes should be returned to their countries of origin. Extract 6, material 1 1 2 3

We must send a clear signal that it is not appropriate to come here to plunder, and we must by no means pamper these criminals. There have been an awful lot of them among those who have come since last summer. What we have

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seen so far is only the tip of the iceberg. Much worse is coming. Whoever does not understand or does not want to understand this is a gullible fool. Not to mention those who benefit in one way or another from asylum tourism. They apparently don’t care about all the suffering that worsening crime and insecurity incur for example to those women and girls who have already had to change their daily routines because they are afraid, and they are so genuinely and for a reason. Immediate deportation would have a deterrent effect. In the current situation, these intruders are mocking us and our legislation. This cannot continue. If it continues, we will be as in Sweden. Sweden has the second highest number of rapes in the world, averaging 16 times a day. In proportion to our population, that number would mean about ten rapes per day for us. Who wants this? Women, children and men, all raped. In the autumn, a crisis unit for raped boys and men was opened in Sweden. The eyes of many Finns have opened to see that unless we rapidly and significantly tighten our legislation, the Swedish road will be our road. That’s how it is. (From the group of The Finns Party: That’s right!) That’s right. It is pointless to assume that if we invest in integration, we will avoid a wave of crime and chaos. The integration of certain nationalities has not succeeded in any country, nor will it succeed here. […] (Teuvo Hakkarainen, The Finns Party)

The extract expresses the idea that unless ‘we Finns take action in relation to criminal actions committed by ‘invaders’, crime and insecurity will dictate ‘our lives’. As in the political blogs analysed by Sakki and Pettersson (2016), Finland as a nation is positioned here as under threat of ‘ending up’ like Sweden, who must now have a rape crisis centre for boys and men (13–18), which is discursively connected to immigrants in Sweden and thus also Finland (1–14, 19–24). The expansion of the category of victims to include men and boys here works to highlight the severity and exceptionality of the threat faced by the Finnish nation. Expulsion of migrants deemed as unfit for Finnish society (1–2, 12) is therefore justified in the extract by rhetorically building integration as impossible in relation to ‘particular’ nationalities (23–24), thereby enacting divisions within the larger group of immigrants. These divisions based on nationality work in parallel with divisions constructed within the Finnish people. Those not willing to align with the notion of threat built through the repertoire of protectionism are positioned as irrational

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and immoral due to a lack of care for the fates of Finnish women at the mercy of immigrant men (5–11). In sum, the gender-stereotyped and ethnicised positioning of Finnish women as fearful victims of gendered violence committed by immigrant men works in the extract above as a tool for justifying exclusions and moral distinction-making among both ‘Finns’ and ‘non-Finns’. Whereas this positioning of Finnish women is based on constructing them as passive objects of protection to be undertaken by actors such as politicians, in online discussions another version of such positioning of women was also evident. This version is based on attributing responsibility for protection not only to Finnish society but also to individual Finnish women. Extract 7 shows how this positioning works to encourage Finnish women to adopt a suspicious and careful orientation towards immigrant men to stay safe: Extract 7, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Even though there is equality here and women have a right to their own integrity, some common sense should be exercised, especially if you are a woman. The word ‘no’ does not mean no in all cultures. If men have been ntaught in their own culture to devalue women and to objectify them, it is difficult for them to get it into their heads that things are not here as they are at home. If they don’t get it through normal teaching, then we should adopt the hard way and out of the country if you commit a crime. (November 29, 2015)

This extract presents an untrustful mode of interaction with immigrant men as rational conduct for Finnish women (1–3) due to the purported near impossibility of migrant men to learn to treat women respectfully (3–6). Simultaneously, acting otherwise is equated with subjecting oneself to the risk of being sexually abused. This need for women to protect themselves is juxtaposed with the notion of gender equality as the self-evident characteristic of gender relations among Finnish women and men (1–3), which therefore seem as beyond any risk of sexual abuse. The comment ends with the suggestion, closely resonating with the Parliamentary speeches above that a failure to adopt Finnish values provides adequate justification for deportation (6–7). This claim aptly illustrates how both in online discussions and Parliamentary speeches the repertoire

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of protectionism and the associated expressions of gendered care and concern for women are essentially mobilised for the purposes of exclusion based on ethnicity (c.f. Sager & Mulinari, 2018). In combination with the repertoire of gender equality as Finnishness, such mobilisations of the repertoire of protectionism allow for maintaining the idea of the Finnish nation as ethnically and racially homogeneous, and most of all, as unified by the value of gender equality that purportedly exceeds any gender differentiation between women and men.

Discussion Our analysis illustrates how the repertoires of Finnish equality and protection are used as tools for constructions of national identity along axes of race, ethnicity, sexuality and religion, in particular. By conducting our analyses through an intersectional lens, we have aimed to bring into focus the complexity of identity constructions, subjugation and distinction-making processes in our datasets. We have intended to demonstrate how notions seemingly in favour of social equality and inclusion can be mobilised with exclusionary functions that sustain gendered, ethnicised and racialised inequalities. In addition to showing similarities in how this was discursively enacted in the two materials, importantly the analysis also demonstrates that very similar rhetorical distinctions between ‘us Finns’ and ‘other non-Finns’ were employed not only by right-wing but also left-wing politicians—albeit perhaps in less explicit ways. Noteworthy here is that such inexplicit yet nevertheless subjugating subject position constructions do significant work in maintaining power imbalances and inequalities. These constructions may go more unnoticed by Leftists and Social Democrats for instance yet are still accepted and maintained through their uncontestedness. One of the recurring subject positions adopted in both sets of material is based on constructing the speaker as rational and clear-sighted (c.f. Pettersson, 2019), and thus as competent in making evaluations of the current situation, including the nature and scope of threats in it as well as the prevailing state of existing gender equality. As a counterpart to such a subject position, we can see the construction of actors such

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as feminists or those advocating more lenient or humanitarian immigration policies as lacking the competence to make solid judgements on the current situation either due to their gullibility or purposeful biases. In these positionings, the speakers or writers draw upon culturally recognisable and intersecting repertoires and associated evaluative distinctions between idealised Western attributes of individuals, such as rationality, progressive-mindedness and equality on one hand, and gender unequal, non-Western and racialised category-memberships on the other (Hughey, 2010; Venäläinen & Virkki, 2019). These repertoires and evaluations allow for building hierarchies both within and between categories of people. The symbolic weight of such characterisations derives from associations with both largely hegemonic forms of masculinities and whiteness, and, most importantly, from their intersections, to which also other distinctions such as sexuality and class could well be added. In both of the contexts we analysed, we argue that the central function of such positionings is claiming ownership over definitions and practices around both gender equality and ‘appropriate’ immigration. From an intersectional perspective, we can view such symbolic ownership as highly significant for the maintenance of practices that sustain material inequalities based on simultaneous memberships in multiple categories. In short, sustaining an image of gender equality as an already achieved goal in Finland serves the interrelated functions of justifying the exclusion of immigrants via strict immigration policy and refuting the validity and support for actors who work towards highlighting societal inequalities still existing in the Finnish context. The construction of Finnish national identity as based on gender equality therefore works as a powerful tool for the maintenance of the status quo along the lines of not only nationality and citizenship but also gender and race. We thus believe that the analyses also clear space for important interpretations on how different ontological dimensions within which social divisions operate intersect, and on how symbolic and material realities are entangled. More concretely in this study, the interplay between the Parliamentary and online talk with respect to immigration and deportation policies gives insight into how interpretative repertoires and institutionalised structures are necessarily co-constructed. The interpretative

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repertoires that are mobilised across these contexts gain reinforcement from such reiteration and come to inform practices ranging from policies to everyday encounters among variously positioned people, thereby shaping their embodied relational experiences as well as concrete possibilities to belong and to be allowed access to Finnish society. One example of such interplay of symbolic and material practices can be seen in an emphasis on educating migrants that not only cuts across the repertoires used in both contexts, but also for instance has been translated into concrete practices via pamphlets printed by the Finnish government to be given to asylum seekers upon their entry. By shaping encounters through which identities in relation to Finnishness are constructed, such educational endeavours can be seen as a prime example of intersecting symbolic and material hierarchisation through which complex social positionings are achieved with multi-level implications, ranging from individual experiences to societal and global structures of domination.

Notes 1. Original Finnish transcripts can be downloaded from https://www.kie lipankki.fi/corpora/eduskunta/. 2. We wish to thank Tuija Virkki for granting us access to the material, which was collected in the research project led by her.

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3 Underdogs Shepherding the Flock—Discursive Outgrouping of ‘the Internal Enemy’ in Online Discussions Gwenaëlle Bauvois, Niko Pyrhönen, and Jarkko Pyysiäinen

Introduction In this chapter, we apply a discursive psychological approach to analyse how mainstream discussants articulate their objections to multiculturalism when discussing news events featuring radical right talking points on intergroup relations. We complement the voluminous body of social scientific research by examining the radical right’s use of multiculturalism as a concept (see, Lesi´nska, 2014; Westlake, 2016) and practices for harnessing the term ‘multiculturalism/t’ as a pejorative label (see, Yılmaz, 2012). We shift the focus from the terminological and policy issues of multiculturalism to lay discourse on intergroup relations, in particular to the extent that lay discourse on intergroup relations pertains to the G. Bauvois (B) · N. Pyrhönen · J. Pyysiäinen University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_3

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key social problem multiculturalism is seeking to address; that is, multiculturalism as endeavour of ‘finding terms on which different cultural groups can live alongside each other’ (Miller, 2004, 15). In order to contribute to social psychological research on multiculturalism (see, Berry & Kalin, 2000; Reicher & Hopkins, 2001; Verkuyten, 2007), it is important to problematise and further qualify the discursive and rhetorical construction of the notion of ‘different cultural groups’ ostensibly in the core of (anti-)multiculturalist claims-making. Some distinctions and parallels can be drawn between the discursive practices of lay discourse users and various ethnopolitical ‘entrepreneurs of identity’ (cf. Haslam et al., 2010)—media figures, opinion leaders and activists—who actively engage in the discursive engineering and mobilisation of social and ethnic categories. As ethnopolitical entrepreneurs of identity deliberately evoke vivid images, norms and interests linked to different groups and social identities, often pitting them against each other, it is indeed useful to examine these practices as a distinctly performative discursive construction (re)producing social reality (Bourdieu, 1991, 248–251; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). At the outset, the groups thus constructed (let alone their alleged characteristics) often only exist in the mobilisation rhetoric of the said entrepreneurs: ‘[b]y invoking groups, they seek to evoke them, summon them, call them into being. Their categories are for doing —designed to stir, summon, justify, mobilise, kindle and energise’ (Brubaker, 2002, 166). At the grassroots-level of the mainstream public debate, the lay discussants may not be as conscious of these constructive and performative functions for invoking and evoking groups as the leading ethnopolitical entrepreneurs of identity are. Nevertheless, an active co-participation of the lay discussants is required for any societal discourse (and corresponding social categorisation scheme) to gain currency and legitimacy: only by reproducing the antagonistic narrative of a ubiquitous intergroup strife, the lay discourse serves to reify both more specific outgroups (i.e. racialised minorities, such as ‘the refugees’ or ‘the Iraqis’) and less specific outgroups (i.e. ‘the globalist elite’). For many, the narrative of real and imagined groups’ antagonistic relationship with ‘the people’ becomes the vernacular shorthand for understanding, juxtaposing, and mobilising the collective identities and interests that intersect a multicultural society.

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When multiculturalism is understood as an endeavour to pursue ways in which different cultural groups could peacefully live alongside with each other, we are clearly dealing with the core questions of a classic research theme in social psychology, that is, the dynamics of intergroup relations and the possibilities of mitigating intergroup conflicts (Brown & Gaertner, 2002; Tajfel, 2010). Within this broad research domain, social identity theory (SIT) (Tajfel & Turner, 1979; also Tajfel, 2010; Reicher, 2004) has emerged as the prominent theoretical perspective to questions concerning intergroup dynamics and ethnic relations. According to SIT, intergroup behaviour concerns situations where individuals use, and act in terms of, social categories. In so doing, individuals categorise themselves and others in terms of recognisable group memberships to make sense of their social realities and to act in relation to others therein. When fitting social categories thus become discursively available and appealing to individuals, a shift from interindividual to intergroup behaviour takes place. Individuals start orienting to each other (and to themselves) in terms of the particular values, norms and beliefs characteristic of the salient social categories—and, typically, as members of salient ingroups (membership groups) and outgroups (non-membership groups) (Reicher, 2004, 928–931). If the relations between ingroups and outgroups are thereby portrayed in conflictual terms, then such group differences are likely to serve as triggers for the accentuation of group boundaries, defensive favouring of the ingroup, and, possibly, discrimination and aggression towards the dissimilar and potentially threatening outgroup (Reicher et al., 2008). Applications of SIT have often followed experimental and quantitative research designs, where focal social categories and identities emerge as if fixed attributes of the social reality under study (cf. Pettersson, 2019; Rapley, 1998). Viewed from the constructionist, discursive psychology (DP) perspective, however, social categories and identities emerge rather as subject to negotiation, debate and (re)construction in the course of everyday social interaction (Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Rapley, 1998). Indeed, since people have rhetorical capacities to both categorise and particularise identifications for themselves and others, the definition of social identities, ingroups and outgroups emerges as a highly contextdependent and potentially contested issue, thereby becoming a matter

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of active discursive construction rather than mere perceptual-cognitive process (see, Billig, 1987; Pettersson, 2019; Pyysiäinen, 2010; Rapley, 1998). Informed by such ideas of DP, Maykel Verkuyten (2013) has applied SIT for studying how discrimination against immigrant outgroups is justified in the rhetoric of a far-right populist opinion leader (Geert Wilders) in the Netherlands. In his study, Verkuyten applied the integrative social identity model of the development of collective hate between groups, originally developed by Reicher et al. (2008). This five-step model specifies SIT-derived processes and steps through which discrimination and aggression against outgroups can become justified—and even celebrated by ingroup members as the right thing to do (Reicher et al., 2008; also Pettersson, 2019; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020). The five steps portrayed by the model (see Reicher et al., 2008) are: 1. Identification (the definition and construction of an ingroup), 2. Exclusion (the definition of agents that are external to the ingroup), 3. Threat (the portrayal of these agents as a threat to ‘us’ and as endangering the identity of the ingroup), 4. Virtue (the enhancement and championing of the ingroup as virtuous and good), and 5. Celebration (positing that the annihilation of the outgroup is a necessary and justified move to defend the virtue). The assumption is that a comprehensive communicative enactment of the steps in an intergroup setting is, first, conducive to an antagonistic culmination of the perceptions between ingroup (‘us’) and outgroup (‘them’). Second, it is also likely to legitimise several discriminatory, hostile attitudes and acts towards the outgroup (Reicher et al., 2008; Verkuyten, 2013). Verkuyten’s (2013) study revealed the steps of the model at work in the radical right populist rhetoric of Wilders, rendering discriminatory measures against the outgroup (Muslims) justified and accepted as something of ‘self-defence’ in service of the threatened ingroup of ‘us’. Verkuyten’s study thus showed how radical right rhetoric can serve as an antithesis to the goals of multiculturalism, and function as a persuasive anti-multiculturalist discursive practice.

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In this chapter, we set out to detect traces of a similar pattern in the Finnish context. However, we shift the analytical focus to study the responses and rhetoric of the (potential) followers, the lay people who would position themselves as advocates, adherents and supporters of radical right and its claims. In more specific terms, we analyse whether and how the lay people actively (re)produce and rhetorically justify the radical right discourse shifts recently put forward; and whether and how the lay people rhetorically embrace and justify the hostile accentuation of boundaries between ingroups and outgroups in their social media responses. And, importantly, whether we can detect traces of the five-step model of the development of collective hate at work in these discursive responses. While the state-of-the-art literature on multiculturalism tends to explicitly focus on the treatment of ethnoculturally defined outgroups (Banting & Kymlicka, 2006, 51; Verkuyten, 2004), it is important to note that the anti-multiculturalist discourse does not only target ethnocultural groups—real or imagined. Instead, we argue that especially the radical right entrepreneurs of identity, but also lay discussants, are increasingly seeking to reify the category of so-called ‘internal enemies’ (Ylä-Anttila et al., 2019, 3–4)—also termed ‘inner enemies’ (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016) or ‘enemy within’ (in extremists’ use, Finlay, 2007; Mols & Jetten, 2014)—categorically othering them as ‘the (out)group’ allegedly responsible for the intercultural strife to begin with. As we illustrate in our sociological and social psychological analysis, the practice of attacking a reified group of cultural, political and media ‘elite’ as the harbinger of multiculturalism draws from the very same ‘groupist understanding’ (Brubaker et al., 2004) that structures the rhetoric against ethnocultural outgroups as a part of a nationalist ‘toolkit’ (Gardiner, 2005; Swidler, 1986). Notwithstanding the contextual variance in the specific characteristics that the radical right presents as criteria for exclusion from the ingroup, the very same rhetorical practices and tropes employed against ethnocultural groups are harnessed for ‘[d]elegitimizing and even dehumanizing “the tolerant[s]’” as the outgroup and ‘the enemy of the people’ (Nortio et al., 2020, 13–14).

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Contextualisation of the Empirical Cases: The Vigilante Group Soldiers of Odin and the Election of the Finns Party Chairperson Jussi Halla-aho In this chapter, we conduct a discursive psychological analysis of the radical right’s rhetorical practices for outgrouping the ethnocultural Other and the internal enemy, evaluating the extent to which these practices for constructing an outgroup overlap and diverge. Considering the breadth of the literature addressing the leading figures of the radical right and other ethnopolitical entrepreneurs of identity (Haslam et al., 2010; Shoshan, 2016; Verkuyten, 2013; Wood & Finlay, 2008), we focus here on the lay discourse on multiculturalism. By lay discourse we refer to the way ‘ordinary people’ discuss topics related to multiculturalism, as opposed to scholars, politicians, the countermedia and opinion leaders (Nortio et al., 2020, 31). We analyse this discourse by collecting Facebook discussions that address the news coverage of two high-profile media events in Finland. In the first case study, we analyse the debates revolving around the emergence of the far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin (SOO) in January 2016, while the second case examines the discussion on the election of Jussi Halla-aho (HA) as the chairman of the radical right populist Finns Party in June 2017.1 Founded in Finland in October 2015, the emergence of SOO ‘was one of the most heavily mediatised counter-reactions to the so-called “refugee crisis” in the Nordic countries’ (Pyrhönen et al., 2021). In January 2016, the mainstream media began covering SOO’s street patrolling activities as they emerged in various cities and municipalities first in Finland, then in Norway and Estonia. During the spring, SOO had formed chapters in over 20 countries around the globe, including the United States, Canada and Australia (Bjørgo & Mareš, 2019, 24). According to SOO, the key rationale for vigilante activities was ‘to protect local women from sexual harassment or other forms of public gendered-based

1

Chairman from 10 June 2017 to 14 August 2021.

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violence by migrants’ (Aharoni & Féron, 2020, 89). From the beginning, SOO’s rhetoric drew heavily from extremist islamophobia, and its founder Mika Ranta was a member of the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement (Kotonen, 2019, 242). The election of Jussi Halla-aho as the chairperson of radical right populist Finns party in June 2017 ended a long-standing intra-party schism between the former chairperson Timo Soini’s agrarian populism and Halla-aho’s radical anti-immigration faction. Although Halla-aho had only infrequently endorsed political violence or extremist vigilantism explicitly, he had been one of the most vocal critics of multiculturalism in Finland, with his virulent rhetoric having brought about several legal cases against him. In 2012, the Supreme Court found him guilty of ethnic agitation and of disturbing religious worship on the account of calling Islam as a ‘pedophile religion’ (Pyrhönen, 2015, 124–125). Both social media discussions emerge in conjunction with news articles by Helsingin Sanomat (HS), the largest news daily in the Nordic countries, and are based on the coverage of a radical right actor promising to keep the autochthonous ingroup, ‘the people’, safe from a threatening outgroup. Considering that Twitter and Facebook have been among the main arenas for political debate in Finland (Laaksonen et al., 2020, 173), we collected material from a single platform, the Facebook page of Helsingin Sanomat. Both online discussions are voluminous and highly contentious, reflecting the polarising nature of public deliberation on the topic of multiculturalism and intergroup relations in general. While both key actors hail from the radical right writ large, SOO set out to tackle the alleged problem of a threatening immigrant outgroup with extraparliamentary direct action, vigilantism and street patrolling, whereas HA’s election consolidated the radical right’s representation in the highpolitical arena with an antagonistic narrative aimed not only at an ethnoculturally defined Other, but also at ‘the enemy within’. Both datasets cover a total of one month of news coverage posted on the Helsingin Sanomat Facebook page. The SOO dataset consists of social media discussions on the first 12 articles on SOO ever published by HS, with the first one originating on January 5, 2016 and the last one on January 18 (after which no further articles could be found with the query ‘Soldiers of Odin’ before February 2016). The HA dataset is larger,

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consisting of 23 articles posted on HS two weeks before and two weeks after Halla-aho’s election as the chairman of the Finns party on June 10, 2017. While a total of 42 HS Facebook articles could be found with the query ‘Jussi Halla-aho’ between May 28 and June 24, we excluded 19 of these articles, as they were either not strictly about Jussi Hallaaho (HA or his election not mentioned in the title), or focused on a local or regional issue, the European Union or the technical and practical arrangements concerning the composition of the Finnish government. As this body of 12 SOO posts and 23 HA posts consisted of 3206 comments, it was necessary to reduce both datasets2 into a size feasible for manual, qualitative coding with Atlas.ti CAQDAS software. By selecting the five most commented HS posts in both datasets, we ended up with two corpora consisting of a total of 1385 comments within ten most commented articles (SOO 673 and HA 712). We operationalised this material for analysis by inductively coding both datasets with 75 unique codes split into five code groups (see Appendix B): outgroup characteristics, threats, measures, ingroup composition and gender. This yielded a total of 156 coded passages (SOO 77 and HA 79), the analysis of which illustrates two distinct types of othering mechanisms—one based on ethnocultural belonging and the other on enemy constructions within the ingroup. We also analyse their overlap with reference to the representation of ‘the liberal women’. Both othering mechanisms are characterised by a specific logic of constructing ingroup/outgroup oppositions and, yet, both similarly exemplify anti-multiculturalist discursive practices aiming at nurturing tensions between and within groups. All of the coded passages are from discussants who, due to the mainstream context and HS moderation of discussion, use their own name—sometimes with a partial name or slight modifications, but 2 The authors carefully weighed the ethical considerations regarding the collection of material. The material was collected from a public Facebook page of Helsingin Sanomat, with authors removing any information identifying the discussants cited. In a context, where the discussants participate in public debate on an open arena, “informed consent [...] although desirable, it is not [...] essential [and] can be waived if the research involves minimal risk and does not negatively affect the rights and well-being of subjects” (Sugiura, Wiles, and Pope 2016). This decision is also in line with the suggestion by Hård af Segerstad et al. (2017, 220) for using the “thumb rule” of “data minimization”, only retrieving and presenting “the data needed to pursue a specific research question.”

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without apparent pseudonyms. The comments exhibit a gender skew. Almost 1/3 of the coded passages (n = 49) were by female discussants, 2/3 male (n = 104), and only 3 comments from discussants with unspecified gender. Discussants’ gender strongly correlates with the thematic focus of the lay discourse. The female discussants most actively commented on ‘sexual harassment’, ‘crime’ and ‘immigrants’ (27% of all female coded passages), whereas the top-3 codes around which the male discussants’ posts concentrated were ‘Finnish ingroup’, ‘crime’, and corrupt elite’ (22% of all male coded passages).

Analysis The empirical analysis of the social media material has been informed by the DP perspective that does not take social categories for granted, but rather examines the context-dependent communicative construction and reproduction of particular ingroup—and outgroup—categories in everyday discourse. The social media data was first analysed and organised into relevant thematic categories from the perspective of ingroup and outgroup-related discursive distinctions observable in our datasets, following the grounded theory practice of axial coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). In this vein, we inductively annotated both datasets, resulting in 75 unique codes, which were split into five more general code groups that pertain to specific discursive patterns: A. outgroup characteristics (i.e. content defining and categorising an outgroup), B. threats (as allegedly generated by outgroups for the ingroup), C. measures (to be taken to support the ingroup against an outgroup), D. ingroup composition (articulating who belongs in the ingroup and what are its characteristics), and E. gendering (as observed in gendered discursive repertoires for addressing A–D). The annotation process yielded a total of 156 coded passages (SOO 77 and HA 79). Once we had extracted from the overall text corpus all the

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relevant passages where rhetorical distinctions regarding ingroups and/or outgroups were made, we compared the contents of this five-category coding scheme with the categories of the five-step model (Reicher et al., 2008). We thus applied the five-step model as a heuristic framework for interpretive reading (Mason, 2002, 148–150), that is, for comparing and identifying whether and how the features of the model can be observed in the lay discourse data. Indeed, we discovered that particularly steps 2 (exclusion) and 3 (threat) overlapped very closely with the discursive patterns characteristic of codes A outgroup characteristics and B threats in our coding scheme. These two steps were highly visible and recurring themes of the lay rhetoric. On a closer reading, we also detected further similarities. In particular, the codes C and D resonated with steps 5 and 1 of the model. Taken together, a clear parallel could be drawn between the rhetorical patterns of our material and the five-step model, even if the model did not come across in such a pure form3 as in the analysis of the rhetoric of an ethnopolitical entrepreneur (cf. Verkuyten, 2013). In the following, we first demonstrate the discursive construction of ‘traditional’ ethnocultural categories as the ‘others’ in the lay discourse of our data. We then proceed into the analysis of discursive patterns for dividing the ethnocultural ingroup into ‘the real people’ and ‘the internal enemy’. Therein, we illustrate the rhetorical construction of ‘liberal women’ as a peculiar transitional category where both traditional and novel outgrouping mechanisms overlap.

3 A more rigorous application of the five-step model would have been counterproductive, both by downplaying the groundedness reached through the inductive approach to coding, and also because the material is composed of informal lay discourse. After all, social media commentary on popular media events nurtures a rhetoric where the element of collective curation serves to impede the kind of systematic articulations that characterise the rhetoric of the subjects the five-step model focuses on: political leaders, ethnopolitical identity entrepreneurs and ideological activists.

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Traditional Ethnocultural Constructions of the Ingroup and Outgroups Volumes of classical social scientific literature have been dedicated to the practice of mythically valorising a ‘national we’. Since the Golden Era of Finnish nationalism in late nineteenth century, artists and Fennomans—politicians and intellectuals promoting Finnish language and culture—alike have stressed the virtues such as honesty, tenacity (‘sisu’) and diligence as either as defining characteristics of the Finnish ingroup that set them apart from other nationalities or as ideal types of virtues that Finns aspire to achieve (Bauvois, 2011; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017). By contrast, in the contemporary lay discourse of intergroup relations analysed here, only less than 1/3 of the coded passages address Finns as the autochthonous ingroup at all, instead drawing a picture of Finns as a people threatened by the proliferation and behaviour of various outgroups. The complete absence of the Belle Epoque type of imagery for valorising the nationally bounded ingroup is striking. Instead of articulating positive characteristics associated with the Finns, the ingroup is addressed indirectly, as people facing threats, suffering and victimhood. More or less explicit references are then made to a multiculturalist dystopian narrative as the cause of the suffering and victimised subject positions. This contributes to a narrative of the Finns enduring everincreasing crime, insecurity and the swindling of their hard-earned tax monies, made possible by corrupt elites who prioritise various outgroups (see extract 1, line 2) at the expense of ordinary Finns4 : Extract 1: SOO 1:18 1 2

Yeah, that’s the worrying part if Finns take care of each others’ safety. Considering that the state invests its powers in these asylum seekers!

This discursive pattern is further peppered with indignant and alarmed, if imprecise, calls to action, repeatedly conveyed through metaphors of ‘awakening’ from ‘the sleep’, disturbed by ‘the nightmare of multiculturalism’ (for the analysis of the expression coined by the Finns party 4 All translations are by the authors. The list of original extracts in Finnish is available in Appendix A.

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MP Olli Immonen, see Nortio et al., 2020, 13–14). With a total of 16 references to ‘waking up’ in the 158 coded passages analysed, discussants behove Finns to open their eyes and bring forth ‘a national awakening’ (see extract 2, line 1 and extract 3, line 2) through which the Finns could ‘shake off their shackles’: Extract 2: HA 6:13 1

Because, it is the time for the people of this nation to wake up.

Extract 3: HA 8:2 1 2

Yup, fortunately these kinds of titles will turn out to benefit JHA [Jussi Hallaaho]. The Finns are waking up.

The categories of immigrants (particularly asylum seekers) are excluded from the national community on an ethnocultural basis, by portraying and evoking stereotypically inconsonant category prototypes (violent, criminal-minded immigrants/asylum seekers), which serve as ‘proofs’ of the incompatibility of these categories with an orderly, Western society. The discussants typically allude to immigrants’ allegedly violent and criminal behaviour in a strikingly laconic manner (see extract 4, lines 1 and 4), as if conceding that immigrants are something of ‘a force of nature’ that Finns will just have to learn ways to deal with: Extract 4: SOO 1:16 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

How come these asylum seeker things [crimes committed by asylum seekers] could possibly surprise someone? we have been talking about them for almost half a year now, and where does this lead and what kinds of joys will these still bring us. Now we just enjoy the fruits…! But what can you do.?? we go with what we’ve got. And now everyone shall just take care of themselves and their family…to the best of their abilities…!!

The lay discourse further testifies to the bleak view of ethnocultural intergroup relations in Finland. Discussants repeatedly remark that while

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the radical right has offered supposedly real and practicable solutions to ‘the immigrant problem’, they have consistently been met with only scorn and ridicule, which undermines any measures against immigrant crime. While the ethnocultural categories of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees are consistently discussed with reference to threats to the ingroup, some comments (e.g. HA 5:3) also allude to a category of ‘helpers’ that either assist the outgroup(s) or make it difficult to defend oneself from the threats posed by the outgroup(s). Some discussants suggest that while they could cope with the ‘immigrant scourge’, they cannot deal with the disdain and accusations of racism (see extract 5, line 6) that would result from ‘self-defence’: Extract 5: HA 2:8 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

Hey hello there, these darkies have been in Helsinki for ages and I have three daughters who I have been picking up with the car for security reasons. And particularly my youngest one, who is now 23, as she didn’t dare to come home by bus from Itäkeskus5 because of the immigrants. I am now 58 and have been fondled by immigrants in the metro. Had they been whites, I would’ve knocked them in the forehead, but I couldn’t be bothered with these. One just can’t be arsed to go through listening to that ‘racist’-shit. (4 codes: [“mamu” ]; [gender: F ]; [in-group: Finnish women]; [out-group: immigrants])

The inductive coding of SOO and HA datasets reveals that sexual harassment is the most common issue with which the ethnocultural Other is constructed as a general social category that is incompatible with the ingroup of Finns—and posited as an outgroup that is a potential threat to the ingroup of ‘us’. A significant part of this code’s prevalence can be explained by the thematic subject matter of the two media events. For instance, the justificatory rationale for SOO’s emergence, as expressed both by the SOO representatives and the lay discussants, was the citizens’ safety on the streets. While other types of crime and violence perpetrated 5 Itäkeskus is a neighbourhood in Eastern Helsinki known for its large mall and its more multicultural population (at the end of 2018, 38.1% of Itäkeskus’ residents had a foreign background, especially African, currently the second highest percentage in all of Helsinki. https://ulk omaalaistaustaisethelsingissa.fi/en/content/spatial-distribution-population-foreign-background).

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by immigrants were also mentioned, the most commonly articulated safety concern was framed with reference to women as the victims of decreased safety. Although the topics and layers of discourse in the case of Halla-aho’s election were distinctly more divergent, sexual harassment was repeatedly addressed also in conjunction to the discussion about HA’s fittingness and legitimacy as the leader of one of the four major political parties in Finland. This emphasis can be connected to instances such as HA’s blog post from 2006 titled Multiculturalism and woman, where he expressed hope that rape against Finnish women would not be random but targeted at the green-left women whose ‘multiculturalist ideology’ can only be swayed by ‘multiculturalism coming home to roost’ (Nordensvard & Ketola, 2015, 365). While both datasets contain significant amounts of misogynistic rhetoric used for othering purposes, this gendered discourse emerges in two distinct forms that serve to construct two completely different categories of people as the excluded outgroup. In the SOO dataset, the discussants engage with each other using more traditionally xenophobic rhetoric that attributes crime and sexual harassment as characteristics of the immigrant population from which the valorous autochthonous ‘people’ need protection. Here, the autochthonous women are presented as victims (see extract 6, line 1 and extract 7, line 2) in need of paternalistic protection from courageous Finnish men, who are prepared to help—if only the women would let them: Extract 6: SOO 2:5 1 2 3

We do have to have some kinds of street patrols if women cannot walk the streets at night in peace and the police cannot get everywhere to help (3 codes: [gender: F ]; [threat: crime; sexual harassment ])

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Extract 7: SOO 1:12 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Good that someone patrols. Here in Finland, especially those who study far from home are damn scared of robbers and rapists. WHAT IF someone were to rob you or beat you up? And with no one patrolling, a scream for help is almost equally useless for men and women. Would you then agree if you were to become the victims of crime? (4 codes: [gender: F ]; [in-group: Finnish citizens]; [threat: crime; sexual harassment ])

While this rhetoric explicitly addresses Finnish women—both in general and among the discussants—as the category of subjects (and objects) that are in need of protection, the source of threat is consistently posed by the category of the immigrant Other, particularly men, who are unproblematically represented as the threatening outgroup and source of insecurity on the streets. This type of reflexive boundary-drawing that pits the vulnerable sub-category of the ingroup against the allegedly hypersexual and violent category of immigrant men has been frequently identified in research on ethnic relations (e.g., Keskinen, 2018) and in radical-right political discourse.

‘Liberal Women’ as the Pivot Point from ‘Victims’ to ‘Enemies Within’ The category of ‘liberal women’, however, becomes further particularised (cf. Billig, 1987) in lay discourse. In addition to serving as a key component in the reflexive portrayal of the vulnerable ingroup threatened by an ethnocultural outgroup, the category of ‘liberal women’ becomes an agent that is actively cooperating with the threatening outgroup. Hence, via the discursive practice of particularisation, the autochthonous ingroup is split into ‘the people’ and ‘the internal enemy’. Many discussants present women with ‘green-left’, ‘liberal’, ‘tolerant’ or ‘multiculturalist’ mindset as effectively complicit in sexual violence. Rather than categorising these women as part of the autochthonous ingroup to be protected—an ingroup mostly constituted of Finnish white women, allegedly threatened by non-white men (Virkki &

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Venäläinen, 2020)—they are excluded from the ingroup as ‘the internal enemy’ who, to the extent that they advance amicable intergroup relations and challenge legitimacy of the ethnocultural outgrouping, actually generate rape. According to this narrative, by opposing racism, these liberal women discredit the anti-immigrant political agenda, and impede the implementation of ‘protective measures’, such as street patrolling by the radical right. This narrative represents these women as ‘traitors’ who are part of the problem of sexual harassment and as ‘outlaws’, who are not worthy of enjoying the same degree of protection as the autochthonous ingroup: Extract 8: SOO 2:10 1 2 3 4 5

I am deeply perplexed by these women who fight racism while accepting a group of men to grope women on the street. Who defends a woman/girl who faces a group of 2–5 males clinging to her like limpets? Am I the racist for not accepting this, what these people are, beasts. (3 codes: [gender: F ]; [out-group: liberal women]; [threat: sexual harassment ])

Extract 9: HA 6:15 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Those rape texts can be perceived in many ways. Of course the best situation is when no one is raped, but what happens here, rather, is expressing the wish for someone else than “the innocents” becoming the victims. I shall open this train of thought through an analogy: If a mason builds a rickety house, which one do you wish lived in that house? The mason himself, or someone else. Should the rickety house collapse, the one trapped inside is either the innocent person or the mason himself, in which case he would have to suffer the consequences of his own poor job. (5 codes: [gender: M ]; [in-group: innocent ]; [out-group: liberal women]; [threat: crime; sexual harassment ])

Although each of the four previous extracts (extracts 6–9) above has been coded as sexual harassment, there are important distinctions to be made. The first pair extracts 6 and 7 illustrates how instances of sexual violence are represented and harnessed for the purpose of constructing the ethnoculturally delineated category of immigrants as the threatening outgroup—portrayed ultimately as ‘beasts’ and ‘animals’, through a dehumanisation process in relation with race and ethnicity (cf. Haslam,

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2006). On the other hand, the two extracts above (extracts 8 and 9) demonstrate the discursive reframing where discussants particularise the liberal women as part of the problem, similarly to be treated as a threatening outgroup, as the internal enemy, by suggesting that liberal women have brought harassment and rape not only on themselves, but also on other women, who, unlike them, are ‘innocent’ (extract 9, lines 3–6). This is why we refer to the category of liberal women as the ‘pivot point’. This category allows portraying the ethnocultural Other as only a potentially threatening outgroup, whereas the internal enemies in general, and liberal women in particular, actively enable the ethnocultural Other to realise the potential threat of crime and sexual violence against the ingroup.

‘Corrupt Elite’ and Other Discursive Particularisations for Purging the Ingroup The lay discourse depicting liberal women as ‘systematically enabling’ immigrant men to pursue the practice of sexual harassment embodies an illustrative discursive pattern where two distinct boundaries between the categories of ‘us’ and ‘them’ are—drawn and amalgamated—one categorisation serving to exclude the ethnocultural Other and the other serving to exclude the internal enemy. It is important to note, however, that while the amalgamation of the two discursive repertoires for outgrouping manifests most lucidly in the contexts of liberal women and sexual harassment, the practice of situating the internal enemy in the outgroup is not restricted to a specific theme or actor category. Rather, this should be perceived as only one of the instances where the radical right (lay discourse) increasingly complements the more traditional, ethnoculturally justified repertoires of exclusion and othering with an emergent practice of purging the ingroup of traitorous elements that must also be excluded from ‘us’ (Laryš, 2019, 71–72). Particularly in the context of the Halla-aho case, the lay discussants are invested in identifying, vilifying and purging the ingroup from a range of threatening elements, practices, actors and reified categories of deviancy we label here as the internal enemy. The nature of the ‘threat’ that is attributed to these internal enemies is an important element of

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the lay discourse and resonates closely with the logic of the five-step model (Reicher et al., 2008). Indeed, this threat is depicted as separate from the one posed by the category of the ethnocultural Other. While the threat attributed to the latter group is commonly likened to a predatory, amoral force of nature, the internal enemy is presented as threatening because it embodies deplorable, but ultimately human characteristics. Forming a cunning, ruthless, opportunist and morally corrupt category of ingroup-traitors, the internal enemy is invested in undermining the values, wellbeing and safety of the Finns as the primordial ingroup they have chosen to be traitors to. This also renders this category a potent threat to the ingroup of primordial Finns and its virtues, serving as an excuse for devising ‘self-defensive’ measures against the threats posed by this outgroup. In this sense, the culmination of outgroup threat and intergroup hostility follows closely the logic of the five-step model (Reicher et al., 2008). The threat entails both physical and existential threats, depending on which outgroup the discussants address. The negative affects and moral outrage are conveyed in mainstream lay discourse through remarkably stronger articulations when discussion pertains to the internal enemy, partly because this particular outgroup is perceived as tainting the virtue and moral superiority allegedly characterising the autochthonous ingroup. In addition to the category of ‘liberal women’, the lay discussants position various kinds of reified ‘elites’ within the category of the internal enemy. Here, the common defining characteristic attributed to ‘the elite’ is its ability to occupy a range of esteemed positions of power in society as an ethnoculturally ‘Finn-passing’, but ultimately deceptive, group of Finns. While some of the references to the internal enemy target other grassroots-level ‘multiculturalists’ as unwitting accomplices to traitorous acts, the lay discourse also summarily lumps entire democratic institutions as infiltrated or conquered by a corrupt elite: Extract 10: SOO 3:2 1 2 3

Those clowns support rapes and violence perpetrated by refugees. They are either exceptionally stupid or hired by the government that seeks to import refugees into Finland as slave labor. (6 codes: [gender: M ]; [out-group: corrupt elite; immigrants; in government’s pay]; [threat: crime; sexual harassment ])

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Extract 11: HA 6:23 1 2 3 4 5

The Finnish judicial system, out of the fear of becoming branded with the label of racist, tramples over the position of victims of crime/those raped. The European competition for tolerance and the level of cultural refinement has led to IMMIGRANT INFILTRATORS’ lenient convictions for rape which renders them immune to the fear of punishment. (7 codes: [“matu” ]; [gender: M ]; [in-group: victims of sexual harassment ]; [out-group: corrupt elite; judiciary]; [threat: crime; sexual harassment ])

As extracts 10 and 11 exemplify, the lay discourse commonly alludes to an amalgamation of interests between the two distinct outgroups. The traitorous acts depicted range from specific instances of preferential treatment of the ethnocultural Other at the expense of ethnic Finns (extract 11, line 2) to more abstract notions of the elite forcing ‘multiculturalism’ down their throats (extract 10, line 2). Extract 11 also illustrates how the category of the internal enemy can extend beyond the figure of a traitor (and the group they allegedly form), occasionally becoming a shorthand for scapegoating official democratic institutions at large (line 1) as representative of systemic corruption. The lay discourse also exhibits the mainstream media and the cabal of ‘media elite’ as a key accomplice and resource for the internal enemy that deliberately fabricates a smokescreen with a systematic ‘left-liberal bias’ (see extract 12, line 2) that serves to cover an insurgency against the ‘real’ Finnish ingroup: Extract 12: SOO 3:3 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Could Hesari [HS] just publish news using names, and not like in this news article using the epithet “far-right”. In the name of balance, the [counter-demonstratror] clowns should have been referred to as “ultra-left”. It is not in accordance with the standards of good journalism to publish opinionated news. It is understandable in texts published in political parties’ papers. (2 codes: [gender: F ]; [out-group: media])

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Extract 13: HA 8:7 1 2 3 4 5 6

Even in Hesari, the very term “immigration” is conquered to signify social security based immigration. Fortunately there still exists the kind of immigration where immigrants make a living for themselves and their families and also otherwise participate in the maintenance of society. To the best of my knowledge that kind of real immigration even Halla-aho is not opposing. (2 codes: [gender: M ]; [out-group: media])

In addition to being biased, the ‘psychotic journalists’ in the ‘media elite’ are also depicted as purposefully driving an ‘anti-Finn’ agenda. The discussants label these tactics with metaphors such as ‘propaganda’, ‘disinformation’ or ‘political hate speech’, expressions borrowed from the mainstream critique of the far right. Discussants also apply a categorical distinction—less common in the journalistic media—between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ immigration (extract 13, lines 2–3), noting that the good immigrants, the ‘genuine refugees’ (Lynn & Lea, 2003, 432) can be accepted, even by the Finns Party. Where the lay discourse addresses the high-political arena, the ‘elite’ is distinguished from the ‘people’ through traditionally populist, antiestablishment rhetorical tropes (e.g., ‘patronising’, ‘uncaring’; see extracts 14 and 15). Unlike other members of parliament, the right-wing populists are granted the mandate to occupy positions of power without becoming corrupt and excluded from the Finnish ingroup. Extract 14: HA 6:29 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

[W]hy demand the Finns party to belong in the same category where there are already many other, ordinary parties [colloquial names for all other parties in the Finnish parliament] No one is listening nor bringing forth an avalanche against Islam encroaching Europe. No one talks about what that patronising fuss costs us, in money and in values? If we need a single-issue party, who at least dares to oppose Islam’s reconquering of the world let that be the Finns party. I support! (10 codes: [gender: M ]; [in-group: Europe ]; [measures: welfare chauvinism]; [out-group: all other parties; corrupt elite; islam; political elite ]; [threat: cultural values;islamisation; toletard/nannying ])

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Extract 15: HA 6:26 1 2 3

jussi [Halla-aho] has for long warned about how this will end and people have just berated and laughed at him but what has already happened is that people die when the decision-makers do not care about threats. (5 codes: [gender: M ]; [out-group: bullies; corrupt elite; political elite] [threat: crime])

Other political parties—especially the Social Democrats, the Greens and the Left Alliance—are typically excluded from the virtuous ingroup and portrayed as an elite outgroup, welded together by their adherence to corrupt, nepotistic and anti-democratic practices (see extract 16, lines 1– 2 and extract 17, lines 5–6). Not only are these radical right’s political opponents unable to speak up against the perceived excesses of multiculturalism due to ‘political correctness’ (Ylä-Anttila et al., 2019, 4), they are also portrayed as silencing those who would voice criticism against multiculturalism with accusations of hate speech: Extract 16: HA 4:5 1 2

The green-lefties think that freedom of speech and democracy are dangerous, and therefore, those must be removed. (2 codes: [gender: M ]; [out-group: against freedom of speech])

Extract 17: HA 4:5 1 2 3 4 5 6

The president stepped on the road towards dictatorship—for no reason! The Chancellor of Justice would be needed now. […] What more will result from the power of immigrants? Especially if and when Isis starts acting. […] Now if ever we must resolve the situation of the government with a new election. The “nepotist network” cannot do it now nor ever. (5 codes: [gender: M ]; [out-group: anti-democratic; corrupt elite; political elite; terrorists])

In this sense, the internal enemies are not presented primarily as supporters of the ethnocultural Other but, more importantly, as corrupted, autochthonous traitors in esteemed positions of power (e.g., extract 17, lines 1 and 6), thereby posing a much greater threat to the ingroup than the ethnocultural Other is able to.

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Conclusions Our discursive psychological analysis indicates that the lay discussants endorsing the focal events (Soldiers of Odin vigilantism and the election of Jussi Halla-Aho), and the discursive shift towards far-right rhetoric and action, effectively justified their support to the events by appealing to threats (delinquency, harassment, economic swindling, moral and financial corruption, treason) allegedly imposed upon the ingroup of ‘us’ from the outside. However, the ingroup’s characteristics are not articulated in uniform, positive terms, but rather broadly as the vulnerable people facing threats and undergoing suffering. In this regard, the lay rhetoric diverges from the rhetoric of political entrepreneurs of identity who commonly advance explicit constructions and categorisations of both the ingroup and the outgroup(s) (cf. Verkuyten, 2013). The invoked threats, in turn, were variably attributed to a range of ingroup endangering actor categories that, according to the discussants, should commonly be recognised as threatening outroups and excluded from the ingroup and protected against. The focal events, then, answered this call by offering appealing avenues for (counter-)action and protective measures for the discussants who sympathised with the events. This general picture of the construction of an ingroup that needs to be protected from threatening outgroups is well in line with the logic of the development of collective hate as portrayed by the five-step model (Reicher et al., 2008; also Verkuyten, 2013). The lay discussants actively and consistently put forward constructions of ingroup threats, linking them to a range of outgroup categories. In doing this, they actively picked up and reworked categories and category attributes circulating in the social media discussion. By employing both categorisation and particularisation, they also actively advocated alternative versions and repertoires of an encompassing discourse of the ingroup being threatened by various outgroups (e.g., ethnocultural others or internal enemies). In other words, the lay discussants did not simply reproduce a uniform discourse, but used their rhetorical agency in modifying and adapting it to the demands of changing argumentative contexts (cf. Billig, 1987, 2009; Condor‚ Tileaga & Billig, 2013) . It should be noted, however, that only a minority of the discussants who participated in the social

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media debate expressed sympathy for these radical right discursive shifts; also strong objections to the events—and to the reproduction of farright discourse—were voiced. Viewed as a whole, the nature of this social media discussion was thus indeed a heated rhetorical dispute and debate (cf. Billig, 1987), where rivaling arguments and counterarguments regarding the meanings of social categories, particular actors, actions and motives were put forward, contested and refuted. Our theoretical methodological framework was informed by a discursive psychological (DP) perspective, with an emphasis on the principles of rhetorical social psychology (Billig, 1987, 2009; Potter & Wetherell, 1987). Under this DP framework we employed ideas and concepts from the social identity theory (SIT) and, in particular, from the integrative five-step model of the development of intergroup hate (Reicher et al., 2008), as well as from political and media sociology. We thus studied social and self-categories, category attributes, memberships and identities as communicative phenomena; as topics of argument and negotiation that are maintained and constructed in-context, in and through communication and discursive action (cf. Condor‚ Tileaga & Billig, 2013; Pyysiäinen, 2010; Rapley, 1998; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). By employing insights from SIT under the general DP perspective, we were able to uncover how the lay discussants were responsive to shifting argumentative contexts and—via active and flexible employment of categorisation and particularisation—persistently advocated alternative versions of a ‘grand’ discourse where the endangered ingroup of ‘us’ is consistently threatened by various outgroups of ‘them’. As noted, the dynamics of radical right lay rhetoric thus both converged with and diverged from the dynamics of the rhetoric of radical right leaders, as analysed by Verkuyten (2013). The lay discussants similarly pit threatening outgroups against a vulnerable ingroup, but they did not engage in articulating the boundaries, experiences and virtues of the ingroup as systematically as political leaders. Much of the most critical evaluations of the idea and practices of multiculturalism in the lay discourse, however, were clearly inspired by, and derived from, the rhetoric of radical right opinion-leaders. But again, and with only a few notable exceptions in the datasets, individual discussants rarely articulated their opposition to multiculturalism as systematically as the leading

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figures of radical right do. However, within the confines of the nonanonymous mainstream space, the large news outlets operating on social media platforms can typically moderate the most hateful expressions away. As a result, the ethnopolitical entrepreneurs of identity have thus far been able to spread vitriol in their platforms in distinctly more inflammatory forms than the lay discussants have been. Furthermore, the lay discourse appears to have adapted to the regulation of xenophobic and violent expressions by referring to the radical right talking points in an abbreviated form. Particularly the references to causal mechanisms between multiculturalism and the alleged subjugation of ‘the people’ remain implicit, and the arguments and anecdotes mostly touch upon the threat of the Other and the consequent principles and rationales for excluding individuals and groups from an autochthonous ingroup. The pursuit to identify and label common threats, and particular outgroups that can be held accountable for these threats, clearly emerges as a cross sectional topic that fuels emotionally and morally loaded arguments and debate. The discussants remain consistently vocal in constructing, categorising and particularising the threatening outgroups, advancing two distinct, but overlapping categories to be regarded as the main sources of threats to the ingroup. Regarding the ethnoculturally delineated Other, the discussants drew from the breadth of exclusionary articulations provided by the leading figures of the radical right, juxtaposing ‘Islamism’ and secular Finland, lazy or delinquent immigrants and arduous Finns, and immigrants’ misogynic practices versus the Finnish commitment to gender equality (about gender equality ideals and rightwing populism in the Nordics, see Norocel et al., 2020). Particularly the asserted commitment to respectful treatment of women is clearly at odds with the rhetoric adopted in the lay discourse, whereby the tolerant and liberal Finnish women are regarded as having brought sexual harassment on themselves. Upon closer analysis, the endeavour of ‘purging’ the dangerous, corrupted and ‘anti-Finnish’ elements from the ingroup is not restricted to this category of liberal women. Instead, the politicians or ‘corrupt political Other’ (Sakki & Martikainen, 2020, 7), anti-racist activists, the judicial system, the ‘elitist’ media and the democratic process at large were depicted as infiltrated by a traitorous internal enemy. While

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the ethnocultural Other was commonly perceived as an amoral and immutable force of nature, the internal enemy is presented as an immoral and distinctly anti-Finnish ‘group’ of people who are united in their efforts to undermine the real ‘people’, either due to hapless stupidity, for personal gain, or for the ‘ideological’ purpose of advancing multiculturalism. On the one hand, the increasing focus on these ‘traitors in our midst’ suggests a shift in outgrouping practices from xenophobic cultural essentialism (Hopkins et al., 1997; Verkuyten, 2003) towards vilification of specific agent categories on the basis of an assumed corruptness and deceptivity inherent in their motives, actions and political allegiances. Such a shift is comparable to (and possibly a continuation of ) the decades old shift in nationalist political rhetoric from the realm of explicitly (pseudo-)biological arguments towards cultural essentialism (see Sakki et al., 2018). On the other hand, these ‘newer’ exclusionary practices complement, rather than replace, the more established ones. Moreover, while arguably re-emergent, the dynamics and functions associated with these discursive practices are not particularly new, considering the extent to which they draw from the traditional anti-establishment sentiment that has been successfully politicised and mobilised by populists in general, and anti-democratic political movements in particular, throughout modern political history. As a societal phenomenon, the hunt for internal enemies is more than a backlash against what the lay discussants call ‘multiculturalism’, ‘political correctness’, or alleged limitations of freedom of speech. Rather, close historical parallels for the discursive strategy, where certain agent categories of the autochthonous ingroup are particularised and excluded from the ingroup by representing them categorically as a ‘great threat’ to the ingroup, can be identified in the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and contemporary Trumpism (Mast, 2020).

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Appendix A: Extracts in Finnish SOO 1.18 Juu sehän huolestuttaa jos suomalaiset pitää toistensa turvallisuudesta huolta! Tää meidän valtiovalta kun on panostanut vaan näihin turvapaikanhakioihin omat voimansa!

HA 6.13 Siksi, että tämän kansan on aika herätä. HA 8.2 Jep, onneksi nämä otsikoinnit kääntyvät JHAn eduksi. Suomalaiset ovat heräämässä.

SOO 1:16 Miten nämä tph asiat nyt muka jtn yllättää.? onhan näistä jo puhuttu kohta puolivuotta, ja mihinkä tämä johtaa sekä mitä riemuja meille näistä viell tulee. Nyt naatitaan vaan.sadosta...! Mutta minkäs teet.?? näillä mennään. Ja nyt kukin huolehtikoon itsestään sekä perheestään...parhaan kykynsä mukaan...!!

(HA) 5.3:

Eikös hallitusohjelmaan ollut kirjattu 750 pakolaisen kiintiö ? Montakos niitä on otettu ? Mitä tämä kaikki on tullut jo nyt maksamaan ? Nämä valtaapitäviä hännystelevät toimittaja-junkkarit (sori kirjoitusvirhe) voisivat hoitaa työnsä ja selvittää asian kansalaisille. Ja samaan hengenvetoon kysellä näiltä puheenjohtaja-pelleiltä, miten he aikovat rahoittaa näiden ulkomailta tulleiden toiviolasten aiheuttamat kulut.

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HA 2:8 Hei haloo hesassa on näitä tummia ollut iät ajat ja minulla on kolme tytärtä, joita hakenut autolla sieltä täältä tuolta turvallisuussyistä. Ja varsinkin nuorimmaistani, joka nyt 23, mamujen vuoksi itiksestä kun ei usksaltanut tUlla bussilla kotia. Minä oon nyt 58 ja mamut lääppiny mua metrossa. Jos olisivat olleet valkoisia olisin knokannu otsaan mutta en viitsiny näitä. Ei jaksa kuunnella sitä rasisti paskaa.

SOO 2:5

Pakkohan täällä on kohta ollakkin joitakin katupartioita jos naiset ei saa rauhassa liikkua iltaisin ja poliisit ei kykene jokapaikkaan auttamaan. SOO 1:12 Hyvä että joku partioi. Täällä Suomessa, varsinkin kotoaan poissa opiskelevat pelkäävät hitosti raiskaajia ja ryöstäjiä. ENTÄ JOS joku ryöstäisi tai hakkaisi teidät? Ja kun ei kukaan partioisi, avunhuuto on lähes turhaa, kuin miehillä ja naisilla. Olisitteko sitten samaa mieltä, jos te joutuisitte rikoksen uhreiksi?’

SOO 2:10:

HA 6:15:

Ihmettelen suuresti näitä naisia jotka taistelevat rasismia vastaa samalla hyväksyvät miesjoukon kourivan naisia kadulla. Kuka puolustaa naista/tyttöä joka kohtaa 2-5 hengen miesjoukon jotka tulevat iholle.? Minäkä olen rasisti joka en hyväksy tätä, mitä nämä ovat petoja. Nuo raiskaustekstit ovat nähtävissä monella tapaa. Tietenkin paras tilanne on, kun ketään ei raiskata, mutta tuossa toivotaan lähinnä uhreiksi joutuvan "syyttömien" sijaan joitain muita. Avaan tätä ajatusta vertauksen kautta: Jos muurari tekee huteran talon, kumman toivot asuvan siinä talossa? Muurarin itse, vai jonkun muun. Jos

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muurarin tekemä hutera talo romahtaa, sinne sisään jää joko viaton tai sitten muurari itse, jolloin hän joutuisi kärsimään itse oman huonon työnsä seuraukset.

(SOO) 3.2:

(HA) 6.23:

Noi pellet kannattavat raiskauksia ja pakolaisten tekemiä väkivallantekoja. He ovat joko erittäin tyhmiä tai pakolaisia Suomeen orjatyövoimaksi hankkivan hallituksen palkkaamia. Suomen oikeuslaitos polkee rikosten/raiskattujen uhrien asemaa rasisti-leiman pelossa. Eurooppalainen suvaitsevasuus ja sivistystasokilpailu on johtanut MATUJEN lieviin raiskautuomioihin mikä tekee heistä immuuneja rangaistuksen pelosta.

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Appendix B: Codes

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4 A Critical Discursive Psychological Study of Dialogical Constructions of Hate-Speech in Established Media and Online Discussions Inari Sakki and Eemeli Hakoköngäs

The Contested Meanings of Hate-Speech In recent years, hate-speech has become a regular word in the public spheres. According to the European Council, ‘hate-speech covers all forms of expressions that spread, incite, promote or justify racial hatred, xenophobia, anti-Semitism or other forms of hatred based on intolerance’. Yet, there is not a universal definition of hate-speech, and the public use of the term is diverse, making it difficult to identify and interpret it, and thus posing challenges for the work of the police and legislators, among others (Nuotio, 2015). I. Sakki (B) · E. Hakoköngäs University of Eastern Finland, Kuopio, Finland e-mail: [email protected] E. Hakoköngäs e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_4

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The public debate on hate-speech has increased due to the rise of the Internet (Banks, 2010). Forums, such as blogs, newsgroups and chat communities, available on the Internet, as well as features of online communication such as anonymity allow easy communication and the dissemination of hate (e.g., Cervone et al., 2021; Douglas, 2007). The present study focuses on the Finnish context, where hate-speech often appears together with discussions concerning immigration, multiculturalism, and Islam (Pöyhtäri et al., 2013). According to the latest ECRI report (2019), intolerant hate-speech in Finnish public discourse is increasing, its main targets being asylum seekers and Muslims. Previous research suggests that constructions of hate-speech can be used as rhetorical resources for certain purposes. Pettersson’s (2019) research suggests that even after being convicted of hate-speech politicians may continue pursuing their political agendas and represent themselves as martyrs and defenders of the nation and the people against threatening others. In another study, Nortio and colleagues (2020) examined the circulation of a Finnish MP’s (Olli Immonen’s) antimulticulturalist Facebook post and found that while in the mainstream media, Immonen’s act was framed as hate-speech, in the online sphere this frame was contested by accusing ‘the tolerant’ (Fin: suvakki) of misinterpreting Immonen’s act and motives. In the present chapter, we approach hate-speech as a social representation and a phenomenon of high relevance to contemporary public discourse (Moscovici, 1961). Representations of this emerging topic may be disturbing, fear-provoking, desirable, or otherwise important and need to be communicated, negotiated and disputed—and thus constructed in dialogical interactions (Marková, 2003; Marková et al., 2007). Our approach relies on critical discursive psychology (CDP) (e.g., Edley, 2001) allowing dialogical encounters, tensions and disagreements to be empirically analysed. The aim of this chapter is twofold. First, we explore dialogical constructions of hate-speech by examining the production of representations related to hate-speech in a TV talk show, and its audience reception in social media discussions. Relying on social representations allows for highlighting the dialogical relationship between different groups, characterized by tension, debate and dialogue (Marková, 2003). This allows us

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to examine the ways in which shared, hegemonic versions of hate-speech are constructed by the group in power, and how they are contested, challenged and transformed by polemic representations generated by marginalized groups (Moscovici, 1988). To our knowledge, there is no previous research on the sense-making in relation to contested meanings of hate-speech. We hope to show how such an approach can contribute to our understanding of diverse voices around the highly polarized topic of hate-speech. Second, the article responds to the call to combine the two social psychological traditions, social representations theory (SRT) and a (critical) discursive approach (CDP), to show how such an integrative approach is suited to capture the complexity of meanings related to identities, power relations and social change (Augoustinous, 2018; Batel & Castro, 2018; Jovchelovitch, 2018). We argue that while CDP provides necessary analytical tools to investigate the forms of argumentation and functions of discourse, a dialogical stance on SRT directs the focus on negotiating a shared understanding in moments of conflict, disagreement and debate (Marková, 2003).

Analytical Approach Material A TV talk show focusing on hate-speech broadcast by the Finnish public service broadcasting company (YLE) (material 1), and its reception by social media users on the Suomi24 online forum (material 2)—Finland’s most visited online discussion forum at the time (see Nortio et al., 2020)—constitute the materials of this study. The A-Teema hate-speech television programme was released on 2 February 2016. The broadcast was characterized as a ‘discussion-oriented talk show’ and its objectives were described as follows: “Hate-speech rolls over Finland and hatred spills over the necks of politicians, authorities and citizens. Why has hate-speech increased? Where is the line between hate-speech and free speech? How can hate-speech be combated?” Several participants, politicians, academics, lawyers, police, trade union activists,

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freedom of speech activists, minority rights activists and public figures representing different positions on the topic were invited to discuss their own experiences of hate-speech. Besides the two interviewers, 11 participants participated in the discussion from the beginning, and three more participants joined in later during the show. For analytical purposes the one-and-half hour (1 h:27 min) show was downloaded from the Yle Areena website (link to the TV program: https://areena.yle.fi/1-3760149) and transcribed in verbatim. In addition, discussion threads on the public Suomi24 online forum constitute the reception material of the study. We searched threads under ‘society’ category with such searching terms as ‘YLE’, ‘hate-speech’, ‘hate night’, paying attention to the starting time of the thread (2–3. February 2016). We selected five discussion threads that started soon after the TV show, and which explicitly addressed the TV programme in the opening comments. These threads were mostly active for 1–2 days (the longest endured 20 days) and contained in total 358 posts. In line with ethical guidelines for online researching (Franzke et al., 2020), we removed all names and pseudonyms from the extracts, and translated them to complicate their direct identification with Internet search engines.

Analytic Procedure A CDP approach enables simultaneous examination of the contents, forms and functions of discourse in its social and political context (Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, 2020; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016, 2018). Our study leans on previous discursive research pointing to the laborious rhetorical work people engage in to express discriminatory views and yet avoid being labelled racist (Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Every & Augoustinos, 2007), but quite the contrary, in order to seem rational (e.g., Potter, 1996), unbiased (e.g., Billig, 1988) and as representing the ‘common people’ (e.g., Rapley, 1998) and defending the nation (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Verkuyten, 2013; Wood & Finlay, 2008). With the analytical tools of CDP—ideological dilemmas, interpretive repertoires and subject positions (Edley, 2001)—we examine what

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meanings of hate-speech are constructed by the participants, what rhetorical resources or strategies (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996) are employed to justify meanings of hate-speech, how social categories and identities are constructed and employed, as well as who are positioned as hate speakers (Davies & Harré, 1990). Furthermore, we focus on those meanings we found most relevant in our material from the perspective of dialogical meaning-making (Marková, 2003), paying particular attention to the moments of disagreement, negotiation, and challenge. In the production material (TV show) we focused on the negotiation between preceding and following speaking turns, while in the reception material (online threads) the dialogue took place in relation to the constructions put forward by the TV programme. We separate the two sets of material in the analysis below and end the chapter with a comparative discussion.

Analysis: Dialogical Constructions of Hate-Speech Production: Hate-Speech in Established Media The social representations related to hate-speech in TV show discussion were built on three interconnected interpretative repertoires (1) hatespeech as offensive speech, (2) hate-speech as a new normal, and (3) hate-speech as a political weapon. While the two former dominated the discussion, the latter, representing hate-speech as a political weapon, countered and challenged the more hegemonic views. The three interpretative repertoires as well as the way they draw from ideological dilemmas and are entangled in subject positions will be discussed below. Hate-speech as offensive speech is an interpretative repertoire strongly attached to xenophobia and racism. The law and international conventions are used as rhetorical resources to construct meaning for the yet abstract construct of hate-speech, as in the below Extract 1 where the interviewer refers to the lack of a legal definition of hate-speech in Finnish law and uses the commonly referenced definition of hate-speech by the European Council to categorize hate-speech as xenophobia before asking directly about the participant’s experiences of hate-speech (lines

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1–5). As we see in Extract 1, the participant, a winner of Miss Helsinki beauty competition (who has dark skin and who has received lots of negative feedback criticizing her appearance), agrees with the assigned repertoire by describing hate-speech as intentionally offensive speech (lines 9–10) but at the same time, employs another repertoire—Hatespeech as a new normal —when warranting her claim that everybody engages in it, ‘even family mums and dads’ (lines 10–12). Extract 1, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

J1: So we do not have an official definition of hate-speech in law, but the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has proposed the following definition, that is, hate-speech spreads, incites, promotes or justifies hatred based on intolerance such as racial hatred or xenophobia. So, this is the time in general to define hatespeech. If you listen to this statement do you recognize the hate-speech you have experienced here. (– –) J1: If you could describe it a little SL: If I describe it. Well it’s at least that you are deliberately trying to offend someone, that is at least what I have encountered, that intentionally, that so many or as I have also said before that even family mums and dads who know that I am 19 [years-old], who know that I have just entered adulthood, and surely they teach their own children that teasing is wrong, and so on and so on, but they themselves somehow, because I am a public figure, they can say whatever, so, it’s sad, but, that’s kind of it.

By drawing on her young age (lines 11–12), the speaker adopts the position of a victim for herself and assigns the position of hate speakers to average Joes. The speaker acknowledges the counter argument that is used by the hate speakers to legitimize their action (line 14), but instead of arguing against it, she seems at least to some extent to accept that hatespeech can be justified if its target is a public figure (lines 14–15). This idea of adapting to hate-speech is central in the repertoire constructing hate-speech as a new normal. The repertoire of Hate-speech as a new normal portrays the phenomenon as something that concerns the present-day society and is strongly attached to the sphere of the social media. Hate-speech is constructed as something that people must endure to maintain an open democratic society. In Extract 2, Jarkko Tontti, a lawyer and novelist

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and a former president of Finnish PEN (an international association of writers promoting freedom of expression), advocates that people need to grow a thicker skin (line 6). Extract 2, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

JT: Well, it’s like that there always have been and will be people who abuse their freedoms. And that is the price we have to pay if we want to live in an open democratic free society. And at least I, for one, am willing to pay the price that some people say stupid things. And it is, like I said, I’m willing to pay the price, and the cultural change that is now happening because of the Internet and social media will in my opinion unavoidably mean that we have to grow a thicker skin. That we are no longer as sensitive to insults we say on social media.

Rhetorically the speaker warrants his account with concessions by explicitly acknowledging potential counterclaims (lines 1–2), repetition (references to price, lines 2–4) and corroborating consensus (lines 2, 6) to argue in favour of freedom of speech. The speaker draws from the ideological dilemma of limits of free speech vs. hate-speech (e.g., Pettersson, 2019) to negotiate the meanings of hate-speech, and to argue for the primacy of freedom of speech over criminalizing hate-speech. While there seems to be quite strong consensus over the meanings of hate-speech as being dominantly anchored in immigration and social media and becoming legitimized through the right to freedom of speech, the question of who the hate speakers are, triggers more negotiation between participants. In Extract 3, three participants, Yrjö Timonen (a father of a recently deceased daughter, known for opposing racism and who became the target of extensive hate-speech), Timo Kilpeläinen (a police inspector working with extremism) and Emma Kari (a Greens Party politician) discuss the nature of hate speakers. Extract 3, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

YT: I claim now, as I have looked into this issue, that those instigators of hate-speech do not really know what they are speaking about. They don’t even understand what they hate, that is, that the anger is unstructured, unrecognizable, and I argue that there are actually really traumatic experiences, fears of loneliness and being rejected. They are piteous, I feel sorry for these people. J2: What do the police say about this definition, …, if you can say they are piteous, is that so? TK: Well, no one is probably born an articulator of hate-speech but are raised into

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it as such I mean and my own experience is that there are people from different social classes with different backgrounds. So, that is, too much generalization in this sense is also wrong. J1: Emma. EK: Maybe, for me as I have followed this discussion for years so, it is so that it can’t be said that this is a group of a people of a certain kind. There’re really different people. There’s like really well-off people who have a really clear political agenda with which they systematically seek to spread fear and suspicion towards other people for political reasons. Then there are certainly these people who are doing really badly, who may have their own personal problems, but then also those who entertain themselves a bit when someone is attacked. They may think that it’s fun that you can kind of nastily mock others.

In the first comment, hate speakers are imbued with problem-talk (lines 2–5) and constructed as abnormal, piteous people. The identity of a hate speaker is loaded with negative characteristics, which are abnormalized and othered. This view is challenged by the next speaker, a police inspector working with extremism, who says that no one is born to hate but are raised as hate speakers, and that it applies to all social classes (lines 8–10). The idea of hate speakers constituting a more diverse than homogenous group of people is further constructed in the following comment by the Greens politician who uses the category entitlement (reference to the years of experience, line 13) to warrant her argument according to which there are three kinds of hate speakers. She labels well-doing people who have a political agenda as the first group of hate speakers (lines 15–17), and draws from the third interpretative repertoire framing hate-speech as a political weapon (see more in-depth discussion later) and—although not explicitly expressed—from the context, the audience knows that the position is addressed to anti-immigrant voices and politicians who are active on social media (Horsti & Nikunen, 2013). As the second group of hate speakers she mentions those who are not doing well and may suffer from personal problems (lines 17–18), which echoes with the position of abnormal, piteous people. As a third

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group she names those who get enjoyment from other people’s suffering and mockery (line 19), humorous sadists. The commentary by the Greens politician suggests that hate-speech can be motivated by the political and personal interests of some groups and individuals that either intentionally spread fear and distrust, or alternatively enjoy mocking other people. As we see in Extract 4 below, this position of a hate speaker is addressed to one political group and its supporters: the Finns Party . The politician representing the party, Sampo Terho, is interrogated about what to do to reduce hate-speech within the party and its supporters (lines 1–2), implying that the position is given to this particular group of people. Extract 4, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15

J1: What can you do within your party for your supporters and party members to reduce hate-speech? Or to get rid of it? ST: Well, I have counted the cases of incitement against the Finns Party that have been well reported over the years. Before the broadcast I counted that there have been less than ten which I know of. I know there are 10,000 members, so it is about one out of a thousand members who has been convicted of something. They have received sanctions, and some have been expelled from the party, and some have received other sanctions, some have received legal sanctions or in fact I specifically mention those who have received legal sanctions. J1: Judgements have been given, given only to about 40 people over the years, so, so a large number are from your party. However, is there anything else you could do better? I just want to mention here that the Human Rights Association [Ihmisoikeusliitto] has today appealed to parties that the municipal elections be conducted without racist writing, expressions or other racist activities so, so, what else can be done?

In his response to the interviewer’s question, the Finns Party politician tries to shift the position of hate speakers from his party members and defends it from the accusation by referring to empiricist discourse (lines 3–6), numbers and facts, to warrant that hate speakers represent a small minority of the party members (Pettersson, 2019; Potter, 1996). The interviewer continues to challenge this view by insisting that

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most of the hate-speech convictions in Finland have been given to Finns Party politicians (lines 10–11). In the same commentary, the meaning of hate-speech is equated with racism (line 14) implying an interpretative repertoire of offensive speech. Later during the discussion, the same Finns Party politician is again challenged by the interviewer who asks about the borders of hate-speech and freedom of speech. Extract 5, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

ST: Well, to expand above all from the perspective that we talk about this concept of hate speech often very vaguely, though now we try to define it well here. So, sometimes it also becomes a weapon, that if someone hears someone’s opinion that they don’t like, or which annoys them, then they might think that this was hate speech, and that it should not be said aloud. And again I want to strongly defend that there should be a more reasonable definition of hate speech than your emotional reaction to it.

In his answer to the interviewer’s question to why the Finns Party aims to extend the definition and interpretation of freedom of speech, the Finns Party politician Sampo Terho constructs the meaning of hate-speech as a weapon (line 4) that is used when an opinion is disliked and a political opponent disagrees with it (Pettersson, 2019), and thus adheres to the third interpretative repertoire of hate-speech as political weapon. He strongly claims that the definition of hate-speech needs a more rational definition than one’s emotional reaction to an issue or opinion (lines 7– 9), suggesting that the current way to define hate-speech is wrong. By so doing he implies that his fellow party members may have been accused of hate-speech because of unclear, political motivations. In Extract 6, the interviewer aims to challenge the Finns Party politician’s comment by addressing his speaking turn next to the Greens politician Emma Kari (lines 1–2), who is assumed to hold an opposing opinion on the issue of hate-speech.

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Extract 6, material 1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24

J2: Emma. How does it sound here? Is another politician saying that freedom of speech should be extended, do you agree? EK: Well, maybe I need to disagree that there are any things in this country that we are not allowed to speak about. I need to say that at the moment the bar is already pulled so far down that it is difficult to come up with things that we are not allowed to say. And if we look now, for example, at what the active members of your party, what they have been given judgements for, and so on, I think that people should not be talked about like that. That is, when we start to restrict other people or want to silence other people, stigmatize other people, we will, like it was very well stated here, reduce them to being just representatives of their group, that is I think that we should also protect people. Freedom of speech is an infinitely important thing, but the limit is always there that we need to protect the rights of people. And in the history of this country we can see what happens when these things are forgotten, and what will happen when people are reduced just as representatives of their group. ((applause)) ST: Here comes a pretty similar definition. A similar definition, but perhaps the difference is political, about the content, but in principle I agree, however I want to say that also there have been attempts to silence this criticism that is unpleasant for some by stigmatizing it. So sometimes tolerance is defended very fiercely, even by speech like hate-speech, like I receive in the email and probably which all politicians receive. And they receive it from the perspective of their own, which is always an opposite perspective, and stigmatization should never be the way, not stigmatizing with hate-speech or any other ugly generalization but it should be as sensible and as fact-based as possible.

Expectedly, the Greens politician states that she disagrees with the way the politician of the Finns Party sees the current state of Finnish society not allowing free speech (lines 3–6). She claims that when people are restricted, silenced and stigmatized, or reduced (line 9), they need to be protected, thus arguing in favour of limiting hate-speech despite potential costs for freedom of speech. She concludes her argument by referring to common Finnish knowledge regarding misdeeds in the past (implicitly referring to the traumatic Finnish Civil War in 1918, lines 13–14) to build her claim about the severity of hate-speech (Augoustinous et al., 2002). In the eyes of a Finnish audience, thus, her argument is constructed in a rhetorically self-sufficient manner, as part of shared knowledge that requires no further justification (e.g., Wetherell & Potter, 1992). This is the first commentary in the discussion that is followed by applauds from the audience (line 15).

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While the Finns Party politician first seemingly builds a shared understanding with Kari’s view by referring to the similarities of their definition, he soon expounds their differences. Thus the beginning of his argument seems to work as a concession (lines 16–17) before the main argument and against potential counter-claims from his audience (Edwards & Potter, 1992; Potter, 1996). He then continues to reverse the argument of Emma Kari and claims that the criticism (presumably addressed by his fellow party members) that has been unwanted by some people, has been silenced by stigmatizing it (lines 18–19). By so doing, he adopts the position of a victimized martyr for his own political group (Pettersson, 2019, 2020; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Van Dijk, 1992) and alleges that tolerance is justified by hate-speech, thus assigning the position of hate speakers to ‘the tolerant ’. He warrants his view by first referring to his own personal experience of hate-speech from opposing political views (line 20) and then expanding this experience to concern all politicians (lines 20–22), not just himself (Potter, 1996). He concludes his commentary by condemning stigmatization and generalization (lines 22–23), which serves as a disclaimer to invoke that hate-speech could be justified when it is based on reason and facts (lines 23–24). Hence, by drawing upon an empiricist discourse (Potter, 1996) that is logical and fact-based, he becomes a voice of reason, which was found in previous research to be one of the identities claimed by the politicians who had been convicted of hate-speech (Pettersson, 2019).

Reception: Social Media Users’ Responses We identified four partly intertwined discursive responses (or functions of talk) in the Suomi24 online forum in relation to constructions of ‘hate-speech’ in the TV show: (1) condemning hate-speech, (2) denial of hate-speech, (3) reversal of hate-speech and (4) legitimizing hate-speech. As we will discuss below, these discursive reactions strongly resisted, challenged, and even replaced the hegemonic representations produced in the established media discussion.

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Condemning Hate-Speech Condemning hate-speech was clearly the least invoked discursive pattern in response to the YLE TV show and most of the commentaries within this category defended the dominant repertoire of hate-speech as offensive speech of the TV show. This discursive response thus seems to be grounded on the same social representation but appears as two linguistically different repertoires: hate-speech as offensive speech in the TV show emphasizes the legislative framework, employs discreet language and makes only subtle references to the issue of racism, while the participants in the Suomi24 raise the issue of racism directly, use harsh and vulgar language to strengthen their argument, and draw from interpretative repertoire of hate-speech as racism. Albeit the two repertoires root from the same social representation anchoring in racism and intolerance, their vocabulary, grammar and metaphors used differ, suggesting that there are two dialogically constructed repertoires at play instead of just one. The hate-speech as racism repertoire strongly parallels hate-speech and racism and addresses the position of hate speakers to racists, as in Extract 7 (line 1). Extract 7, material 2 1 2 3

Why should YLE take the side of racists or defend racists’ hate speech? There is an absolute zero tolerance to racism and it should not be tolerated at all.

Extract 8, material 2 1

You are all hate speakers, damn.

Despite its condemning nature, this discourse was no more successful in prompting constructive dialogue than commentaries under the other three types of discursive responses denying or supporting hate-speech (see

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the analysis below), but as Extract 8 demonstrates, it could be highly provocative.

Denial of Hate-Speech Denial of hate-speech as a discursive response presupposes an accusation of real or potential hate-speech and asserts that such an attack is not warranted (Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Van Dijk, 1992). There are many ways to thwart the accusation of hate-speech. One such strategy used on the forum was to downplay the existence of hate-speech as a social problem and to exaggerate the severity of other, more urgent social problems. Extract 9, material 2 1 2 3 4

Bullying at school and in the workplaces is nothing anymore! Age racism is nothing anymore! Because now comes hate speech! Next time you encounter a nasty thing remember that only nice speech (Fin: kivapuhe ) is allowed!

In Extract 9 exclamation points are used to express emotional outbursts and an ironic emphasis (lines 1–4). Like in many commentaries, bullying at school and in workplaces are provided as points of comparison to hate-speech (lines 1–2). These analogies serve to mitigate the severity of hate-speech while urging readers to focus on more severe problems (Van Dijk, 1992). The purpose of such denials is to trivialize the claims of the assumed opponents (Van Dijk, 1992) and was common to many commentaries denying hate-speech in the analysed material. As in Extract 9 above, the trivialization occurs in tandem with the rhetorical use of sarcasm and irony. The opposite meaning to what is said literally is employed to mitigate and muddle the issue of hate-speech. Replacing the term hate-speech with ‘nice speech’ (lines 3–4) allows the speaker to claim that people are not allowed to say negative issues aloud but are silenced through the argument of hate-speech. This word-game raises the issues of ‘political correctness’ and freedom of speech, echoing

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the meaning of hate-speech as a political weapon, and resonating with previous research showing that radical right-wing populist politicians frequently claim to be the sole protectors of freedom of speech (Pettersson, 2019). Central to the discourse of ‘denial of hate-speech’ is to claim that it is a term or phenomenon that has been invented by the ‘the tolerant’ to replace the term ‘racist’ and to stigmatize all those people who disagree with the tolerant’s views of hate speakers (see also Pettersson, 2020). Extract 10, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

Hate speech is a silly title, developed mainly to replace the term racist that has suffered inflation. It is convenient to bundle under it all kind of reasonable resistance to globalism and multiculturalism believers. When all those who disagree are labelled as hate speakers there is no reason to justify themselves or their own lack of reason.

Extract 11, material 2 1 2

The concept of hate speech has been launched in Finland around 2015. Before that, the word was not used.

Many commentaries in the Suomi24 material use similar argumentation as Extracts 10 and 11 above. In these comments, the meaning of hate-speech is constructed as a heavily politicized concept that has been developed only recently (Extract 10, lines 1–2; Extract 11, line 2). Indeed, central to this discourse are claims as to the novelty of the term ‘hate-speech’, while the phenomenon itself is considered to be something that has always existed:

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Extract 12, material 2 1 2

There has been that sort of nasty use of language for ages but it was made into the term ‘hate speech’ by the tolerant when the arguments ran out.

Extract 13, material 2 1 2

Hate speech was a genetic feature of Finns already when the Kalevala was sung in the marshes.

The denial of hate-speech thus draws from the interpretative repertoire of hate-speech as an old issue in new terms. As Extracts 12 and 13 above demonstrate, hate-speech is characterized as something that is part of Finnish nature, roots and culture (e.g., see reference to Finnish national epic Kalevala in Extract 13, line 2). Framing it in terms of Finnishness works as another potential form of denial and mitigation.

Reversal of Hate-Speech The most typical discursive response to the TV show was to reverse the subject position of the hate speakers onto established media and political opponents, liberal, leftists, greens, who are all categorized in the same extended category labelled ‘the tolerant’ (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Sakki et al., 2017). Most of the commentaries directly accuse YLE broadcast of being an excessively tolerant medium that practices hate-speech. Extract 14, material 2. 1

YLE engages in hate-speech, accusation, and racism against ordinary Finns…

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Extract 15, material 2 1 2

Let’s see if this show addresses hate-speech at all that YLE itself is targeting especially towards the Finns Party supporters?:P

Extract 16, material 2 1 2

Female journalist of YLE is guilty of hate-speech. Attacked Sampo Terho and provoked people against the Finns Party supporters.

Extract 17, material 2 1

The tolerant target their hate-speech at Finns?

As the above commentaries bring forth, the targets of such media practiced hate-speech are claimed to be ordinary Finnish people (Extracts 14 and 17) and representatives of the Finns Party (Extracts 15 and 16). The reversal of the racist label (Van Dijk, 1992) requires extending the in-group category to encompass a larger group of people, in effect, the Finns Party is equated with the common Finnish people, as has been suggested also in previous studies (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Sakki et al., 2017). The reversal of hate-speech leans on an interpretative repertoire of hate-speech as silencing and blaming the ordinary Finns and is built on the differentiation between the ‘bad elite’ and ‘good people’, which is common in populist discourse (Mudde, 2004; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020; Staerklé & Green, 2018). The negotiation of this interpretative repertoire thus occurs in reference with ideological dilemma of who belongs to the good ordinary people and who are part of bad and corrupted elite. This dilemma is employed to reverse the label of ‘hate speaker’ from ‘us’, the ordinary Finnish people to ‘them’, the established media and ‘the tolerant’. The villains, the extended group of ‘the tolerant’, are accused of conspiracy and wasting the tax money collected from ordinary citizens, as Extracts 18 and 19 below demonstrate: Extract 18, material 2 1 2

YLE distorts / lies / conceals the news, all kind of news, by YLE’s own tolerant “journalists”. And criticism is forbidden as “hate” speech.

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Extract 19, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

Why on earth is it that taxpayers’ money cannot be used to create neutral impartial debate on the topic. YLE profiles the so called hate speaker as the native heterosexual Finn. Why wasn’t there a single example of how “those who came here from elsewhere” are ALSO guilty of hate-speech, just as if hate-speech only concerns native Finns and that hate-speech should be rooted out, my blood is boiling, because of this one-sided blame.

In these commentaries YLE is described as a biased media outlet that lies and fakes the news (Extract 18, lines 1–2; Extract 19, lines 1–2). The latter part of Extract 19 expresses a strong emotional state (line 5) and brings forth the idea of one-sided blame (line 6). Most of the posts responding to the TV show using the reversal of hate-speech strategy relied on evoking emotions (Potter, 1996; Sakki & Pettersson, 2018), which can be done in a more indirect manner as well, for example, by using exclamation marks or rhetorical questions, which are useful tools to emphasize astonishment and to direct the audience to draw their own conclusions, which allows the speaker to refrain from expressing personal opinions and thus to avoid accusations of prejudice. Extract 20, material 1 2

Let’s see when they start to address hate-speech by the left and especially the anarchists?☺

Extract 21, material 2 1

Green leftist hate-speech is better hate-speech.

Extract 22, material 2 1

*Hush hush hush!* It is the BETTER hate-speech!;) So completely allowed!

As in Extract 20 above, a rhetorical question can also be used to illustrate and strengthen consensus: the answers are so obvious to everyone that they can be left unsaid. The two latter Extracts 21 and 22 bring forth the idea of ‘better hate-speech’, which was expressed by many Suomi24 posts, implying the idea of being silenced and the effect of political correctness as we previously discussed under the denial of hate-speech.

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Legitimizing Hate-Speech Legitimizing hate-speech was a common discursive response, and it often appears in tandem with the reversal of hate-speech. However, while the reversal predominantly addressed ‘the tolerant’, in the legitimizing discourse, the blame of hate-speech was attributed to an external threat, Muslims and refugees, as Extracts 23, 24, and 25 below demonstrate: Extract 23, material 2 1 2 3 4 5

I mean the cause of hate-speech. Refugees are pampered at the expense of Finns, and they are not required to behave like “when in Rome, do as the Romans do” (in Fin: ‘maassa maan tavalla’). Muslim hate-speeches against Finns were completely ignored. The Finns have had enough of this secrecy, and the hate-speech will not end but increase.

Extract 24, material 2. 1

Why is it allowed to cultivate hate-speech against wrong-believers in mosques?

Extract 25, material 2 1 2 3 4 5 6

When I say that Islam must be banned from Finland and its practitioners expelled on the grounds set out above, I consider my position reasonable and the measures necessary to safeguard the fundamental rights of Finns. Yet the officials define my point of view as hate-speech. What is the SICKEST, is that the word Islam was not mentioned a single time in ‘hate-speech night’ even though its crimes are the biggest source of anger.

In all the above extracts, the position of hate speaker is assigned to an external other, refugees and Muslims. This reaction to the TV show is based on the interpretative repertoire of hate-speech as an external threat. This repertoire draws on the ideological dilemma contrasting

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the rights of ‘us’ (Finnish people) and ‘them’ (refugees/Muslims), thus, echoing the right-wing populist rhetoric which is built on the intergroup differentiation between the ingroup, and the external threat, which in this case dominantly means Muslims, refugees and ‘illegal’ immigrants (Mudde, 2004; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Staerklé & Green, 2018). At the same time, Finnishness, protecting Finnish rights and the Finnish way of life serve as a rhetorical resource to legitimize this claim and the position attributed to the ‘Other’, while enabling the speaker to adopt the position of a saviour and patriot (Pettersson, 2019; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). Unlike in the reversal discourse, in legitimization, the hate-speech is justified because the external other also engages in hate-speech, and in this way, the hatespeech practiced by ‘us’ is portrayed as self-defence. As in the above Extract 25 (line 1) and in many other commentaries in our material, the deportation of refugees/Muslims is given as the only justified solution to the problem of hate-speech. Table 4.1 summarizes the interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject position built in the YLE TV show and the Suomi24 online forum around the discussions on hate-speech. There are many interesting similarities and differences between the interpretative repertoires and subject positions in the established media and online discussions. For example, describing hate-speech as a new normal (in the TV show) and portraying it as an old phenomenon (in Suomi24) seem contradictory in terms of their contents but share similarities regarding their functions. Both repertoires serve to mitigate the role of hate-speech as a social issue, as the former suggests adapting to it by ‘growing a thicker skin’, while the latter challenges its importance or denies existence. We can also note similarities between other repertoires. For instance, hate-speech as offensive speech (in the TV show) and hate-speech as racism (in Suomi24) are distinct repertoires regarding their genre (vocabulary, style) albeit they clearly stem from the same social representation anchoring hate-speech in racism and discrimination. In the same vein, hate-speech as a political weapon (in the TV show) and hate-speech as silencing and blaming the ordinary Finns

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Table 4.1 Interpretative repertoires, ideological dilemmas and subject positions in established media and online discourse about hate-speech Interpretative repertoires Established media (TV)

Hate-speech as offensive speech

Hate-speech as a new normal

Online media (Suomi24)

Ideological dilemmas

Hate-speech as a political weapon Hate-speech as racism Hate-speech as an old issue in new terms

Hate-speech as silencing and blaming the ordinary Finn Hate-speech as external threat

Limits to free speech vs. hate-speech

Being part of ordinary (good) people vs. being part of (corrupted, bad) elite

Subject positions The Finns Party politicians/supporters as hate speakers Humorous sadists as hate speakers Average Joes as hate speakers Piteous people as hate speakers ‘The tolerant’ as hate speakers Racists as hate speakers ‘The tolerant’ as hate speakers

YLE/media as hate speakers

The rights of Finns vs. the rights of refugees

External Other as hate speakers

and hate-speech as an old issue in new terms (in Suomi24) are dialogically constructed sharing similar arguments, yet, they are constructed through different ways of using words and style. Thus, regarding the relationship between social representation (SR) and interpretative repertoires (IR), it seems that SR may generate different IRs sharing some fundamentals but differing in their genre, linguistic content and style. This finding echoes previous research (Gibson, 2015) suggesting that SRs refer to broader processes of knowledge construction (macro) while IRs are constructed in relation to the immediate social interaction (micro).

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Discussion This chapter examined the dialogical construction of meanings related to hate-speech in a Finnish TV talk show, and its reception by social media users in the Suomi24 online forum. To examine the representations of professionals and lay people is a common approach in social representation research (e.g., Jodelet, 1991), yet previous discursive research has rarely addressed both the production and the reception of discourse. We believe that this kind of approach is of particular importance when studying such phenomena as anti-immigration and hate-speech that are central concerns of populist discourse, which strongly leans on the division between a ‘bad elite’ and ‘good common people’ (Mudde, 2004; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020; Staerklé & Green, 2018). Previous research exploring ‘new racism’ (Barker, 1981; Billig, 1988) has identified several discursive and rhetorical patterns pointing to the rhetorical work people engage in, in order to express discriminatory views and yet avoid being labelled racist (Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Every & Augoustinos, 2007; Pettersson, 2020). These studies are in line with our findings of social media users’ responses to the constructions of hate-speech elaborated in the TV show, namely denial downplaying the existence of the phenomenon, reversal reversing hate-speech against political opponents and the media, and legitimization justifying one’s own hate-speech as self-defence against the hate-speech of the external other. Theoretically, our endeavour aimed to build a bridge between a dialogical approach to social representations and critical discursive psychology, which we believe are compatible approaches. Our analysis shows that CDP and its analytic tools can be successfully combined with analysis of social representations. While CDP enabled us to investigate in detail the ways in which ‘hate-speech’ as a social construct was made sense of, talked about and used within established media and online discussions, the dialogical approach to SRT allowed us to address the question of power by paying attention to the dialogue between hegemonic and polemic versions of hate-speech. Indeed, as our results showed, social media users challenged, reversed, and even replaced the hegemonic versions of hate-speech constructed in the established media.

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This suggests that the Finnish public sphere is polarized when it comes to meaning-making related to hate-speech. As summarized in Table 4.1, the two sides of the coin—the ‘elite’ and the ‘lay’ discourses—had similarities and differences. In both hatespeech was at some level associated with racism and discrimination and constructed as a social media phenomenon. On the other hand, in the online discussion hate-speech was also described as an old issue and the term itself as an invention and a weapon used by ‘the tolerant’. The representations of the hate speakers were polarized in both discussions. While in the TV show several positions were constructed for the hate speaker which were also strongly addressed to the Finns Party supporters, in the online discussion the position of hate speaker was mainly assigned to ‘the tolerant’ and immigrants. Although certain elements were touched upon in the TV show, such as hearing different voices and understanding the experiences of injustice, these themes were more profoundly elaborated in the online forum discussions. The arrogance associated to the elite, failure to be heard and one-sided blaming seem to construct the elementary ingredients of polarization between the representations of the YLE TV show and the Suomi24 online threads. The dialogicality in the meaning-making and communication in terms of the Alter/other (Marková, 2003) appeared in many ways in the discussions. The power of the recognition of ‘their’ representations of ‘us’ was concretized in the online users’ reactions expressing unfairness, accusing the speakers in established media of one-sided blaming of hate-speech and in the way their perceptions were considered arrogant. The social media users’ posts made clear that the discussions on TV were considered artificial and ostensibly open to all voices, while imposing liberal views in more indirect ways. These subtle ways were interpreted differently in the online discussion. For example, the applauds by the audience after the Greens politician’s comment (and not after the Finns Party politician’s comments) may have potentially raised the question of who were invited to be in the audience in the TV studio (likeminded liberals or ‘anyone’). Also, the more direct interrogations (on behalf of the interviewer) of the Finns Party politician about the hate crimes committed by his party members or party supporters was considered an unfair attack and one-sided blaming in the social media discussion. Moreover, by

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intentionally placing the opposing views directly in dialogue through addressing the floor to the Greens party politician after the Finns Party politician’s speaking turn, the TV discussion served to strengthen the idea of contested, polarized meanings regarding hate-speech. The dialogical approach of social representations theory provides a framework for understanding the role played by intertwining ego-alterrelationships (the way social representations of hate-speech are attached to other representations) and meta-representations (what we think that other people think), and meta-meta representations (what we think about others’ knowledge of us) (Elcheroth et al., 2011) in the dialogical construction of meanings. When people argue about hate-speech, they seem to do so not just against the possible counter-arguments (Billig, 1987), suggesting the recognition of the meta-representations, but also in reference to what they know about the significant others’ beliefs concerning them. The meta-representations and meta-meta representations constitute an interpretative grid that may have an even stronger collective effect than intimate beliefs (Elcheroth et al., 2011). Future research on the meanings attached to hate-speech should acknowledge these multiple dimensions that such constructions are embedded in.

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5 Trying to Ignore the Bullies and the Buzz: A Critical Discursive Study of How Pro-migration Activists Cope with and Contest Right-Wing Nationalist Interference Camilla Haavisto

Introduction The rise of right-wing activism and rhetoric in the European context at the beginning of the twenty-first century has been extensively studied within various disciplinary fields, including media studies, sociology, political studies and social psychology (e.g. Mudde, 2010; Titley, 2020; Wodak, 2015). A commonly shared conclusion in many of these studies is that social media platforms carry amplifying potential when it comes to the production and spreading of right-wing ideological messages in hybrid media environments (Cammaerts, 2020; Ekman, 2014; Matamoros-Fernández, 2017). C. Haavisto (B) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_5

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In Finland, the impact of platforms and platform-driven logics for public and semi-public discourses on multiculturalism, migration and racism was particularly tangible during the years 2015–2017 (Pöyhtäri et al., 2019). The reasons for this are manifold and intersecting: First, asylum applications increased rapidly (in 2015, over 32,000 people applied for asylum in Finland, a nearly tenfold increase on the asylum applications received in 2014), while at the same time, migration policies were made stricter by the centre-right government led by prime minister Juha Sipilä (2015–2019). Second, online and offline organising by right-wing nationalist forces intensified (Sallamaa, 2018), while at the same time, social media platforms neglected to regulate content scapegoating migrants, refugees and racial groups—something that would later change, at least to some extent, with at least seemingly more clearly defined rules on what constitutes so-called hate-speech (e.g. Farkas et al., 2018). Third, a new paragraph on persecution was added to the Criminal Code of Finland (879/2013, ch. 25§ 7a); however, the lack of legal precedents from the Supreme Court until 2020, made it challenging to distinguish aggressive speech from defamation and persecution (see e.g. Törnqvist, 2017). All these factors influenced Finnish society in general as well as public and semi-public discourses on migration, deportation and multiculturalism in the years following 2015, particularly as they intertwined with an ideological transformation towards increased right-wing ethnonationalism,1 on the one hand, and the advancement of racism under the guise of free speech on the other hand (Titley, 2020). This shift was spurred by the Finns Party and their rhetoric about protecting the Finnish borders from ‘outsiders’ and promoting the rights of ‘Finns first’ at the expense of rights of others (see e.g. Wahlbeck, 2016, 585). In this overall setting, there were many voices, particularly from the left, that critiqued Finland’s approach to migration in general and the situation of asylum seekers from the Middle East in particular. One voice that became prominent was the Right to Live movement. Starting as a protest camp but soon developing into an organisation specialised in 1 In the geographic, political and temporal context concerned, right-wing ethnonationalism can be understood broadly as an ideological movement ‘anchored in the nostalgic longing for an ethnically homogenous past that never quite existed’ (Hellström et al., 2020, 2).

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online investigations into wrongdoings by the authorities, the goal of the movement was to raise awareness of inhumane migration policies and deportation. The Right to Live movement gained renown by demonstrating in the centre of Helsinki for more than seven months in 2017 and for its use of peaceful tactics to influence journalists, politicians and other more established organisations. Nevertheless, the collective was not free to lobby or make claims without continuous external resistance. Amongst the movement’s obstacles, which ranged from bad infrastructure and harsh winter weather to issues of representation and voice, was a counterdemonstration set up by the right-wing nationalist Suomi Ensin (Finland First) movement. The right-wing protestors were continuously disturbing and harassing the migrant protestors and their allies through tactics that bridged online and offline environments and encompassed for example video activism2 (Laaksonen et al., 2020, 184). What added to the antagonistic environment was the split of the organising collective of the right-wing Suomi Ensin demonstration (also known as Suomi-Maidan protest) into at least two different collectives. These internal power struggles that were played out in public (Kuokkanen, 2017), added to a reading in which the main purpose of the counterdemonstrators’ camp was to stage what Kellner (2003) terms media spectacles. In other words, the counterdemonstrators continuously took advantage of a media logic that favours tension and polarisation over rational political claims-making through text and speech. However, the spectacle-like activism of the right-wing protestors was far from being ‘just a show’. Research shows that trolling campaigns targeted not only migrants but also Police officers (Melasniemi, 2018) and according to estimates, during the year 2017, most ideologically motivated violent crimes in Finland, related to this particular counterdemonstration (Savolainen, 2018). In this social and political setting, I examine the ways in which migrants and their allies use spoken and written interaction to position 2 ‘There are Finns who are not as calm as we are, so please come and burn that fucking [migrant] camp’ is an extract used by Laaksonen et al. (2020, 184) to exemplify the content in these right-wing nationalist videos.

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themselves vis-à-vis this right-wing rhetoric and action. By analysing how pro-migration protestors shape their utterances when interacting with researcher interviewers and online commenters, I can join the endeavour to create more knowledge on how discourses on asylum and migration take shape in contemporary mediatised society.

A Critical Take on Discourse in Blended Environments Although the more rigid tradition of discursive psychology (DP) represented by, e.g. Huma et al. (2020) is theoretically agnostic, as I venture in this study outside the core of the research tradition, it will become necessary to clarify some basic theoretical premises in order to paint a comprehensible picture of the context in which the discursive practices of migrants, racialised minorities and allies who stand up against right-wing antagonism are formed. The primary theoretical premise relates to the intertwined character of online and offline realities. In the context of contemporary activism for and against migrants’ rights, discursive practices must be understood as taking place in hybrid or blended3 environments where social movement media practices ‘circulate online and off ’ (Costanza-Chock, 2014, 30) and where street-level claims-making as well as street-level confrontations blend into various online phenomena such as the global organising for justice, but also algorithmic bias (Noble, 2018), digital racism4 (Farkas & Neymayer, 2020) and social media surveillance (e.g. Andreassen, 2020). Affected by this myriad of hybrid phenomena, it is 3 My understanding of ‘hybrid’ is aligned Andrew Chadwick’s (2017) theory of hybrid media systems. ‘Blended’ has mostly been used within pedagogics for describing a milieu where the online lived realities merge with the offline but the notion has recently gained ground also within other disciplinary traditions (e.g. Granholm, 2016). 4 Acknowledging that the right to conceptualise racism is an act of power exercising in itself (Hesse, 2004; Lentin, 2020; Stoler, 2002), I understand racism as a system of power in and through which difference is organized unfairly according to such criteria as ethnic, racial, religious and/or cultural backgrounds, affiliations and/or features that intertwine with other categorisations such as class, status, gender and sexuality. This system has historical roots, but contemporary prevalence and it disadvantages some individuals, communities and regions and unfairly advantages others. This system of power affects also digital or hybrid environments

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questionable whether migrant subjects have the potential to ‘talk back’ to right-wing antagonists, influence migration politics and drive social change (see e.g. Moulin & Nyers, 2007 for the latter two). However, what we can rely based on previous research is that blended protest tactics for migrants’ rights—as in the use of multiple channels and spaces for claims-making—advances the plurality of frames, discourses and positions available for migrant subject to construct, develop and possess (see, e.g. Fenton, 2016; Meraz & Papacharissi, 2013). This theoretical assumption of an intertwined character of online and offline realities not only creates an understanding of contemporary mediatised society. It also validates a research set-up in which material from online and offline environments are combined, and in which the understanding of right-wing antagonism and racism as hybrid or blended acknowledges the multifolded character of the channels and spaces through which antagonistic rhetoric and actions are constructed and disseminated. In this blended media environment, language can still be considered as the predominant medium for action. How individuals talk and what they say or write, whether in response to a right-wing nationalist provocation online or to a researcher during ongoing protest, constitute discursive actions with real-life consequences (see Huma et al., 2020). In other words, how migrants and their allies position themselves through spoken and written interaction, and how they shape their utterances in interaction with the researcher and online commentators, matters for positioning practices in society at large. These positioning practices—here understood as ever-shifting patterns of mutual and contestable rights and obligations of speaking and acting (Davies & Harré, 1990)—are central for my study. The notion of positioning allows me to be ‘subject-centred’ and to understand discursive practices in an analytically meaningful way from the perspective of the migrant protestors and their allies. The notion also helps me to highlight the dynamic and flexible character of discursive practices. Instead of categorial thinking (from ‘resistant’ to ‘conforming’ or ‘victimised’ to ‘empowered’ for example), with the help of positioning, I can talk of since social media platforms and various actors on these platforms can function as amplifiers and manufacturers of unfair hierarchisations (see Matamoros-Fernández, 2017, 11).

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changed positions on scales of resistance and victimisation. To simplify, having positioning as the main tool in my conceptual toolkit, it does not have to be either/or, it can be more or less. In line with these premises that draw on sociologically inspired media studies and acknowledge the hybrid nature of discourse and the potential of street-level activism to diversify media frames, the study can be situated within the research tradition of critical discursive psychology (Edley, 2001; Pettersson, 2018). As a critical discourse theorist then, I explore in my study the working of power and its contestation, and the processes of coping and resisting, from the context of a migrant-driven political protest.

Materials and Method The Right to Live movement, involving pro-migration activists of Iraqi, Finnish and later also Afghan background, started in February 2017 as a demonstration of what (Brown et al., 2018) refers to as a protest camp5 aimed at increasing awareness about violations of migrants’ rights and human rights. The protest camp endured for more than seven months. When the camp was dismantled in September 2017, activities were moved online. Two sets of material related to the Right to Live movement were gathered.6 The first consists of nine semi-structured interviews with asylum-seeking activists. Six of the interviewees were from Iraq and three 5

The movement was initially linked to an organisation with a left-wing agenda (Vapaa Liikkuvuus, meaning ‘free movement’). However, in both the research interviews and in public statements, this link was downplayed, perhaps because the broader anti-capitalist left-wing agenda failed to fully resonate with migrant activists (as argued by Simin Fadaee, 2015, in another political and geographic context) or perhaps because political claims focusing on migration and deportation were reckoned to have more influence on public opinion than a broader agenda. 6 The guide for the semi-structured interviews was assembled by me. The interviews lasted from 20 minutes to one hour and were all transcribed verbatim. The interviews were conducted in English as the individuals selected for the interviews had good or adequate English skills. The informants were selected and interviewed by research assistant Erna Bodström. The two sets of material are part of a larger pool of material from the demonstration that also includes interviews with Finnish activists, ethnographic notes, mainstream media material and big data from social networking services (see e.g. Haavisto, 2020; Laaksonen et al., 2021). In line with

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from Afghanistan. Although the legal statuses of the interviewees varied both within the groups and over time, it is fair to state that at the time of the interviews most of them had received negative asylum decisions and filed complaints at various levels of the administrative judiciary. The character and ethical principles of the research were clearly explained to the interviewees before their enrolment in the study, particularly in terms of the use and storage of the material and the principle of anonymisation. It was emphasised that participation was voluntary and that taking part in the study would not benefit participants in their dealings with the migration authorities or legislative bodies. The length of the interviews varied from 20 minutes to an hour, and all interviews were transcribed verbatim. The interview guide consisted of a set of questions covering the personal motivation to be involved, infrastructural and organisational issues as well as questions on the attitude towards and experiences of various actors on the field such as other protestors in the pro-migration encampment, journalists, politicians, activist allies, passers-by, the Police and the right-wing nationalist counterdemonstrators. The interview material was analysed in Atlas.ti according to the main principles of DP such as relying on an inductive approach (Huma et al., 2020). In the hands-on analyses, this meant that I made no assumptions as to what kinds of linguistic and grammatical constructs would be of interest for further investigation. Rather, while engaging with the material, I open-mindedly asked myself which discursive manoeuvres matter for how positionings are formed. The second set of material consists of 558 posts and comments on Facebook in which commenters discuss the Right to Live demonstration or migrant rights in relation to asylum more generally. The two pages from which this second set of material was collected are Stop Deportations, a page with 14,604 likes, and the group Refugee Hospitality Club (Finland), with 14,000 members. Big data material was collected from the Facebook API by means of a custom-built tool (https://git hub.com/HIIT/hybra-someloader, see Nelimarkka et al., 2018 for more details on this tool). The material was transferred first to Excel and discourse theorist Christine Griffin (2007), I rely on contrived material in a DP-setting since ‘No talk or other practice is “natural” in the sense of being unmediated/…/’ (ibid., 248).’

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then to Atlas.ti, where the actual analysis took place.7 The material was collected before Facebook enacted new rules forbidding data collection from public groups without the consent of group administrators. The posts analysed were published between February and June 2017, while the tent demonstration was taking place. Both the Stop Deportations page, with 165 posts, and the Refugee Hospitality Club page, with 393 posts, were closely affiliated with the demonstration. Although the latter group was established earlier, in 2015, it soon became the major support site for allies to discuss issues related to the demonstration and asylum and deportation, and for asylum seekers to put forward various personal and collective requests and claims. The Stop Deportations page on Facebook was managed in a more top-down manner and functioned as one of the channels through which activists put forward their claims. On both sites, posts written by persons with an Iraqi or Afghan name8 were in the minority (only 96 posts out of 558)9 Another possible explanation for fewer posts by Facebook users with migrant backgrounds than by their Finnish peers may be that migrant voices are instead incorporated into posts written by Finnish activists, as extract 8 shows. Further, as previous studies on more expansive material from the Right to Live movement have shown, migrant activists were more active in promigration networks and on sites in Arabic and Farsi that they themselves created and administrated (Haavisto, 2020, 177). Although the findings in the two sets of material echo one another to some extent, for the sake of clarity, the analyses are presented in two parts; the interviews in part 1 and the social media material in part 2.

7 Although the use of images and graphics are essential for the formation of social and political identities, I focus my analyses on textual elements. 8 Whether these commenters are asylum seekers who arrived in Finland in 2015–2016 or earlier, we cannot know. Neither do we know, generally speaking, whether people are using their real names on Facebook. Further, because names are not a reliable indicator of someone’s background, these numbers must be interpreted with caution. 9 A more general analysis of how commenters used emoticons on the two pages showed that posts received on average 57 emoji reactions (likes, dislikes, etc.), ranging from 0 to 672 reactions. The most popular post in terms of having received the most emoticon reactions is a bilingual (Finnish and English) post on Refugee Hospitality Club from 24 February 2017 sharing that Pekka Haavisto and Erkki Tuomioja, two influential Finnish politicians, came to visit the Right to Live demonstration.

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Extracts have been chosen based on how well they exemplify the discursive manoeuvres through which positioning takes place. Some words and phrases in these extracts are bolded to highlight the textual elements that have been particularly significant for the interpretations that I make.

The Analysis, Part 1: The Interviews The ways in which the informants in an interview situation with a researcher cope with and contest right-wing nationalist and racist activism and rhetoric are plentiful, but they have common discursive nominators, of which the first is a denial of fear concerning right-wing activism and racist behaviour. Extract 1, material 1: Said 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Interviewer: Do you also talk to the people who come to the camp, like other Finnish people? People who pass by the, no, sorry, demonstration pass by the demonstration. Said: Yes I do. Not normal people because there’s a lot of people who feel comfortable talking to normal Finnish passers-by I like to speak to, the racists. I like to, my favourite part is to speak with the conservative racists that are, well-off, educated people, but are still racists. I like to speak to them. And I’ve spoke to a lot of them. I have fun speaking to them but they’re very ignorant. They’ve got, the capacity, they’ve got the, the advantage of actually reading and exploring things, but they tend to ignore that. They have got a very, primitive and limited way of thinking and it just makes me laugh when I speak to them.

In extract 1, the positions given to the Self and to others range from superior to inferior, and the feelings articulated can be envisioned on a scale of enjoyment. On the first two lines, the informant distinguishes himself from other pro-migration activists by underlining his uniqueness within the collective of pro-migration activists. Said engages with

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people he identifies as racists, while others within the collective are more comfortable talking to people he calls ‘normal’. After this primary positioning of the Self as different, unique and perhaps more skilled and daring than others within the ingroup, the speaker positions himself in relation to the outgroup via the same kind of linguistic construct. The evaluative words (adjectives such as normal , well-off , educated , ignorant, primitive, limited ) are not linked to the We-Others or the Self, only to the They-Others. More precisely put, when it comes to the Self, Said marks his position only implicitly with articulations of affect (how I feel) and action (what I do), handing over to the interviewer the power to interpret and evaluate the qualities of the Self. When it comes to the They-Others (the racists), however, Said himself enacts the power to evaluate and explicitly position the Other. By closely following his negative evaluations of the character of the They-Others (educated but limited ) with articulations of a high level of enjoyment (‘I have fun’ on line 7 and ‘makes me laugh’ on line 9), Said produces a ridiculing effect, which in this case functions as a technique for denying fear and contesting rightwing activism and rhetoric (see Dobai & Hopkins, 2020 and Mäkinen [2016] for a more sophisticated theoretisation on humour as a coping mechanism). The use of ridicule to deny and contest humour and laughter can also function as points of relief, as exemplified in extract 2. Extract 2, material 1: Yasim 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Interviewer: How does it feel, when you get a bad response? [to something posted on a SNS] Yasim: At the beginning, (I, we were) [0:24:53] sharing our problems, and we were not familiar with that, that much, with racism and racist people (–) especially me myself. And it was, painful for me. But now, when I (saw) that there’s some people, good people that worry about us, and it’s, it becomes like habit, to receive bad messages and good messages. (It’s not, but nowadays it’s), becoming, like habit or, daily, job or something [chuckles] like this.

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In extract 2, Yasim describes a processual development from not being familiar with racism and how to deal with the harmful consequences of right-wing or racist commentary on SNSs to a more distanced approach to racist commentary. By rephrasing the notion of racism (‘racism’ and ‘racist people’ on line 4 to ‘bad messages’ on line 6) and categorising racist online commentary within the overall pool of both positive and negative commentary on SNSs instead of, for example, categorising it within a paradigm of right-wing violence and extremism, Yasim disarms racism. Whether the time when the protestors ‘were not familiar with’ racism refers to a pre-migratory time or to time spent in Finland before becoming involved in pro-migration political activism is unclear. What is more crucial to note is that Yasim proceeds dramaturgically from the before and after of encountering racism and the disarming of racism through generalisation towards a point of relief. This point of relief is two-fold: first a joke (that receiving messages online is like a job) and then chuckling, perhaps to further strengthen the impression of a relaxed approach towards hateful online commentary. As there is a pool of research at the crossroads of social psychology, sociology and media studies that examines and discusses the denial of racism (e.g. Augoustinos & Every, 2007; Lentin, 2020; Van Dijk, 1992), one might ask if the coping mechanisms demonstrated here (i.e. denying fear of racist rhetoric and abuse through ridicule and humour) perhaps represent the same phenomenon. I would suggest that this is not fully so. The informants of Iraqi and Afghan origin do not deny racism as such, nor do they hide the fact that racist abuse has made them suffer. Rather, they are contesting the idea that their response to these experiences would be fear. One important aspect of the denial of fear is the construction of a safe space. Even though the Right to Live movement eventually transitioned from a physical event (a tent and people protesting day and night) to an online organisation, the original site of the physical demonstration appears as a safe haven for informants, a site allowing for collectivity

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and the support of allies. A similar structure can be seen throughout the interview material: the migrant activist first gives examples of harsh racist abuse and then when asked how he feels about the site of demonstration, without hesitation clarifies that the negative feelings never occur on site. Extract 3, material 1: Jamil 1 2 3 4 5

Jamil: /…/ I’ve been followed probably about three times, I’ve been shown a knife twice, a massive knife that they, (how they) [0:27:40], I’ve been told that how they’re gonna chop my head off. So, (I don’t) think, I’m able to take that, (but) someone (else might not be) it’s not nice to be exposed to that. Interviewer: Do you feel afraid at the demonstration? Jamil: No. Not at all.

Extract 4, material 1: Aded. 1 2 3 4

Interviewer: When you were at the demo, did you feel afraid there? Aded: No I feel safe, ‘cause I with people. Interviewer: But you are afraid if you’re alone somewhere. Aded: Yeah alone. And now, the demo been, our home, and our hope.

Extracts 3 and 4 show that although the physical site was situated close to the counterdemonstration and right-wing counterprotestors frequently came over to the pro-migration camp for various reasons (according to the informants, mainly to disturb the protest and for self-proclaimed ‘surveillance’—filming and posting clips on SNSs, mainly YouTube, where many of these clips can still be accessed), the informants choose to emphasise that they were part of a supportive and safe10 collective—a family11 and a ‘home’ (extract 4, line 4). 10

Goodman et al. (2015) have written about how asylum seekers manage talk about returning home by highlighting the importance of safety. It is noteworthy that the informants of my study do the same to manage talk about threats in the Finnish society. 11 Yasim: ‘I think there is no leader in the demo. Cause every person he, know his job, in the demo, and we cannot continue without him. So every member in the demo he, do his job. He’s the leader in his position. So, we are just one family, trying to, fix this misery in Finland’.

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Another parallel trend running through the material is a focusing of the narrative on the State. Here, the asylum seekers discursively seek to direct the discussion towards what is important for them as a political collective instead of answering what is expected from them as individuals (by the researcher in this case). What this means in practice is that although the stories of right-wing nationalist and racist mockery and harassment are plentiful in the interviews (e.g. extract 1), the asylum seeker activists whenever possible try to redirect the narrative away from the harassers and racism in Finland to the claims of the Right to Live collective, which relate to criticism of the government and the safety situation in Iraq and Afghanistan—something Lena Näre (2020) calls bureaucratic violence. This focusing manoeuvre has to be understood in a broader context where the public debate, to a great extent, was marked by sharp polarisation of asylum seekers on ‘one side’ and right-wing nationalists on the ‘other side’ as well as a persistent news perspective that highlighted urban issues such as the cleanliness of the encampment site rather than transnational politics, international human rights and the ongoing crisis in Afghanistan and Iraq (Haavisto, 2020). This is particularly true when the framing practices of so-called legacy media were put under the loop (ibid.). By focusing the narrative on the wrongdoings of the State rather than on the right-wing activists, the asylum seekers implicitly claim authority to define ‘what the real problem is’. The way in which this is done is straight-forwarded; whenever possible, the informants undermine the contrast structure of ‘Us’ (the pro-migration activists) and ‘Them’ (the right-wing activists) and instead highlight problems and wrongdoings related to the process of asylum. In these instances of selfpositioning, ‘We’, the pro-migration activists, are placed in opposition to a different ‘Them’—the State and its political representatives.

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Extract 5, material 1: Mohammed 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Interviewer: /…/ but what is your biggest worry, your biggest worry (in the) [0:10:44] life right now? Mohammed: The biggest worry of my, (is, which problem that I have), the most refugee has the same problem. If (we wasn’t forced and if he wasn’t under the threat of ) dying, (we never want to left) our country, our, occupation, our parents, our friends. And, especially, I’m a civil engineer, for example, I take as example, I’m a civil engineer, I have the bachelor degree, and also I have the diploma from (CIT and DIT, these thing. I’m), I have, enough capacity to be in a society as an active person. And my own country, I already had a construction company. I had my own (self car) [0:11:41], (-) my favourite (car) (–) I want to, I do that, and also I had enough salary, about, 1,500 and 2,000 dollar, 2,500 dollar, I had salary. But (–) (to me) and I left all that, (it forced me to I left that, because of staying alive. And, right now I have come, in Finland, in here I know that, the Finnish government never accept me like engineer.

In extract 5, Mohammed takes an individually focused approach to address the interviewer’s question regarding his biggest problem in life. On lines 2 and 3, he situates his own story in a broader context (‘most refugees have the same story’) perhaps legitimating his use, as a political activist, of a subjective approach to articulating political struggle. Mohammed first self-identifies as a refugee, and then as an educated man with extensive social networks, and finally, as a man who made a decent living before migration. On line 6, he brings these life experiences and self-positionings to a contemporary context, indicating that these experiences provide him with the capacities needed to be an active person. It is perhaps not a coincidence that Mohammed underlines the features of his pre-migratory life that symbolises a ‘Western’ way of living. He mentions

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having had a car, he uses the monetary unit of dollars when referring to his salary, and he is very explicit about the kind of diploma he has. By doing so, he positions himself in relation to successful youth in Finland or other Western countries, perhaps to maximise the likelihood of the interviewer being able to identify with his story and empathise with him. The narrative culminates on line 9, where Mohammed briefly states that he had to leave everything behind to stay alive. On lines 10 and 11, the focusing of the narrative takes place as the focus is then transferred to the Finnish government. The actual problem is not war or political developments in his former home country but the political structures in Finland that prevent him from living his life to the fullest and contributing to society. When focusing the main narrative and therethrough defining the ‘actual problem’ differently than done in the public debate, several verbal interplays are apparent: between articulating the personal interests of the Self and the shared problems of the ingroup; between the lifethreatening situation in the former home country and the unjust and difficult situation in Finland; and between things that can be changed (laws, improving visibility, stopping deportations, helping families) and those that just need to be accepted (there are both good and bad people everywhere, there is war and danger in the former home country). Extracts 6 and 7 are further examples of how these interplays work when the informants shift focus away from the right-wing harassment occurring at the encampment and around it towards issues and problems that are experienced as much more pressing. Extract 6, material 1: Malik 1 2 3

Interviewer: What is your biggest worry, in life right now? Malik: I don’t, many times I was thinking, I was not thinking about myself, that will I get asylum or not but, those asylum seekers, who cannot raise their voice, who are in very far, cities and there is no attention of

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medias, and there is, they cannot get help from anything. So I’m more worried about those people especially about, families and childrens. If they are deported back to Iraq and Afghanistan, this is something that will, kill me.

Extract 7, material 1: Asaf 1 2 3 4 5

Interviewer: What do you want to change? Asaf: We change the law, here. Not all the law, but we want to live, a peace life, and, I don’t want go back. It’s for example me, I don’t want go back my country because my country is so dangerous and, it’s not safe. And my life there is terrible. It’s not just me. Many guys, from Afghani or from Iraqi. It’s so terrible. And if you go out your home, we don’t know, maybe you go back, to your home or not.

These three interplays (Me-Us, There-Here, Changeable-Stable), or contrast structures as Rosalind Gill names them (Gill, 2000/2012), can be seen in various constellations throughout the material when the activists are asked about their biggest problems, as extracts 6 and 7 show. In extract 6, Malik explicitly focuses on the marginalised people in the ingroup, articulating a strong empathetic point on lines 5 and 6 (‘if they are deported…//…that will, kill me’). In extract 7, Asaf first focuses on what is changeable and ‘here’ (‘the law, here’ on line 2) and then articulates points about how dangerous it is ‘there’ in combination with an interplay between ‘me’ and ‘us’ (lines 3 and 5). The three interplays, appearing in myriad combinations, organise the way in which asylum seekers redirect their stories away from grassroots type of right-wing abuse and rhetoric or racially motivated hate towards other issues related to migrant and human rights. In these stories, the ‘They’ representing right-wing activists is absent. Hence, these interplays aid in the construction of one implicit claim of the Right to Live collective, namely, that the protest in central Helsinki, and simultaneously online, is not about the racists or about migrants versus racists, but instead about other issues and problems the movement considers much

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more important such as the wrongdoings of the State. This discursive practice can be read as a standardised way of ‘doing politics’ or as way for the asylum seekers to document events and lived realities that may carry historical value. It can also be interpreted to reflect a more general trend where potential and de-facto victims of discrimination implicitly and explicitly underline their right to challenge contrast structures and victim positions ‘given’ to them by well-meaning others.

The Analysis, Part 2: Online Manoeuvres for Coping and Contestation As the Facebook pages Stop Deportations and Refugee Hospitality Club (Finland) are closely affiliated with the Right to Live protest movement, it is no surprise that the linguistic nominators appearing in comments about the counterprotest camp and right-wing nationalist rhetoric are like the nominators in the interview material. As in the interviews, in the SNS material, one can clearly distinguish a discursive manoeuvre through which fear of right-wing nationalism and racism is denied in an online environment. Extract 8, material 2: Denial of fear through irony (online) 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Original poster: How do we feel when again standing calm at our own tents while listening to angry shouting? We are lucky that the asylum seekers have stamina and a clear aim: to achieve the right to live! [translated from the Finnish] Greetings from [name of co-poster eradicated] on the 37th day ((translated from the Finnish)) Co-poster: Day 37) as always great day and happy and the opposite side had this crowd and passing by shouting again (go home) I guess they right in this time! It been hard to stand there so I guess we needed to change our shifts. And had this kooky guy!

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Stop Deportations, Facebook, 2017–03–19 06:00:08

In extract 8, line 1, the main commenter articulates a challenging situation: people from the right-wing nationalist counterdemonstration have been shouting near the tents of the asylum seekers—in provocation, perhaps, and difficult for anyone to ignore, particularly when the shouting consists of threats and insults, as the interviews show. The commenter poses a rhetorical question, ‘How do we feel when standing calm?’ The question functions both as a signal outward about the peaceful and rational character of the Right to Live camp and as an encouragement inward, to the community, about the importance of not being provoked and continuing on a path of non-violence and rationality. The content of lines 1 and 2 work along the same lines as the denial tactics in the interviews. The commenter acknowledges the presence of the right-wing activists but gives no visibility to their claims. In response, a migrant commenter—an eyewitness of the events—transforms the story with irony. On lines 6–9, he confirms the story (racist shouting occurred) but then plays with the multiple meanings of the word ‘home’. Instead of accepting the right-wing nationalists’ meaning of ‘go home’ as an exhortation to leave Finland, he changes the meaning of ‘go home’ to that of leaving the protest camp to return to where he is living in Finland and rest. When it comes to constructing a safe space, the functions of the narrative are different in the online and interview material. In the online material, the camp is narrated as a safe and friendly place for passers-by such as politicians, journalists or potential allies who may want to visit the camp. This situated discourse of safety and friendliness is constructed primarily through universal symbols that describe harmony and hospitality, namely smiling faces in photographs, emoticons such as tulips and other flowers which are accompanied by textual invitations. In the interview material, on the other hand, the safety of the camp is described from an inside perspective. This safety discourse is not echoing friendliness and hospitality. Rather, it echoes necessity, communitarianism and practicality; shelter, heat and help when needed, and functions as a shield against right-wing nationalist aggressors. This discourse on safety reflects

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a momentary relief for the asylum seekers, not for the passers-by as in the online material. When it comes to focusing the narrative on the State and the victims of deportation rather than on grassroots type of right-wing nationalist aggressors, the occurrence of this discursive manoeuvre is even stronger in the online material than in the interview material. This is perhaps not a surprise, since when producing written text there is more time to think through the formulation of comments and their suitability for the political agenda of the movement, i.e. primarily to stop the deportations from Finland to Afghanistan and Iraq, than when answering research questions in an interview situation. Extract 9, material 2: The State is the actual problem 1 2 3 4 5

Original poster: According to Iraqi family they were being taken yesterday forcibly to Metsälä detention and are suspected to be deported this week. What is it good for, these expensive police operations, where people get traumatized? Finland’s government has been kidnapped by anti-immigration forces who just lost big time in local elections. We must push back – expensive police operations, where people get traumatized rights again. We the citizens will resist all forced deportations

Refugee Hospitality Club (Finland), Facebook, 2017–04–11 06:39:51

There are numerous instances in the material in which the established contrast structure of migrants versus right-wing activists, constructed and circulated by right-wing activists and legacy media could be but is not adhered to by the migrant activists. One example is the dismantling of the Suomi Ensin encampment infrastructure on 26 June 2017. The dismantling was initiated by the Police as several suspicions of crime had been made in relation to the camp. The event was reported on by many legacy media (e.g. Ilta-Sanomat, 26 June 2017 22:57) as it fulfilled all thinkable elements for a sensational news story; arrests made in a public place, spectacle type of resistance, visuals such as flags, and loud music. Although these events took place just a few meters from the

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Right to Live encampment, on the two Facebook sites maintained by the migrant protestors and their allies, the focus is elsewhere—namely on the processes of asylum and deportation that the migrant protesters oppose to. These posts tend to be detailed, personal and loaded with affect, as illustrated by extract 9, in which the commenter uses a personalised example of a forcefully deported family to first criticise the government for surrendering to those driving strict migration policies (line 3) and then to mobilise people for activism (4–5). Accordingly, in the online material, this discursive manoeuvre is more about making the visible invisible and there through resisting right-wing provocation and manipulative media tactics than it is about a verbal or textual redefinition of the core problem at hands. By systematically focusing on the responsibility of the State and the victims (the asylum seekers) instead of on the ‘bullies’ and the’buzz’, the migrants get to selfdefine the issue at hand. By doing so, at least in their own web forums, the migrant protestors manage to keep human rights and the accountable parties on the agenda.

Conclusion The aim of this study was to contribute to the intellectual project of exploring how pro-migration activists position themselves to cope with and/or to contest aggressive behaviour and rhetoric, and to do so from an interdisciplinary perspective. The study aimed to demonstrate that the distinctive approaches of media studies, social movements studies and critical discursive psychology can be combined to give theoretical primacy to social interaction in hybrid and highly politicised lived realities. In this context, three discursive manoeuvres have been identified: denying fear of right-wing nationalism and racism, constructing a safe place, and focusing the story on contemporary migration policies and wrongdoings of authorities instead of verifying the dichotomy of ‘racists’ versus ‘migrants’ produced by legacy media. All three techniques and their online versions serve to disarm right-wing nationalist and racist action and rhetoric and to position the ingroup not as a victim of right-wing grassroots movements or racist individuals but as victim of

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the State, its bureaucratic machinery (see Näre, 2020) and a system of human rights violations that the State is understood to be a part of and actively take part in producing. From a DP perspective, where discourses are understood as social practices, it is irrelevant to ask whether these coping and contesting mechanisms are psychological in character or if they constitute strategic communication tactics used in political struggle. It is more important to note how a new position is made available for migrants, one in which the asylum seeker, the ‘Other’, presents him- or herself not as a passive victim and grateful wanderer but as a political figure who knows whom to target and whom to hold accountable to make space for imaginaries of a more just society for the Self and the ingroup. This self-empowered and more hopeful migrant figure is certainly affected by the continuous right-wing nationalist and racist harassment on the streets and online. But the material shows that this figure is not taken by surprise: when confronted by antagonistic political views and outright hatred, he or she is equipped with cognitive, organisational and rhetorical tools for minimising the potential for right-wing nationalist discourses to become the master paradigm to which others must relate. This preparedness is at the core of the coping and contestation mechanisms applied by migrant activists and their allies. It allows the migrants and their allies to step up and direct their gaze elsewhere, away from a fear of grassroots type of right-wing and racist antagonism and the unwanted dichotomisation of migrants versus right-wing nationalists. The material examined for this study indicates that this procedure was not only a collective and public act of street politics and political claims-making, but that it also came to function as an anchor for psychological content and stability. The migrants and their allies talked about the movement as their family, the ‘demo family’, which at first glimpse may seem contradictory to the idea of the migrant as a political figure. However, through the support of this perceived family, in which members support each other online and off and together challenge both grassroots level right-wing nationalism and migration policies perceived as inhumane, the migrants gained strength to keep up their

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coping and contesting tactics. Perhaps in this way, by making the political personal and the personal political, it became more bearable for the migrants to deal with harassment, feelings of outsiderness and the long wait that asylum processes entail. Acknowledgements This study was conducted as part of the Academy of Finland project Anti-Racism Under Pressure: Social Movements, NGOs and their Mediated Claims-Making in Finland (2013–2016/2018) in collaboration with the Academy of Finland consortium Racisms and Public Communications in the Hybrid Media Environment (HYBRA) (2016–2019). The help of my research assistants, Juho Pääkkönen and Erna Bodström, was crucial in the collection and organisation of the empirical material.

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politics of culture, welfare, and migration (pp. 169–184). IMISCOE Research Series. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41694-2 Hellström, A., Norocel O. C., & Jørgensen, M. B. (2020). Nostalgia and hope: Narrative master frames across contemporary Europe. In O. Norocel, A. Hellström, & M. Jørgensen (Eds.), Nostalgia and hope: Intersections between politics of culture, welfare, and migration in Europe. IMISCOE Research Series. Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-41694-2_1 Hesse, B. (2004). Im/Plusible deniability: Racism’s conceptual double blind. Social Identities, 10 (1), 155–178. Huma, B., Alexander, M., Stokoe, E., & Tileâga, C. (2020). Introduction to special issue on discursive psychology. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 17 (3), 313–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1729910 Kellner, D. (2003). Media spectacle. Routledge. Kuokkanen, K. (2017, May 30). Rautatientorin telttaleirin liepeillä pyörii kolme maahanmuuttoa vastustavaa ryhmää, jotka eivät voi sietää toisiaan – Poliisi: “Vaikea tietää, kuka edustaa ketäkin”. Helsingin Sanomat. https:// www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-2000005232142.html Laaksonen, S., Bodström, E., & Haavisto, C. (2021). Finding the voice of a protest: Negotiating authority among the multiplicity of voices in prorefugee demonstration. In C. Benoit-Barné & T. Martine (Eds.), Speaking with one voice: Multivocality and univocality in organizing. Routledge. Laaksonen, S., Pantti, M., & Titley, G. (2020). Broadcasting the movement and branding political microcelebrities: Finnish anti-immigration video practices on YouTube. Journal of Communication, 70 (2), 171–194. https:// doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqz051 Lentin, A. (2020). Why race still matters. Polity Books. Lindfors, S. (2017, June 26). Suomi ensin -johtohahmo raudoissa maijaan, yleisö hurrasi poliisille – näin mielenosoitusleirin purkaminen eteni Helsingissä. Ilta-Sanomat. https://www.is.fi/kotimaa/art-2000005269317. html Mäkinen K. (2016). Uneasy laughter: Encountering the anti-immigration debate. Qualitative Research, 16 (5), 541–556. https://doi.org/10.1177/146 8794115598193 Matamoros-Fernández, A. (2017). Platformed racism: The mediation and circulation of an Australian race-based controversy on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Information, Communication & Society, 20 (6), 930–946. https:// doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2017.1293130 Melasniemi, A. (2018). Poliisin velvollisuus toimia omalla nimellään virkatehtävässä: Poliisien näkemyksiä aiheesta nykyisessä toimintaympäristössä.

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Unpublished thesis, Police University College, Finland. http://urn.fi/URN: NBN:fi:amk-2018053011175 Meraz, S., & Papacharissi, Z. (2013). Networked gatekeeping and networked framing on #egypt. International Journal of Press and Politics, 18(2), 138– 166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161212474472 Moulin, C., & Nyers, P. (2007). “We live in a country of UNHCR”—Refugee protests and global political society. International Political Sociology, 1(4), 356–372. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-5687.2007.00026.x Näre, L. (2020). ‘Finland kills with a pen’—Asylum seekers’ protest against bureaucratic violence as politics of human rights. Citizenship Studies, 24 (8), 979–993. https://doi.org/10.1080/13621025.2020.1769559 Mudde, C. (2010). The populist radical right: A pathological normalcy. West European Politics, 33(6), 1167–1186. https://doi.org/10.1080/01402382. 2010.508901 Nelimarkka, M., Laaksonen, S. M., & Semaan, B. (2018). Social media is polarized, social media is polarized: Towards a new design agenda for mitigating polarization. In DIS ’18: Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference (pp. 957–970). https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709. 3196764 Noble, S. (2018). Algorithms of oppression: How search engines reinforce racism. NYU Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1pwt9w5Peters Pettersson, K. (2018). Exploring the discourse contained in political blogs from a critical discursive psychological perspective. In Sage research methods cases. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781526430564 Pöyhtäri, R., Nelimarkka, M., Nikunen, K., Ojala, M., Pantti, M., & Pääkkönen, J. (2019). Refugee debate and networked framing in the hybrid media environment. International Communication Gazette. https://doi.org/ 10.1177/1748048519883520 Sallamaa, D. O. (2018). Ulkoparlamentaarinen äärioikeistoliikehdintä ja maahanmuuttovastaisuus 2010-luvun Suomessa. (Valtiotieteellisen tiedekunnan julkaisuja; No. 97). University of Helsinki. https://doi.org/10. 31885/9789515133502. Savolainen, J. (2018, January 31). Aatemaailmaan kytkeytyvistä väkivaltarikoksista Helsingissä 56 liittyi äärioikeistoon, yksi äärivasemmistoon eikä yksikään uskontoon – “Tilastoista näkyy selvästi, mikä on uhka”. Helsingin Sanomat. https://www.hs.fi/kaupunki/art-2000005547269.html Stoler, A. (2002). Racial histories and their regimes of truth. In D. Goldberg & P. Essed (Eds.), Race critical theories. Blackwell. Titley, G. (2020). Is free speech racist? Polity Press.

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6 Making Enemies: Reactive Dynamics of Discursive Polarization Joel Backström, Karin Creutz, and Niko Pyrhönen

Both in social science and in popular discourse, sociocultural and political polarization is seen as one of today’s great societal problems—with debates on immigration and multiculturalism often given as paradigm examples (Crepaz, 2006; Faist, 2013; Kivisto & Wahlbeck, 2013; Nortio et al., 2020). Our chapter outlines certain closely related aspects of the dynamics of polarization, presented as conceptual elements of a holistic and relational approach to polarization. We use vignettes from previous research related to immigration and right-wing nationalism to illustrate our suggestions and show their applicability to the empirical field this book focuses on. The aspects we point to can, however, be found to varying degrees in polarized social/discursive conflict generally. While our focus is theoretical rather than empirical, we do not offer a new J. Backström (B) · K. Creutz · N. Pyrhönen Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_6

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model of polarization. Our aim is more modest and focused in a way particularly germane to the concerns of discursive psychology: to bring out certain aspects of how the discourse of the parties involved in polarized social constellations tends to be both affected by and help constitute the dynamics of polarization. Specifically, we focus on the ways in which discourse in polarized settings tends to become deadlocked, mutually hostile, and in other ways, limited and distorted in its communicative function. These are some of the features that make polarization into a societal problem, in a way that even steep differences of opinion or conflicts of various kinds as such need not be. Our starting point is that polarization can be seen as a relational, historically evolving process, with analysis focused on the back-andforth movement of action and reaction between the parties involved (comprising not only polar ‘extremes’, but various ‘moderate’ positions, social, state and other actors affected by and affecting sociopolitical polarization, etc.). On one level, this is a trivial observation, and the necessity of studying the discursive unfolding of conflict holistically should need no stressing in discursive psychology, with its focus on speech as performative interaction in a social setting (Potter & Wetherell, 1987), and on how political and other arguments are essentially counterarguments, responses to interlocutors’ actual or anticipated claims and objections (Billig, 1987, see also Augsoutinos, this volume). These crucial points are easily forgotten, however, in the context of politically, socially, morally, and emotionally charged topics (Hammack, 2006). While a substantial body of recent social scientific research has explicitly foregrounded the reciprocal dynamics of polarization and radicalization (see references and discussion below), these dynamics have generally not been a specific focus of the extensive DP-work on right-wing nationalist and racist discourses (Pettersson & Nortio, this volume) and they may risk being overlooked or downplayed in research for various reasons—in ways, furthermore, that themselves illustrate the very aspects of polarized conflict we analyse. This risk is discussed in Section One, where we also introduce a central paradox of the dynamics whose aspects and ramifications the article as a whole explores, namely, the way in which the parties to polarized conflict

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help make each other into what they oppose. Section Two discusses the multidimensional complexity of processes of sociopolitical polarization and relates polarization to positional identity-negotiation on the collective level. Section Three focuses on a part-logic of polarization whereby the issues the conflict is ostensibly about tend to become overlaid by the parties’ preoccupation with each other and the conflict itself. We also discuss possible attractions of making enemies, and the tendency of parties to see the conflict in terms of unidirectional reactivity, where their own actions are mere reactions to what the other side started. Section Four shows how this tendency to other one’s opponents may paradoxically result in the parties of conflict becoming ever more indistinguishable, with the discourse of these ‘doubles’ (Girard, 2016, 25) becoming a constant doubletalk, in a precise sense we explain. We also outline two further discursive part-logics, which we call the logic of shibboleths and taboos, and the logic of pollution and paranoid extension (cf. Douglas, 1966). Most seriously, where an attitude of enmity takes over, it ultimately tends to make people lose trust in discourse as such, feeling that it is ‘impossible’ to speak with or understand their opponents. In the Conclusion, we address concerns about relativism actualized in our discussion, and suggest, as others have done before us (e.g. Haraway, 1988), that as researchers in fraught fields, we may need to work on self-reflection and self-transformation as much as on purely ‘intellectual’ tasks. Throughout the chapter, our illustrations will primarily concern not the discourse of right-wing nationalists, but the discourses of their various opponents about them, directed both at them and at those perceived as being associated with or promoting, perhaps unwittingly, their agenda.1 This is because, while nationalist discourses have been extensively researched, those of their opponents, including within the academic field, have been largely ignored (with some exceptions, e.g. Goodman, 2021; Sakki & Pettersson, 2018; Seikkula, 2021; 1

There is significant terminological variation in the research literature regarding which terms are used—extreme right, radical right, far right, populist radical right, etc.—and how they are defined (for an overview, see Toscano, 2019). In this article, we discuss many different aspects of broad and fragmented political and societal fields, and use different designations according to what we deem appropriate in the particular context.

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Venäläinen & Menard, this volume). An adequate grasp of the dynamics involved in polarization cannot be arrived at by one-sided focus on only one of the parties involved.

From Focusing on Right-Wing Nationalism to Analysing the Making of Enemies In social scientific research and mainstream public debate, right-wing populism and far-right politics are often perceived as having introduced into a formerly relatively moderate politics and civil public debate a violently polarizing discursive style and a divisive us-against-them narrative based on a systematic ‘othering’ of both immigrants and ‘the elite’, both presented as threats against ‘the people’ the populists present themselves as defending (e.g. Pyrhönen, Beauvois & Pyysiäinen, this volume). Given this framing, research has tended to focus, on one hand, on analysing radical right activity, ideology, and discourse itself and, on the other, on finding explanations (social, economic, psychological, etc.) for why people may be attracted to and taken in by that discourse, and on other factors—e.g. the rise of social media with its algorithmic ‘filter bubbles’ (Pariser, 2012)—that may contribute to its success (for a brief recent overview of the trends in the field, see Mudde, 2016). These approaches have produced insightful analyses of right-wing nationalist discourse and factors attracting people to the radical right, but where the focus is mainly on one party to socio-political/cultural conflict (the populist right), the dynamics between the different parties to it and the wider social context may be obscured. The discursive subject positions in a conflict can be properly understood only as historically elaborated and experienced in a context of mutual reactivity and oppositional self-definition (Davies & Harré, 1990; Drury & Reicher, 2000). Right-wing populism doesn’t merely present itself as a protest and reaction against what is perceived as the ‘mainstream’, ‘elite’, or ‘technocratic’ position, it is such a reaction (this is in one sense obvious, as the general acceptance of terms such as ‘countermedia’ or ‘protest parties’ indicates). Just as right-wing populists react to what others have already done or been perceived as doing, there are reactions by others to the populist

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reaction, and so on, in an open-ended spiral of mutual reactivity, neither automatic nor determined in its direction. Such mutual reactivity has been studied under the rubric of ‘cumulative extremism’, ‘reciprocal radicalization’, and cognate terms (c.f. Alimi et al., 2015; Busher & Macklin, 2015; Macklin & Busher, 2015). One relevant aspect of these dynamics is the everyday provocations or escalations of conflict that occur when, for example, people respond to (perceived) slights and injustices aimed at themselves or groups they identify with. This is part of everyday life and need not lead to polarization or to radicalization in any general or problematic sense, but such ‘micro-radicalizations’ tend to play a significant part in the ‘radicalization journeys’ of individuals who do become radicalized, and the everyday and more extreme cases of social conflict share common features (Bailey & Edwards, 2017). An example where this mutual reactivity becomes visible is found in Sakki and Martikainen’s (2020) analysis of a 2019 anti-immigration and anti-elite election campaign video by the populist Finns Party (FP). Sakki and Martikainen find that in the comments generated by the video on youtube, ‘[i]ntriguingly, the populist message’s opponents constructed the most overt hate speech’, ‘dehumanizing the FP and its supporters’ by labelling them as ‘fascists, racists, and uneducated (sometimes agrarian) idiots’ (2020, 19; cf. the examples of such hate speech given on pp. 16– 17). Sakki and Martikainen comment that this hate and scorn ‘may illustrate why opposition towards right-wing populism is often not very effective’ and rightly insist that, given ‘current concern over the polarization of society and of politics […] studying populism and anti-populism together by focusing on their mutual discursive construction seems crucial’ (2020, 19–20). In terms of the dynamics of the situation, the hate and scorn of the FP’s opponents appear not just as an ineffective means to fight polarization, but as a prime manifestation of it; a response, a discursive move that itself actively drives polarization. As their hostility is likely to embitter FP supporters and drive them, and others, to become more opposed to ‘mainstream society’, the FP’s opponents by their very mode of opposition help make their opponents into precisely what they claim to oppose (and so should certainly not want to further by their own actions). We do not offer this as simply a comment on the likely effects

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of various responses, but as part of a characterization of what polarization is, how it ‘works’. ‘Othering’ is central to polarization, and it doesn’t take place only on the level of one’s (or the in-group’s) ‘internal’ representations of the other. Rather, the parties tend actively to alienate each other through their way of concretely relating to them in speech and in other ways, driving them away, making the other. In a very real sense, then, people make their enemies. Research on cultural representations generally accepts that stereotypes manifest not merely as categories for depicting the social world, but as categories for doing, thereby embodying a distinct reifying and self-fulfilling capacity (Brubaker, 2002). This insight should also be foregrounded in research on polarization and on the discourses of and on right-wing nationalism. A scientific understanding of the dynamics of polarization and the discourses surrounding multiculturalism and immigration needs to engage not just with populism, but also, as De Cleen and colleagues underline, with ‘the rhetoric about populism, a largely ignored area of critical research’; we need to pay ‘systematic attention to antipopulism and “populist hype”, and reflect upon academia’s own relation to populism and anti-populism’ (2018, abstract). Similarly, Stavrakakis and his associates stress that ‘a comprehensive theory of populism must be able to account for the complex choreography between populism and anti-populism in a rigorous way’, and argue for ‘studying antipopulism together with populism, focusing on their mutual constitution and reproduction […] because populist discourses never operate in a vacuum and need to be situated within the context of political antagonism’ (Stavrakakis et al., 2018, 5–6). They also underline the importance of being sensitive to the violence often present (not just in populist but) in anti-populist discourses (cf. Stavrakakis, 2018, 50ff.). In the research we have quoted, Stavrakakis and colleagues employ left-wing populism (SYRIZA in Greece) as their main example, and endeavour to analytically distance ‘populism’ from ‘nationalism’ (Stavrakakis et al., 2017). The methodological points they raise, however, are equally relevant for studying right-wing populism and the far right. To the extent that holistic approaches are lacking, with the far-right analysed in isolation and implicitly designated as ‘the problem’, scholars in the field may be perceived as having entered the sociopolitical conflict as parties to it.

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And, as we will explain, a central aspect of the dynamics of polarized conflict is precisely the tendency to see ‘the other side’ as the problem; they are to blame for the conflict, while problems on the political side one identifies with are easily overlooked.

Flocking to the Poles A standard distinction in social psychology and political science is between ‘ideological’ polarization, denoting growing inter-party distance on policy issues, and ‘affective’ polarization, denoting identity-based inter-party animus (e.g. Iyengar et al., 2012). Our concern here is not with ‘ideological’ polarization as such. While distance in opinions may make political and other cooperation more difficult by making it harder to arrive at compromises, for example, it is not a social and political problem in the same sense as ‘affective’ polarization. The latter strains relations and deadlocks discussion between people in society in a way mere disagreements over intellectual or practical issues cannot. Hence, empirical studies showing (Lönnqvist et al., 2020), or again contesting (Fornaro, 2021), growing ‘ideological’ polarization in particular issueterms, do not by themselves settle questions regarding polarization in the ‘affective’ sense. That people disagree is not a problem in itself, for disagreement and conflicts can often be dealt with in constructive ways—just as, correlatively, ‘affective’ polarization can increase while divisions in issues terms shrink; a phenomenon dubbed ‘false polarization’, as people overestimate their ‘objective’ ideological differences (Levendusky & Malhotra, 2016). However, ‘false’ polarization is a marked aspect of actual polarization in the socially problematic sense we focus on, where the problem is the hostile, ‘othering’, tendentially misrepresenting way in which those who disagree, or find themselves in conflict, may come to relate to each other (cf. Chambers et al., 2006; Mason, 2018). The aim of this chapter is to bring out certain dynamic aspects of such conflictual relating, as it tends to manifest in the discourse of the parties involved in polarized settings. We approach polarization not as

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a clearly delimited phenomenon; rather, we use ‘polarization’ to indicate complicated and variable intergroup and interpersonal dynamics. Polarization involves affective charges, but as our discussion attempts to show, the discursive and other behaviour of the parties, their thinking and existential demeanour are also in play, all intertwined, and the affects involved get their character from their place in these dynamics. Furthermore, polarizing dynamics are set within historically formed, widely ramified networks of social, cultural, economic, institutional, political, and geopolitical forces and tendencies. Particular issues and debates— communism, say, or immigration, racism, gender-roles, vaccines, climate change, or COVID-19 restrictions—become ‘sites’ of polarization, or again lose their polarizing potential, at different times and places, largely as a function of the hard-to-survey interplay of such forces.2 Our focus here is not, however, on an analysis of these aspects; rather, we highlight certain discursive-relational aspects that tend to come into play when polarizing dynamics get going, whatever the specific issues or ‘markers’ around which they arise, or to which they have become attached. In polarized conflict, people form and are drawn into parties; they flock around opposing poles—and here, while one may metaphorically think of electric or magnetic poles, totem poles are actual symbolic instances of the specifically social ‘attraction’ in question. The mere forming of associations or parties of people drawn together by common interests or aspirations does not imply polarization in the relevant sense, which is linked to the appearance of dislike and hostility between members of the different parties, and the pressuring of people to ‘choose sides’ (Mason, 2018). In the social logic relevant in this context, the hostility and the pressuring are two sides of the same development. Where the members of group A dislike and are hostile towards the members of B, any individual who doesn’t univocally distance themselves from the B-people will, even if that individual isn’t a member or close associate of B, tend to be regarded with suspicion or outright hostility by the A-members. Individuals experience pressure from friends and acquaintances to choose their (‘our’) side, or else risk, more or less, 2 The complex historicity of processes of polarization is emphasized, e.g. in Pacewicz (2016). This complexity does not diminish the importance in polarization of deliberate actions and agendas on the part of influential individuals and groups; see, e.g. Rosenfeld (2017).

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losing their friendship, favour, and respect. As the anti-racist anthem Racist Friend puts it, ‘If you have a racist friend / Now is the time, now is the time /For your friendship to end’—adding, ‘And if your friends are racists, don’t pretend to be my friend’ (Special AKA, 1983). This illustrates how polarization in the relevant sense is centrally related to a positional process of collective and individual identity negotiation. As theorists of ‘affective’ or ‘social’ polarization emphasize, in polarized settings, ‘our conflicts are largely over who we think we are’ (Mason, 2018, 4). This means that the issues and opinions involved are not treated as questions on which people can legitimately disagree and which can be debated in a dispassionate (or passionate, but lucid) manner. Instead, they tend, or at least threaten, to raise the question ‘Who are you? Are you one of us or not? Are you with us or with them?’ in a way where (as the anthem pithily brings out) more or less of one’s self-conception, one’s sense of self-worth, and of one’s social future, comes to depend on the answer. As we will try to explain, this intertwinement of the issues with identitarian questions and anxieties tends to manifest in discursive patterns or part-logics that distort and deadlock polarized discourse in various ways. Combined, their effect tends to be that the further polarization progresses, the harder it becomes to talk about the things themselves that the conflict—say, between those who welcome and those who oppose immigration—is supposedly about. Our claim is not that polarization is driven by some kind of monolithic ‘Logic’ that inevitably leads to a particular result, some total deadlock of communication. On the contrary, polarizing developments may sometimes change or reverse quite rapidly, as circumstances change, new conflicts arise, new alliances are formed, etc. (cf. Macklin & Busher, 2015). Furthermore, polarization arises in contexts involving other individuals, groups, and actors besides the parties polarized as opponents. For instance, both right-wing nationalist activists and their anti-racist opponents are related to the police and other state actors—often, on both sides, in more or less hostile or suspicious ways—and this may variously affect what transpires between the parties (Busher & Macklin, 2015, 896). Also, polarization is never the only thing going on in society, or between particular groups or individuals, and so a certain pattern or part-logic may be countered by some other event or development in

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their relationship. Polarization may be marked in one context or situation and quite absent in another, even if the same people are involved and even where there is, on the whole, a marked ‘sorting’ or ‘alignment’ of social identities. This is not to deny, however, that where polarization is intense it can become hard for people to relate to those they regard as ‘enemies’ without the enmity somehow colouring their relationship across contexts.

The Attractions of Conflict and the Sense that ‘They’re to Blame’ One central part-logic of polarization is illustrated in Seikkula’s (2019) research on the mobilization narratives of self-identified antiracist actors in Finland. In these narratives, Seikkula says, there is a focus ‘on the conflict between racist perpetrators and white antiracists’, which ‘results in people who experience racism becoming sidelined’ (2019, 1015). As an illustration, she quotes the story of Pasi, whose activism started when he witnessed some Somali girls being harassed by White Finnish adult men carrying ‘Defence League’-insignia: ‘And I Googled what is Defence League and there, it opened that kind of world – there’s all that disgusting racist scum – and I got worried about what is gonna happen to this country – [I thought] if there’s even a little I can do to stop these types of ideas from spreading, which made me start …’. As Seikkula notes, in Pasi’s story, ‘the attacked children remain minor characters, as the focus is on confronting “racists”, instead of seeking solidarity with people who experience racism, for example’, and Pasi himself later explains that he ‘became very invested in activities that call out and mock the far right’ (2019, 1012). In Seikkula’s words, as the confrontation with the racist enemy ‘becomes its central tenet, antiracism focuses on defending the border between extreme and ordinary whiteness’, i.e. between ‘the racists’ and other White Finns, while ‘the agency and views of “immigrants” become sidelined’ (2019, 1013). We will foreground an aspect of the dynamics of this situation that Seikkula, in accordance with her adoption of a ‘critical whiteness studies’-perspective (2019, 1003–1004), doesn’t focus on. This aspect is

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announced in her general observation that ‘antiracism is dependent on what one interviewee called “a concrete opposing side”’; thus, one young activist explains, ‘what makes it [participation in antiracist activism] easier, is that there’s that setting, that there are concrete enemies that aren’t just abstract structures’ (2019, 1012–1013). While both racists and antiracists in this case are White and may, as Seikkula suggests, be invested in keeping ‘white-normativity’ intact, we propose that antiracists may also have an independent investment in maintaining the conflict with, and the attendant derogation of, the ‘racists’. In the antiracist perspective Seikkula describes, the concern for the well-being and fair treatment of immigrants and for the future of the country appears intertwined and overlaid with a concern about or fascination with those (the racist ‘enemy’) perceived as threatening immigrants and the country. One aspect of the dynamics of polarization can, we suggest, be characterized as an intensification of such preoccupation of the parties with their opponents, that is, with the conflict itself. At its most extreme, this can lead to a situation where the contested ‘object’—the values, issues, aims, and structures that the conflict is ostensibly about—may, as Girard says, effectively have ‘dropped from view’ and ‘[o]nly the antagonists remain’ (2016, 25). That is, the opponents may become so invested in fighting each other and in defining themselves in opposition to each other, that what they are supposedly fighting over effectively becomes a secondary consideration. Their actions become geared towards achieving aims related to the conflict itself—scoring points against the opponent, provoking and humiliating them, searching out opportunities for being provoked and feeling aggrieved by their actions, etc.—even when this may impede the process of finding the most effective ways to achieve the aims they officially fight for. This is a familiar kind of development, signalled for instance when it is said that some issue has become a matter of prestige, or has become ‘personal’ or ‘politicized’ in a pejorative sense. To the extent that these dynamics come to dominate, the result in discursive terms is that debates between opponents that are presented and thought of as driven by ‘objective’ disagreement over particular issues— for instance, refugee and integration policies, or the character of cultural differences—actually become ruled more by an urge to disagree and to

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distance oneself from the opponent, to claim a difference from them and to make them look bad, etc. Facts and arguments about the issues are then reduced to instruments strategically employed for these ends, rather than being used to the end, still ‘officially’ proclaimed, of understanding the issues. The fascination with the opponent, and with maintaining and even intensifying the conflict with them, may not only be divorced from, but can be detrimental to the objectives the parties present themselves as pursuing. Despite these and other ‘objective’ drawbacks of various kinds, conflict and polarization may appear attractive insofar as they offer opportunities for collective self-definition and self-justification through oppositional gestures, where ‘we’ define and distinguish ourselves favourably from our opponents and enemies (cf. Tajfel & Turner, 1979). While in one sense, ‘we’ do not wish for ‘them’ to treat us or those we care about badly, in another sense, the worse they treat us, the better we may appear by contrast. In positional identitarian games, while one way of being ‘good’ is to be stronger, more powerful than the opponent, another is to be (perceived as) the innocent victim of unjust attack (Reicher et al., 2008). In the struggle over identity, the moral high ground is a central arena. Pasi’s reaction to the harassment he witnessed can be seen in this light. Many other aspects may also be relevant. For instance, a wish to derogate and humiliate the ‘racists’ is evident in Seikkula’s material. Although racists were sometimes ‘depicted as potentially influential and thus dangerous, as well as privileged members of society’, more typical in antiracist discussions were ‘marginalising descriptions of “racists” […] both interviews and demonstration speeches refer to “tragicomic” and “drunken” individuals, or “feeble-minded losers who have low self-esteem”’. In the online group Seikkula followed, for example, ‘antiimmigration debaters’ bad spelling was framed as an indicator of their lacking education or cognitive skills, and was constantly made fun of. (2019, 1010–1011; cf. Tervo, 2015, for an example of how this kind of defamation can be found acceptable in respectable media.) Considerations of this kind may, in part, help illuminate the social dynamics noted above, by which the parties in polarized conflicts tend by their actions to make (turn others into) enemies. Even if one does not consciously want

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to have enemies, one may nonetheless, without realizing it or wanting to admit it, be drawn by the identitarian, moralistic, and other advantages that making enemies offers. Even so, conflict typically does not appear as primarily, or even at all attractive, but rather as forced on one by the other side’s actions. In polarized human conflict, from family quarrels to wars, people tend not to see themselves as initiating the conflict, but rather as having responded to the other’s transgression (Backström, 2007, 200–205). This is one of those bits of common knowledge (indeed, it may seem trivial to note it) whose unsettlingly radical implications for the intractability of human conflict and its analysis are seldom considered in earnest. How is it to be understood? One aspect of the matter is that the affective responses that typically fuel, or present the ‘subjective’ motivational side of, polarizing conflict—envy or hatred, for example—tend to be misrecognized by those in their grip (Backström, 2019, 602). They are misrecognized in ways that blind one to the character of one’s own responses and the way they are perceived by others. One tendency that may characterize the interaction in polarized conflict, is for the parties involved to become ever more ruled by such misrecognized responses. Where this tendency appears, the conflict seems to the parties to be caused by the other party having somehow unacceptably endangered something they want to protect or promoted something objectionable, and opposed parties take the others’ actions to necessitate, or at least legitimize their own oppositional responses. In this sense, the parties may claim, and more or less sincerely feel, that the others started it, or at least are the ones now fuelling it, and so they do not feel responsible for maintaining the conflict; rather, they feel that they cannot accept what the others did , and so they ‘must’ retaliate.3

3

The complex dynamics of conflict involve power-differentials, opportunity structures, etc., that typically differ for different parties. Here, we do not discuss these aspects, however, but focus on how parties may come to interpret and respond to the conflict in the terms indicated in the text.

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Doubles and Double-Talk Where this sense of one’s own side being essentially reactive, simply responding to the other side’s provocations and transgressions, comes to dominate the situation, the paradoxical consequence is that, while the parties to the conflict regard themselves as increasingly unlike each other, through their actions they actually make themselves ever more indistinguishable, turning themselves into each other’s ‘doubles’, in Girard’s phrase (2016, 25). This logic can be exemplified by the simple and paradigmatically reciprocal response, ‘They struck us, so we strike back’. ‘We’ think this shows the absolute difference between ourselves and the others—they attacked, whereas we simply defended ourselves—but the effect is that we both behave the same: they hit us, and we hit them, and so the fight goes on. This is a caricature designed to bring out a particular relational dynamic that may be involved in polarization. In actual cases of societal polarization, the situation is much more complex, of course; there are not just two parties, but many actors interacting in complex ways, and the whole social field may become saturated with identitypolitical contestation. Even if one focuses on contestations between two opposed groups (e.g. racist and antiracist activists), the simple ‘tit-for-tat’ form of escalation may be quite rare (Macklin & Busher, 2015). The ‘logic of doubles’—one of many part-logics that may be at play in polarization—is illustrated for example in the depictions offered by Seikkula’s antiracist interviewees of ‘“an avalanche of racist scum”, or the rise of “Nazism, just like in [the] 1930s”’, of a sudden ‘natural-disasterlike change’, with a ‘repeated concern’ raised in the interviews being ‘“where is this going to lead to”, or “what is going to happen to this country”’ (2019, 1009). The way in which the ‘antiracists’ here portray and relate to the ‘racists’ is a mirror-image of the right-wing nationalist, ‘racist’ narrative’s image of the ‘hordes of immigrants suddenly flooding Finland’, let in by the foolishly unsuspecting or cynically traitorous ‘hospitality’ of the ‘elites’ and the ‘toletards’ (cf. the FP campaign video analysed in Sakki & Martikainen, 2020). Here, both nationalists and antiracists see each other as a massive horde of dangerous and disgusting enemies (‘scum’) threatening to destroy the country, and both indulge in violently hateful derogation of the enemy. If the destructiveness of

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racism lies primarily in its dehumanizing attitude to the racialized other, ‘antiracism’, in the aspect it shows here, is just as dehumanizing. In this instance, the ‘antiracist’ has become the racist’s double (we don’t suggest this is true of antiracism generally). The discourse of enemy ‘doubles’ can, quite properly, be characterized as essentially double-talk, defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as ‘language that has no real meaning or has more than one meaning and is intended to hide the truth’. The more dominant the logic of doubles becomes, the more the parties to the conflict start sounding the same, using the same words to accuse each other of the same failings and crimes. But when uttered by the different parties, these words tend in fact to refer to the opposite objects and events in the real world. This is because, the further a conflict is polarized, the less it matters to the parties what is done or suffered, while who does or suffers it, ‘us’ or ‘them’, ‘friend’ or ‘enemy’, becomes all-important (a classic depiction is Orwell, 1945). The logic of doubles is also at work in the tendency of polarized debates to become meta-debates about the debate itself . Here, a kind of deceptive reflexivity is involved, which, while evincing a certain sense of the deadlock of conflict, still does nothing to break it. In this, quite widespread discursive mode, the interlocutors deplore the deterioration of the ‘climate of discussion’ through polarization, but rather than leading to genuine discussions about the questions that apparently divide people, the debate remains stuck at the meta-level, where the mutual distrust and scapegoating of polarized conflict is now continued in terms of blaming the other side for making honest debate impossible. The issues themselves are not spoken of, rather, the opponents now use speaking of the speaking as a weapon against each other. A caricature to illustrate this dynamic (bracketing the multiplicity, complexities, nuances, and contradictions of actual disagreements and positions): in a debate on challenges related to immigration, the ‘nationalist’ side says that we should speak about these challenges, but discussion is tabooed by the antiracists, while the antiracists agree that we should speak about them—but we cannot, since discussion is misused by the nationalists as an instrument of stigmatization.

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People feel pressured to engage in propagandistic double-talk insofar as, in polarized situations, questioning ‘our’ position tends to be immediately interpreted as defection to the ‘enemy camp’. Stigmatization (frowning, shaming, defamation, etc.) and ostracism of the ‘traitor’ are the main instruments of this process of collective pressuring. As for when and where the pressure is applied, one can distinguish two discursive part-logics or aspects of the dynamics of discursive hegemonization at play. We call them the logic of shibboleths and taboos, and the logic of pollution and paranoid extension—with no suggestion that these part-logics are the only or most important ones. The first is the more basic of the two; it designates the way certain views and words are prescribed, turned into shibboleths, their ritual repetition marking one’s belonging with ‘us’, while others are proscribed, tabooed, one’s belonging made conditional on ritually avoiding or denouncing them. By ‘the logic of pollution and paranoid extension’ we mean the tendency, given this ritualized setting of polarized conflict, of ever more views, words, and objects to be drawn into the conflict, to be ritualized as either to be repeated or avoided. This happens insofar as, when a particular object (word, view, etc.) is declared taboo, everything that is, or is perceived to be, somehow in contact with or related to it risks becoming ‘polluted’ and tabooed too—which again pushes the process further. This is one aspect of the logic of the taboo: one must not touch the object, nor anyone who or anything that has touched it (cf. Douglas, 1966, 32–35). In polarized conflict, the tabooed ‘object’ from contact with which other things in turn become polluted and taboo, is not an object at all, but the human beings one has made one’s enemies (there may have been objects of contestation initially, but they become less important as the conflict becomes further polarized, according to the dynamics described above). As Girard notes, the one designated an enemy by the community may effectively become ‘the pillar of that community insofar as everyone and everything ultimately revolve around him’, with the ‘polemical dynamism’ of the community’s attitudes ‘feed[ing] on what it rejects […] obsessed with the other against which it reacts’ (1992, 35; 42). Thus, for the antiracist, the racist may come to stand at the centre of everything; from the figure of the racist pollution spreads all around. Hence, while you may not be racist, ‘if your friends are racists,

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don’t pretend to be my friend’. By this logic of pollution, ever further elements—people, words, views, places, statues, gestures, books, music, etc.,—may be drawn into the conflict in a way that appears random if looked at from the point of view of these elements themselves. However, while there is nothing intrinsically connecting them, they are ‘organized in a most consistent pattern’; namely, by contact with the tabooed ‘other’ (Girard, 1992, 30). Thus, a newspaper may be viewed as acceptable by an antiracist, until they allow a ‘racist’ to write one column, after which the whole paper ‘must’ be boycotted because it has become polluted by contact with the racist. At the extreme of polarization, just about anything may be perceived as a sign of belonging either to ‘us’ or to ‘them’. In this paranoid mindset, nothing is innocent, a cigar is never just a cigar, and it becomes impossible to talk about any topic dispassionately; whatever one says is taken as a move, witting or unwitting, in the game of conflict (Alexander et al., 2020; Finlay, 2007). To treat others as enemies—to take an attitude of enmity to them, as opposed to simply being formally designated as ‘enemies’ by governments at war, say—has even deeper implications for how one relates to language, insofar as enemies tend to lose trust in discourse as such, feeling it is ‘impossible’ to speak with or to understand the other side. ‘Friendship has to end’, because the antiracist (in this mode) feels one cannot talk to racists; rejection of the other is the only option and violence is ‘the only language they understand’. In this way, discourse ceases to be a mode of contact and communication between the parties in polarized conflict and becomes a mere instrument for ‘us’ to talk about (not to) them. All ‘we’ say basically aims to confirm that ‘they’ indeed cannot be spoken to. Whether in actual wars or in the symbolic, discursive wars of polarized social debates, propaganda never says anything good about the enemy, even just a simple human word, but endlessly illustrates the impossibility of trusting them or addressing them as equal interlocutors. Propaganda can, but need not, present the enemy as evil; the average out-partisan, the ‘foot soldiers’, may also be presented as victims of the propaganda of their own side. Either way, talking to ‘them’ is presented as pointless both in practice and in principle, as ‘they’ only parrot their party line without the capacity to form opinions of their own. This is illustrated in extreme form in the discourse of and on conspiracy theory,

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in the ‘fake news’ rhetoric and in the mutual distrust and derogation between mainstream and countermedia (Finlayson, 2020; Ylä-Anttila, 2018). Consumers of the latter tend to maintain (again, we are purposely simplifying real-world complexities to illustrate the logic at issue) that the mainstream public have been brainwashed by a globalist ideology, which makes all the news they believe ‘fake’—not necessarily in details, but in basic intent, in terms of the grand narrative promoted. The mainstream public, for its part, tends to regard these claims as proof that those who make them have fallen for a delusional conspiratorial worldview and are thus incapable of serious thinking and undeserving of serious response. Correlatively, both sides present themselves as independent or at least critical thinkers, whether this critical attitude is symbolized by ‘taking the red pill’ or by placing inordinate hopes in ‘fact-checking’ and technocratic demands for ‘listening to the science’ (Duijn et al., 2020; Lewandowsky et al., 2017). This is yet another illustration of the logic of doubles. Not only are the two sides’ views of the other mirror images of each other, but through their enforcement of partisan conformity, presented (again, more or less sincerely) as motivated by the need to make no concessions to the other side’s propaganda, both sides unwittingly tend to turn themselves into precisely the ideologically blinkered ‘parrots’ they accuse the others of being. This is unavoidable, insofar as the double-talk of propaganda not only misrepresents and refuses to address the enemy, but erodes the communicative, sense-making potential of discourse for the propagandists themselves. ‘We’ may be formally communicating to each other about ‘them’, but insofar as we talk propagandistically, with the aim of confirming that ‘they cannot be talked to or understood’, ‘we’ also really cannot talk to or understand ourselves, for we then cannot talk truthfully—with more than an appearance of sense—to each other about them, or about our own role in the conflict.

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Conclusion In conclusion, we briefly address a concern about relativism that our chapter may provoke. It may seem that the upshot of our discussion is that all parties to polarized conflict are the same and equally responsible for the conflict, or, alternatively, that there is no way to tell who is responsible for what or what the truth is about the issues the parties (ostensibly) disagree over—indeed a common critique against constructionist, discursive research (cf. Edwards et al., 1995). This would be a misunderstanding, however. We have pointed to certain tendencies that may be found in polarized conflict, including the tendency for the parties to become each other’s ‘doubles’. This licences no blanket claims about the allocation of responsibility or anything else in particular cases. As for the difficulty of judging and understanding particular cases, we stress that there is no Archimedean point from which one could determine ‘what the facts really are’ or ‘which side is right’. Even where the facts—who did and said what; what the likely economic or other consequences of various policies are, etc.—can be non-contentiously determined (as often, alas, they cannot), what one makes of the facts, how one sees their significance, depends on one’s perspective, and which perspective one should take cannot be ‘determined’ in the way facts (sometimes) can. This does not mean, however, that ‘all the parties are right from their perspective’. That is an empty statement; it only repeats that the parties see or present things as they do, and apparently believe they are right against others. We would stress two prerequisites for approximating an adequate, and potentially constructively transformative understanding of polarized conflicts and the discourses they spawn and through which they develop. First, as researchers, we need to take seriously the experiences/perceptions of polarization of all conflict parties and listen to what those involved say about it. Conflict cannot be understood without understanding the parties’ perspectives on it, however confused, exaggerated, self-serving, etc., these may appear to us, and may sometimes be. After all, parties act on their perceptions of the situation, not on our or some other observer’s view of it. Secondly, we need to also study the whole situation/dynamics of polarization dispassionately, without ourselves tacitly identifying with some party to it, thus effectively entering the conflict

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rather than analysing it. The task is to disentangle ourselves from the partisan spirit that polarized conflict lives from and feeds upon, with its tendency to misrepresent the other and ourselves in our relation to each other and the common world. In this sense, the task is to work on ourselves as much as to try to see the situation more clearly, one through the other. As we suggest elsewhere (Aldrin Salskov, Backström, & Creutz, this volume), to seriously undertake this work can imply entering into ‘engaged dialogues’ with others, including those one may, wittingly or unwittingly, have made one’s enemies. In this chapter, we have not discussed the urgent and complex questions regarding effective political, legal, and other strategies to lessen polarization and curb intolerance, hate speech, racism, and other pernicious phenomena (cf. Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021). Our simple point here would be that these questions can themselves be discussed in a constructive way only where our own thinking is not ruled by polarized, us-and-them logic. To the extent that it is, what we say about these questions too will be drawn into the realm of ‘double-talk’, we will fail to address those we are ostensibly addressing, and the strategies we adopt risk fuelling what they should curb or replacing one form of violence by another.

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7 From Angry Monologues to Engaged Dialogue? On Self-Reflexivity, Critical Discursive Psychology and Studying Polarised Conflict Salla Aldrin Salskov, Joel Backström, and Karin Creutz

Introduction This chapter presents philosophical reflections on self-reflexivity and the potential of encountering ‘the other’, in conducting research on actors involved in polarised societal conflict. We discuss an approach we term engaged dialogue that refers to a specific conception of the nature of critical self-reflexivity in research, focusing on the constraints and possibilities of the researcher’s position in relation to those studied. S. A. Salskov (B) · J. Backström · K. Creutz Swedish School of Social Science, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] J. Backström e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_7

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Discussing one’s own position in relation to the research one conducts and/or the subjects studied is an indispensable part of critical discursive psychology drawing on poststruturalist analyses of power relations (Sakki & Pettersson, 2016) and of research that engages in societal and political questions and conflicts for example concerning gender, racialisation, and nationalism. We analyse instances from our own research engaging in dialogues with populist to far-right nationalist actors and persons perceived as such, and others who have a stake in the conflicts surrounding nationalism, multiculturalism and polarisation in the Finnish context. Our empirical material is ethnographic and autoethnographic in nature and in this chapter we use ‘radical nationalist actors’ as an umbrella term for convenience.1 Haraway (1988) suggests that acknowledging one’s ‘situated knowledges’ and ‘partial perspectives’ is pivotal to doing scientific research, attending especially to the power relations that saturate it. In this chapter we ask how theoretical and methodological commitments might affect one’s perceptions and analyses and how one’s own attitudes and selfidentifications matter when researching polarised, sociopolitical conflict: do they escalate the conflict further, or can they open up constructive possibilities (Aldrin Salskov, 2020; Peltonen & Jungar, 2018)? 1

The material was gathered during the years 2017–2021 from various research projects on (1) conflict, consensus and collective identifications, (2) theories of political violence, (3) social exclusion, polarisation and security in the Nordic welfare states. The material consists of ethnography and autoethnography including interviews with radical nationalist actors and nationalist populist politicians. The research data has been gathered in accordance with the Guidelines of The Advisory Board on Research Integrity (TENK) in Finland (http://www.tenk.fi/en). Informed consent has been secured and the anonymity of participants in the research has been protected in all phases of the research. All names have been changed, except when we refer to ourselves. Respondents have also had the opportunity to read and comment on quotes in the manuscript of this chapter prior to publication. All data is stored according to data protection guidelines. We use the term ‘radical nationalist actors’ to designate respondents, although some of them might not self-identify that way. We position the respondents within the outer layer of right-wing politics in relation to other nationalist politicians and actors such as the moderate right-wing Finnish National Coalition Party. There is significant terminological variation in the research literature both in which terms are used—extreme right, radical right, far right, populist radical right, etc.,—and how they are defined (for an overview, see Toscano, 2019).

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We focus on the dynamics of polarisation, in particular, the anger fuelling it, and on how researchers can avoid unwittingly reifying popular, mediatised representations of polarising identifications and logics, as exemplified, on a ‘vulgar’ level, in the common use in everyday talk of derogatory labels like ‘nazis’, ‘snowflakes’, ‘suvakki’ and ‘rajakki’.2 We suggest that by engaging in dialogue, societal conflicts surrounding nationalism, polarisation and multiculturalism can be understood in a transformative way, enabling a deeper understanding of what contributes to, and what might unlock the affective landscapes of anger, frustration and violence while acknowledging the difficulties of doing so (Hochschild, 2016). Engaging in dialogue with radical nationalist actors has been framed as an ethical and methodological challenge for researchers, ‘fraught with difficulties of access, hostility and mutual fear’ (Blee, 2002, 14– 17). The following challenges are presented as common: (1) a lack of trust in researchers and research among radical nationalist actors, (2) research may be seen as unethical in building supposedly friendly relations with respondents and thus ‘deceiving’ them, or (3) researchers may be perceived as tacitly supporting or normalising the respondents’ views (Mondon & Winter, 2021; Pilkington, 2016, 2019). A central researcher in the field, notes however that ‘there are no insurmountable methodological obstacles’ to dialogical research with far-right actors, what constrains us is rather ’an institutionalised distaste for close-up research with the far right’ (Pilkington, 2019, 27). This article looks into alternatives to shunning and exclusion (a blanket refusal to engage in respectful interaction with any of ‘them’, all of ‘them’ found guilty by association), and suggests that awareness regarding one’s own possible

2 In the Finnish context the derogatory term ‘suvakki’, derived from ‘suvaitsevainen’ (tolerant) and ‘vajakki’ (retard), has been used to refer to proponents of ‘multiculturalism’; this resulted in the invention of ‘rajakki’ (from ‘raja’, border) as a derogatory term for proponents of restrictive immigration politics. The use of these terms trended in particular following the societal discussion related to the increased number of asylum seekers in Finland 2015–2016.

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complicity in creating conflict is needed. The politics of naming, scapegoating, othering, anger and hatred are themes often attended to in discursive psychology and research on radical nationalism, but rarely in relation to the researchers’ own positionings. These topics that often analysed in the context of them and their politics, but rarely in relation to us and our politics. Scientific understanding requires that researchers are attentive not only to how polarising, scapegoating and self-justifying dynamics work in society at large, but how they may be at work in ourselves, in particular with the question in mind of how they might affect research perspectives and practices. We suggest that discursive pschological analyses of the anger inherent in and fuelling polarised conflicts, calls for self-reflexivity, and actualises the question of fairness and objectivity in research. To widen the understanding of the polarised conflicts around the far-right and the role of anger in them, we look at the potential of dialogue in conflictual settings (Creutz, 2021). Initially, we ourselves were sceptical towards the possibility of entering into dialogue with radical nationalist actors, tacitly assuming that this was deeply problematic. But through experiences where dialogue emerged, first spontaneously, and later in instances where we consciously engaged in dialogue, we came to rethink our theoretical and methodological pre-understandings and their implications. Our approach is therefore an effect and a development of insights grounded in our research experience. Engaging in dialogues with actors on the far right may seem like idealism or theoretical fantasy. Encounters related to ‘multiculturalism’ have been theorised in terms of power and racialised hierarchies, as exemplified by classic analyses of othering in Fanon (1986), Said (1978) or Ahmed (2000). In light of these analyses, dialogical encounters with radical nationalist actors tend understandably to be viewed with suspicion or condescension, as an effect of a naïve humanistic ideal. However, this perspective is itself a pre-understanding that should be reflected on and problematised rather than taken as the self-evident baseline of critical thinking.

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In addition to focusing on the centrality of societal power relations for communication and the social formation of identities, as critical discursive psychology often does (e.g. Edley, 2001, 194), this chapter argues how the attitude researchers have towards respondents is pivotal to undoing us/them-constellations and can open new possibilities of understanding. Dialogues in a polarised setting may seem politically suspicious, but refusing dialogue or scientific engagement with a specific part of society only deepens polarisation. The possibilities of dialogue, just as its difficulties, can be seen only by trying to engage in it, attending to the resistances, and the direct refusals to communicate that also occur.

The Refusal of Dialogue There is a substantial body of research on the far-right and more mainstream right-wing nationalism, both in Finland and internationally. The focus tends to be on discursive spaces (e.g. counter-media and mainstream media); the political sphere (e.g. parliamentary debates and EU-politics); radical movements and actors (from bloggers and activists to organised movements); and the analysis of ideologies (e.g. conspiracy theories or neo-forms of national socialism) (Horsti & Saresma, 2021; Laaksonen, this volume; Pilkington, 2019, 25; Venäläinen & Menard, this volume). Analyses of discourses that radical nationalist actors produce on their websites, on various social media forums, etc., provide an understanding of the ideology, rhetoric, the general mood and emotional tenor of the pronouncements and discussions of radical nationalist agendas (Norocel et al., 2020a, 2020b; Pettersson, 2019). They demonstrate how discourses around nationalism change or persist over time, and how the racialised and gendered dimensions of nationalist agendas are articulated. The diversity of these efforts notwithstanding, ‘sustained engagement with far-right activists for the purposes of academic study remains rare’ (Pilkington, 2019, 24), even if there are exceptions (e.g. Blee, 2017; Busher, 2016; Klandermans & Mayer, 2006; Mattsson & Johansson, 2020; Pilkington, 2016; Stockemer, 2014). The lack of fieldwork is perhaps symptomatic of the kind of refusal of engagement on the part of

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researchers spoken of earlier, the assumption being that speaking to rightwing actors is impossible, useless, politically irresponsible and/or morally abhorrent (see Biezul, 2019, quoted below). Below we address some of the reasons presented in support of such attitudes—sometimes formulated as explicit policy, or as a conclusion based on previous encounters but often simply appearing in spontaneous reactions of rejection. But let us first look at an example from our fieldwork with radical nationalist actors of the kind of situation that this attitudecan result in. Here is a recollection of an event, a book launch, presenting a published study and a panel discussion, where both radical nationalist actors and researchers writing about them were present: Extract 1, book launch 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21

At a book launch of a scientific report on the extreme right in Finland, certain individuals are named as actors on the extreme right. Many of the named oppose this politics of naming and find the interpretation of them misleading and stigmatizing. At the event one of the panellists claims that a certain ‘farright’ media outlet is unprofessional and ‘does not even correct’ false news or mistakes in their journalism. Afterwards, one of the individuals named who was present says: Atte: Of course, I’m irritated by this polarisation, and when things are presented in such a simplified manner, my pulse goes up. Particularly as these are educated people who themselves are pushing straight propaganda, even if they claim to research another kind of propaganda. It takes away the credibility of all of those studies, at least in my eyes. Atte: I asked this one panellist on what facts he bases his claim that corrections aren’t made. I told him that I represent the second largest and the largest ‘alternative media’, and that we’ve never omitted to make a correction that has been asked for. His answer: he turned and walked away. When the event is over, one of the authors of the report briefly talks with another person named as an extreme right actor in the report. He is positioned as something he himself disagrees with and feels stigmatised, being mentioned by name in a scientific report. The discussion, however, is conducted in a good spirit, and both the researcher and the person named afterwards comment that they got good impressions of each other.

The point of these examples is not to make claims about the truth or adequacy of the interpretations of these interactions offered by the people

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involved. Rather the examples illuminate the need for researchers to pay special attention to how people involved in interactions of these kinds— including the researchers themselves—may be predisposed to interpret the other party’s actions in particular ways. Experiencing that one is being treated with distrust and/or contempt by researchers (lines 17– 19), and being spoken of, categorised and analysed while neither being asked what one’s own views are, nor allowed to respond to the claims made (lines 8–10), translates into anger at how one is treated (line 7). In this context, the anger also results in distrust of science (lines 10–11), and contributes to ‘the wariness and lack of trust that [far right] activists often nurture […] towards researchers’, who are viewed as ‘part of the “power system”’ (Toscano, 2019, 6). Radical nationalist actors often present themselves as victims in relation to societal gendered dynamics (Venäläinen and Menard, this volume), and express grievances about and exclusionary treatment from representatives of various societal institutions, and society more broadly, not just from scientists. This is illustrated in another example from our fieldwork: Extract 2, EU-seminar 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

3

At a high-profile political EU-seminar arranged in December 2018 to discuss freedom of speech, radical nationalist actors are one topic of discussion. Some of Karin’s respondents and other individuals perceived as radical nationalist actors (whether by self-identification or according to a common perception) sign up for the event, although they are sceptical about their chances of actually being allowed to attend. A few weeks later, all of them receive emails informing them that the seminar is unfortunately already full, and so they are denied access. Karin discusses the matter with her respondents and says that it’s a basic civil right to attend such public events; her respondents say it’s all bull**t, but they’re not surprised. Karin emails the organizers 11.1.2019 and asks why some radical nationalist actors have been denied access, and gets a response stating that an unexpectedly large number of high-school students were attending, and therefore the limited number of seats were full. However, in 2020 the seminar is brought up in the proceedings of a trial, where one of the speakers at the seminar claims to have requested that the individuals in question be denied access; this is also stated in a book published 2019 claiming that the organizers of the event decided to not let these persons participate.3

To protect the anonymity of those involved, we refrain from referencing the book.

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In this case, our respondents’ suspicion of being denied access because of their political affiliations and lied to by the seminar organisers appeared to them to be confirmed (lines 9–10). Experiences of (perceived) concrete, politically based discrimination illustrated in this example may be interpreted as connected to the tendency, both in mainstream popular discourses and in research on far-right actors and right-wing populists, to ‘set up the populist radical right as a problem for, if not an open threat to, the liberal democratic system’ (Mudde, 2016, 2). Violent extremists openly declaring their will to overthrow democracy are by definition a problem in a democratic system. However, with regard, for instance, to far-right positions or right-wing populist politics that do not promote violence, or to ethnonationalist and other critiques of multiculturalism, the question of who and what is a threat to democracy cannot be assumed to be clear a priori; rather, it is itself a question for democratic debate and scientific investigation. As mentioned earlier, there is a concern that trying to understand radical nationalist actors for instance, their experiences of polarisation, may result in condoning, normalising and/or adding visibility to racist or otherwise pernicious ideologies and actions (Mondon & Winter, 2021). This was the most common concern expressed when we presented this chapter at various seminars. We agree that this is a risk in research. Public dissemination and discussion of research results, the uses to which others may put them, and the possible effects on society, are relevant considerations in any research. However, in terms of scientific understanding, and in discursive psychological terms, the task is to understand various social actors in their interplay with other actors, which includes understanding how they themselves conceive of the social world in which they interact. This does not in any way imply accepting their views, morally or otherwise. Discourses around radical nationalist actors, rightly or wrongly deemed ‘racist’, reveal a tension between two tendencies in anti-racist research. While it underlines how framing of ‘racists’ as ‘extremists’ may serve to obfuscate mainstream society’s own racist structures and attitudes (Seikkula, this volume), it also often (as described above) refuses any engagement with precisely those ‘extreme racists’. But if the latter are scapegoats for a pervasively racist society, into which the researchers

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themselves have been socialised, it seems hard to justify treating ‘the racists’ as pariahs, as though they really were ‘contaminated’ in a way fundamentally different from the rest of society, including the researchers themselves. This kind of move, which reinforces moralising and polarising divisions of ‘us’ and ‘them’ itself risks functioning as ideological obfuscation. It is crucial to be aware of these tendencies, and to engage self-critically not just with research subjects’, but also with our own social and political identifications, including potential racist aspects (Wieviorka, 2019). Othering ‘them’ as morally corrupt, easily serves to justify oneself as morally ‘good’.

Speaking in Anger, on Anger, to Anger: Some Lessons from Dialogical Engagements We will now consider some cases from our engagement with radical nationalist actors,4 illustrating how anger and hatefulness—which may at first seem the least promising examples for dialogue—can be understood and approached from a dialogical perspective, acknowledging that dialogue itself can also provoke these responses. Understanding the complex dynamics of anger and hatefulness is particularly crucial in the context of research on radical nationalism, as strong affects mark the kind of polarised societal conflict within which the discourses of and on nationalism are situated, and/or that they help create and exacerbate (Kimmel, 2013). Sara Ahmed has written extensively on the collective aspects of anger and hatred, asking what emotions ‘do’ in affective economies, in building a collective ‘we’ through the logic of ‘Together we hate, and this hate is what makes us together’ (Ahmed, 2004, 118; see also Laaksonen et al., this volume). In this logic, the parties have a standing expectation about the predictable way (hateful, contemptible, etc.) in which ‘the enemy’ will behave and think, and even trivial incidents can create a storm of indignant anger. Let us start with an example 4 In addition to the material described in footnote 1 regarding empirical data from the research projects, we use examples of various hateful messages received on Facebook messenger and exchanges that occurred in responding to them.

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of hate speech in its most blatant and vicious form. The example is from 2015, in a context where the rights of asylum seekers and refugees were the topic in public debates in Finland. Karin was frequently interviewed about her research on Finnish citizens who went to fight for ISIS in Syria, and her media presence occasioned a lot of angry and hateful responses on various social media, typical of the kind of gendered hate speech directed particularly at female researchers and journalists (Saresma et al., 2021; Tileag˘a, 2019). Here is a particularly egregious example: Extract 3, Sami 1 2 3 4

Sami: … I so wish from the depth of my heart that you were raped… so, you’d know the kind of people these matut [slang for migrants] are …I wish you had kids and they too were abused… think about that

It may seem obvious that there is no point or prospect in replying to a hateful outburst like this. Anger, distress, disgust and fear on the part of the recipient is understandable, and it is also fair to assume that the person who writes these kinds of hateful messages and outbursts cannot expect or feel a right to any reply. Nonetheless, Karin did reply to these kinds of messages, quite spontaneously, out of curiosity to understand what made people rave in this way to a stranger. At first, she didn’t have any clear conception of why or how to do it, her own replies sometimes angry, sometimes baffled or amused. Often, the results were surprising, as in Sami’s case: Extract 4, Sami and Karin 1 2 3 4

Karin: Do how can Sami : sry Karin: Ok,

you understand how sick that sounds? What’s your problem, and you wish that another person’s children would be raped? [sorry]. [Explains about his quite messy state of mind] well good luck to you. I can’t help, but hopefully you’ll be ok […]

This example is far from unique in its dynamics and gendered features. However, it illustrates the change that dialogue may bring; namely, the move from the initial, often quite instinctive assumption that, given what

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the other has said, or what they stand for, dialogue is simply impossible, unthinkable—to the realisation that one can talk to them after all. In terms of anger and hatefulness specifically, we should note the paradoxical character of angry/hateful outbursts. They often, or typically, seem to actively reject communication, to make it manifest that no reply is expected, wanted or accepted from the other. A paradigmatic angry accusation is thus the explicit claim that ‘it’s impossible to talk to (people like) you, you always…’. Nonetheless, the outbursts are still, and crucially, communications addressed to the other. They are, one might say, paradoxical performatives, of something like the form: ‘I want you to know that it’s impossible to talk to you, that there’s no point in letting you know anything’. One is still saying something, addressing the other, asking for a reply. Another example (Creutz, 2021, 145), illuminates the paradoxical performativity of staging the impossibility of dialogue: Extract 5, Taneli and Karin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Taneli: it’s impossible to engage in dialogue with a professional liar and nutcase like you. Speaking of criminals, you have defended war criminals coming to Finland, jihadists, murderers and terrorists! Karin: I have never defended war criminals, why the hell would I do that? And not a single murderer or terrorist have I defended. I have studied why young people go to Syria and the reason why it is impossible to have dialogue is not me. It’s due to the fact that you can’t talk without unfounded accusations.

This paradoxicality is also evident in hate speech of the kind Sami’s outburst exemplifies: he cannot be expecting a reply, so why does he bother telling Karin anything (extract 4, line 3)? Our point here isn’t just to note an inherent paradox about angry/hateful speech. Rather, we want to underline that its paradoxical appearance is symptomatic of the typically ambivalent mix or confusion of motives and orientations to the other in anger/hatefulness (Ahmed, 2000). Anger and hatefulness are, importantly, responses to (perceived) injustices done to oneself or others—but they are also, often, destructive, resentful attitudes that in themselves can take the form of injustice to others. Anger is not, nor is hatefulness, one thing; it can be justified or not, constructive or destructive, self-pitying or clear-sighted, etc. (cf. Backström, 2007).

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Anger changes, it may turn abruptly or slowly into other affects and emotions; sadness, fear, contempt, disgust, relief, bitterness, etc., as well as be intermingled with them. If anger were one and fixed, dialogical engagement wouldn’t be of much use in understanding or transforming it. What gives dialogue space to operate, and opens for the task of understanding, clarification and conciliation of these affective responses, is precisely their mixed, changeable, unsettled , nature, and most importantly, the fact that even in hateful outbursts, there is some kind of address, a will-to-dialogue and communication—even if it is conflicted. ‘If I speak to you in anger, at least I have spoken to you: I have not put a gun to your head and shot you down in the street’, as Lorde puts it in contrasting racist violence with the anger it provokes (1985, 130). We are not suggesting that dialogue protects against instrumental, destructive and dangerous uses of speech, as in hate speech that attempts to bully, frighten, or silence the other, or entice to violence, etc.; uses that lawmakers and moderators of various speech forums are rightly trying to curb. The insight that one can relate to another, and that they can be willing and able to relate to oneself, as one person to another, despite one’s previous identifications, doesn’t mean that there is suddenly total harmony. The point is rather that there is a possibility for change—which may take both parties by surprise—whereby a shouting and cursing atthe-other is changed into an interaction in which both are, at least to some significant degree, oriented towards each other. In the examples quoted here, the typical result of replying to angry messages was that the initial intense anger subsided, usually within a couple of days, but often even after the exchange of a few messages. Apologies were often offered, both for the writers’ initial outbursts and for the aggressive tone used by others from the writers’ own nationalist groups. In the context of our engaging in dialogue with radical nationalist actors, a recurrent theme was their anger as a response to a frustrating sense of utter powerlessness to do anything about social and political developments perceived to be disastrous, a sentiment also often expressed in leftist, feminist and anti-racist political and activist settings. The

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following quote is from a conversation with a radical nationalist activist on the effects of polarisation and the sometimes destructive behaviour of radical nationalist actors: Extract 6, Aija 1 2 3

Aija: about that inappropriateness still. It springs from being bottomlessly p*ssed off. you can’t do anything about anything […], so people just unburden that rage verbally, vent.

Anger as a response to (perceived) discrimination and maltreatment of oneself and others belonging to particular social groups is an affect that spurs political engagement both on the left and the right, and in the politics around nationalism and multiculturalism. As a reaction to (perceived) injustice, anger is understandable, and a failure to react with anger may be seen as indifference towards the question of justice and the victims of injustice. Thus, for example anger can be seen as ‘an appropriate reaction to racist attitudes, as is fury when the actions from those attitudes do not change’ (Lorde, 1985, 129). Anger becomes problematic, however, when it turns into a justification for treating others unjustly. Furthermore, anger and resentment, may be distorted in other ways. The tone (lines 1–2) of Aija’s and many other respondents’ complaints make it clear that their resentment, even desperation, is ‘not just a discursive strategy, but an affective disposition that is strongly felt and widely believed’, as Nayak says of the testimonies about White victimisation of English nationalists in the English Defense League (Nayak, 2016, xiii). That something is deeply felt does not necessarily entail a realistic view of a situation however. We can, and often should ask concerning even sincere expressions of emotion, e.g. a sense of collective victimisation and powerlessness, ‘what purpose do they serve, for whom and why?’ (Nayak, 2016, xiii). Resentment and a sense of collective victimisation are pervasive features of radical nationalist and right-wing ideologies (Kimmel, 2013; Salmela & von Scheve, 2018), as it is of many other political movements and ideologies. This does not in itself imply that these sentiments should automatically be dismissed as

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unwarranted any more than it implies accepting them at face value, nor can one know how particular people understand their grievances without asking them. In our material nationalist actors’ anger as a response to (perceived) maltreatment at the hands of various representatives of (what is perceived as) ‘respectable society’, both those wielding institutional power and ordinary people in social media interactions, was sometimes expressed through spontaneous outbursts in conversation. This is illustrated in the following example, where Karin exchanges messages with one of her respondents: (cf. also the examples discussed in Sect. 7.2): Extract 7, Mikko and Karin 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Mikko: I’m so p*ssed off with that sh*tty crowd that are above everything, why the f*ck are they above? Why, even you don’t remember us small ones anymore, although we are quite. Small Karin: […] I know what you mean. I spoke a while ago with a Finnish scholar and columnist writing about identity politics and societal polarisation about the vainglory of our so-called bubble. also I find it repulsive. how are you doing? Mikko: Oh God my writing, I got drunk yesterday. Forgive me Karin. Karin: […] I was totally wasted the other day, but not being at all as poetic as you, just singing 80s songs:-) […] so absolutely no need to apologise

The fact that Mikko expresses his frustration and anger at being treated with condescension, by those perceived as being on ‘the other side’ (lines 1–3), to Karin in a nightly text message, can be interpreted as speaking to the trust he has developed in her, someone from the ‘other side’ (line 7). This example might come across as personal communication, irrelevant to the research done on polarisation and radical nationalist actors, but we suggest that it is precisely the personal communication that reveals the collective dimension of polarised identifications. It is crucial to note that friendly relations can evolve spontaneously between people as they did here, not through a premeditated methodological or research-ethical reflection. This is in line with the experience-based observation of Jeffrey Kaplan, whose research on extreme racist religious groups emphasises ‘personal contact and dialogue’ stating that “‘all human beings can be approached on a human level’ and ‘contact can be made’ in a way that

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will ‘invariably neutralize the [social] caricatures which skew scholarly analysis and distort the historical record’ (Kaplan, 2016, 51; 11). We would add and emphasise that engaging in dialogue with people one initially regarded as ‘enemies’ may lead to painful, realisations about oneself , specifically about one’s earlier way of relating to these ‘enemies’ (cf. Backström 2007, 290-293). As researchers having a background in research on, inter alia, intersectionality, gender, racism, Whiteness, nationalism, extremism, immigration and islamophobia, some of us have acted in anger, unfriended people on social media due to their political views, or supported tendencies to deplatforming, and ‘cancel culture’ (boycotting or shunning someone who is seen to act or speak in ways that are unwanted), for example, and thus contributed to conflicts that our research initially aimed at dismantling. In effect, we had tacitly adopted perspectives that seemed justified in terms of social justice, but were in fact unjust and polarising.

Finding one’s Own Voice: Dialogue as Critique of Ideology As indicated above, an engaged dialogue approach does not bracket questions of collective identifications and the normativity in us/them-logics. On the contrary, it brings these questions into focus, at the same time as dialogical research practices allow such identifications and normativities to be challenged and even dissolved. The further a conflict is polarised, the more all questions ultimately tend to be reduced to, prefaced by and judged in the light of the question: who did or said this or that, one of us or one of them? A victim or a villain? The policing of the border between friend and enemy, the ones to be listened to and those to be ignored or silenced, becomes priority (see Backström et al., this volume). In an atmosphere like this, suggesting dialogical engagement with ‘the enemy’ will be met with hostile incredulity. Nonetheless, it may be the only realistic way out of a polarised deadlock, and may significantly contribute to

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the research done in discursive psychology on political and lay discourse around multiculturalism (see introduction this volume). If someone is angry, one basic response is to wonder why they are upset and whether they have cause to be angry. Discourse analytic work on anger and hatefulness tends to bracket these kinds of questions, however, focusing instead on identifying formal features of the angry or hateful discourse as such—e.g. describing the ‘circulation’ of hate between various figures (Ahmed, 2004; Vainikka, 2019; see also Laaksonen et al., this volume). Such formal analyses can be illuminating, but if we content ourselves only with them and refrain from asking the ‘natural’ dialogic questions—Why are you angry? What happened? etc.,—the anger or hatefulness will remain an enigma. This is one example of the risk that discourse analyses, like many other modes of scientific analysis that focus on symbolic and formal structures, may foreclose the personal and interpersonal dimension of the meaning of anger/hatefulness; the urgency that discourses have to the people who produce or respond to them (cf. Ahmed, 2004; Rosaldo, 1989). A researcher who tries to enter into dialogue with radical nationalist actors may herself become ‘tainted’ in the eyes of her peers. She is perhaps seen as someone fraternising with the enemy, and therefore as politically and morally corrupt. ‘Most researchers’, Biezul notes, ‘are filled with revulsion at the idea of getting involved with these [radical right] groups […] Those who do, however, arouse suspicion and irritation not only from their colleagues, but also from their friends and relatives’ (Biezul, 2019, 75). This kind of stigma and fear of contamination speaks to how polarised conflicts are ruled by a logic that entails collectively defined emotionalised ‘triggers’ connected to Us-Them-figures of thought (see,

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further, Backstöm et al., this volume). Despite our criticism of these kinds of logics, or because of it, we recognise that our work, and we ourselves, are entangled in them. Here is one example of how naming, politics of representation, and othering was actualised in our fieldwork: Extract 8, HOMMA 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Karin gets an email-notification that she has been tagged in a discussion on an anti-immigration and populist right-wing internet forum (HOMMA). A journalist has contacted people on the forum, but in a manner that is othering, expressing interest in “Nazis”. People in the forum react by tagging Karin in the discussion, asking her to explain to the journalist what they mean, by distinguishing between Nazis and nationalist identifications. Karin, being perceived as someone from the “other side”, but as someone relating to the people on the forum without prejudice, is invoked as an ‘authority’ and trusted enough to give the right picture of what they mean to the journalist. In another discussion on the same forum, Karin has pointed out that radical nationalist actors also experience violence and threats because of their political views, and that there is a tendency to overlook this fact. This leads to a discussion of her role as a researcher. People write things like “what the f*ck has happened to her?”, and “she’s risking social and professional suicide?” Here the response is indicative of the fact that the people on the forum acknowledge the polarising dynamics of the culture that may cause her engagement with them to be viewed with hostility.

These examples testify to how polarisation, us-them logics, are both challenged and embraced by the respondents. Engaging in dialogue with our respondents has revealed the dynamics of polarisation we are researching from another angle. Karin here experiences the politics of naming, and the politics of representation that is involved in the hostility that is expressed towards her respondents (lines 10–12), but also hostility from her respondents, and suspicion from her colleagues as she ‘befriends the enemy’ (lines 13–14). Our examples illustrate how, in dialogic encounters, collective hostility, where anger simply reaffirms and intensifies the deadlock of conflict and one reacts as a member of a collective, as ‘one of us’, may start to dissolve as both parties let go of, or at least do not allow themselves to be ruled by, collective identifications. In dialogue, as interlocutors start listening and responding to each other as individuals,

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they move away from the affective, spontaneous, immediate joining in with collective emotionalised reactions. The dialogic turning to the other, we suggest, is not a naively individualistic or apolitical idea about being able to speak ‘immediately’ as one human being to another. Critiques of ‘subject constitution’ have emphasised how language use is entangled in webs of ideology and power (Althusser, 2014; Butler, 2005; Said, 1978). However, the existence, power and violence of the forces constituting social identities, ‘ideological subjects’, become tangible, and analysable, precisely through the way societal structures and cultural understandings come between people. In this sense, the dialogic turning to the other does not ignore the critique of power, but is rather what makes power visible and its critique necessary and possible.

The Peculiar Productivity of Dialogue In this section, we bring out some central features of dialogue to explain our general methodological and theoretical grounds for emphasising a dialogical approach, whose practical fruitfulness was indicated in the discussion of vignettes from our fieldwork in previous sections. The dialogical nature of language and thinking was influentially explored by Bakhtin and Voloshinov, and discursive psychologists later appropriated and made use of their ideas (Shotter & Billig, 1998). Crucially, dialogue contrasts with mere exchange of information, and is characterised by its productivity, creating what might be called a ‘surplus of understanding’. This productive potential of dialogue is the condition of human understanding and thinking as such—‘thought itself […] is born and shaped in the process of interaction and struggle with others’ thought’ (Bakhtin, 1986, 92). The productivity and creativity of dialogue does not imply that dialogues start from a clean slate, in a historical vacuum. We are never ‘the first to speak’ (Butler, 2005). Our utterances are full of ‘dialogic overtones’, ‘echoes’ of what others have told others (and us) before, to which we respond, sometimes deliberately, but mostly without realising it; thus our words contain ‘many half-concealed

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or completely concealed words of others with varying degrees of foreignness’, and ‘various viewpoints, world views, and trends cross, converge, and diverge’ in them (Bakhtin, 1986, 93). As noted, these historical ‘overtones’ pervasively include oppressive and ideologically distortive elements. What happens in dialogue isn’t simply that A communicates her already-formed thoughts, opinions, feelings, etc., to B, who in turn communicates his to her, thus moving some ‘information’ from one location to another (from A’s head to B’s, and vice versa). Rather, both A and B may find their views and feelings challenged and changed by the other’s responses, and their own responses to them, in ways that neither may have expected before entering into dialogue. Thus, one or both of them may emerge from the encounter quite transfigured. That dialogue can change the understanding and views, outlooks and thinking of both interlocutors—their view of themselves, the other and the world—means that it may challenge and unsettle various agendas, conscious or unconscious, that they have. Differences and connections between ideas and views that one initially assumed would be shaped in a particular way may have to be radically rethought as a result of how the other responds to one’s assertions and questions. This is also the research methodological experience we wish to highlight. An important aspect of the productivity of dialogue is that it may not only result in one receiving surprising answers to one’s questions, but change the sense of one’s questions, leading one to abandon or reformulate them (including one’s research questions). Dialogue need not be seen as necessarily a power struggle or a compromise, where either one or the other party gets to set (more or less of ) the agenda or determine ‘the results’. Taking the productivity of dialogue seriously allows moving beyond such zero-sum visions, to the possibility of both parties being changed by their encounter and, at best, openly exploring whatever has come up in their dialogue. Obviously, dialogue in this sense is very far from being the default situation in research interviews, or in human communication generally; it is rather the radical possibility by which dialogical engagement is oriented . There is no method, or ethical guideline for arriving at it or staying in it; it is the very desire of, and the challenging task posed by, dialogue.

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At the same time, the co-presence of researcher and respondent in the (more or less dialogic) interview-situation engenders many risks, thoroughly explored in the methodological literature; for example, what Robben calls the danger of ‘seduction’ by respondents (Robben, 1995, 85). The realisation that risks are endemic in the interview situation has led some researchers to call for lessening the dependence on interviews in favour of using ‘naturalistic records’ (Potter & Hepburn, 2005; Wiggins & Potter, 2008). A different approach—one we adopt here— goes in the opposite direction. Rather than trying to avoid or minimise dialogue, the aim is to engage in it as fully and self-reflectively as possible, not just running the risks, but consciously facing them and trying, in dialogical engagement with the interlocutor, to work through them and open spaces of freedom for thought and response in relation to them. As Griffin suggests, the dialogic and analytic process can fruitfully be reoriented to ‘reflect and focus on’ those points at which there is ‘meeting’, and perhaps conflict, ‘between the perspectives and agendas of the interviewer (and hence of the assumptions around which the research process is constructed), and those of the interviewees’ (2007, 261; cf., e.g. MacDougall, 2003).

Conclusion In this article, we have argued for the fruitfulness of an engaged dialogue perspective in understanding polarised societal conflict in general, and in researching far-right and right-wing nationalist actors in particular. Being open to the possibility of dialogue and understanding is pivotal for the research to have a possible transformative potential. We have focused on how engaging in dialogue has changed us as researchers and shed new light on the questions surrounding self-reflexivity as a research ethical question. Studying radical nationalists by engaging in dialogue with them does not mean that one cannot be critical of what they say and do. On the contrary, self-reflexivity at best deepens critique. Where science becomes a party to the social power constellations and conflicts it studies in the problematic sense our first example arguably illustrated, it may undermine its own trustworthiness. In research where

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critical self-reflexivity on the part of researchers concerning their own intrication in networks of power and their mode of engagement with the people they study is a key concern, the research-ethical questions also regard the participation, ‘voice’ and ‘representation’ of those studied. The slogan and principle introduced by disability activists, ‘Nothing About Us Without Us’, frames a research-ethical challenge to be addressed by researchers (Charlton, 1998; Kulick & Rydström, 2015). What the consequences and decisions in terms of concrete research design of this concern are or should be is an open question; here, we simply wish to point to the importance of self-reflexivity in research on radical nationalist actors, where an implicit attitude seems to have been ‘Nothing About Them With Them’ (cf. Bailey, 2015). Our attempt has been to show how the risk of reifying ‘us/them’ logics in research is present if an engaged dialogical perspective is absent, and how collective identifications and the dynamics of polarisation risk distorting research on radical nationalist actors unless the collective identifications of both research subjects and researchers are thoroughly engaged with and critiqued. Self-reflexivity requires critically reflecting on one’s political, theoretical and methodological commitments and how these may open up or shut down dialogical perspectives.

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8 Affective Visual Rhetoric and Discursive Practices of the Far-Right Across Social Media Salla-Maaria Laaksonen, Jenni Hokka, Matti Nelimarkka, and Kaarina Nikunen

Introduction Recent studies have discussed the role of social media as an essential arena for the spread of nationalist-populist, anti-immigrant, and farright ideologies (e.g., Hatakka, 2017; Mudde, 2019; Udupa & Pohjonen, 2019). It has been suggested that the success of these political movements is connected to their skillful way of adopting digital technologies and, S.-M. Laaksonen (B) · M. Nelimarkka University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected] M. Nelimarkka e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] J. Hokka · M. Nelimarkka Aalto University, Espoo, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_8

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moreover, their adoption of digital communication cultures from memes and trolling to clever exploitation of online algorithms (Doerr, 2017; Titley, 2019; Topinka, 2018; Tuters & Hagen, 2020). Furthermore, scholars have suggested that discursive styles adopted by right-wing actors build on affective framings that predominantly seek to elicit negative emotions (e.g., Mishra, 2017; Salmela & Von Scheve, 2017). It has been pointed out that the circulation of such discourse in society has emotional, behavioral, and normative effects, as it increases prejudice, supports outgroup derogation, pushes the limits of legitimate speech, and shifts anti-discriminatory norms in the long term (e.g., Bilewicz & Soral, 2020; Soral et al., 2018; Udupa & Pohjonen, 2019). Existing studies have explored the far-right discourse in political outputs and media performances (e.g., Ellinas, 2010; Moffitt, 2017), but also in online communication such as websites and blogs (e.g., Atton, 2006; Pettersson & Sakki, 2020; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016) or social networking services (e.g., Hakoköngas et al., 2020; Maly, 2019). Most of these studies focus on the textual dimension of the content (cf. Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Pettersson & Sakki, 2020). However, political discourse is increasingly expressed and shared in visual formats from photographs to videos, infographics, and memetic image macros (e.g., Amit-Danhi & Shifman, 2018; Marchal et al., 2021). Such forms of communication are supported by the interfaces and algorithms of social media services; many current social media services are built around visual content (e.g., Instagram, TikTok), and it has been suggested that visual content performs better on social media (Lie & Xie, 2020). Following Serafinelli and Villi (2017), it seems that these technologies push us—and political actors—to think in terms of visuality. Indeed, aided by technological platforms, we live in a predominantly visual culture (Evans & Hall, 1999; Leaver et al., 2020). The circulation of visual content is an essential part of social media use (e.g., Carah, 2014), but also an increasingly important feature of digital political K. Nikunen Tampere University, Tampere, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

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discourse (Byford, 2019; Fenton, 2016; Nussbaum, 2016). Images are considered to bear political significance because they can easily condense and circulate complex meanings that might be difficult to express in words (Proitz, 2018). They are considered powerful elements of persuasion, as they elicit personal engagement, create memorable experiences, and carry the aura of authenticity (e.g., Byford, 2019; Joffe, 2008). Furthermore, through their ambiguity, they become objects on which affects are easily attached (Blair, 2004). Through sharing, circulation, and repetition, they become objects that accumulate value and collective emotions. This logic is referred to as affective economy by Sarah Ahmed (2004a). This chapter discusses the growing yet varying role of visual communication in the discourse of the far-right. Previous studies have focused on the role of memes and online videos in promoting far-right viewpoints, attacking their opponents, or securing political success through online communication (e.g., Ekman, 2014; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Heikkilä, 2017; Massanari & Chess, 2018; Topinka, 2018). This chapter adopts a broader perspective on the various forms of visual discourse by building on three previously collected datasets and case studies that focus on Finnish far-right actors and the visual dimensions of their presence on social media. First, we explore the visual affective practices on the Soldiers of Odin Facebook group as invitations to feel belonging in a collective. Second, we discuss the visually constructed authenticity in the YouTube videos by two prominent anti-immigration movements. Third, we look at the role of online images as network-weaving objects as they are circulated in social media to mobilize affects. The cases are representative of new kinds of far-right and antiimmigration movements who emerged around the so-called European refugee crisis in 2015–2017, when an unprecedented number of people sought asylum in Europe (e.g., Castelli-Gattinara, 2018). In 2015, Finland received over 32,000 asylum applications, nearly ten times the usual annual averages. As a result, refugee and asylum policies became central political issues. These debates were built on the already prevalent and normalized anti-immigrant rhetoric in political discourse, which followed the success of the populist anti-immigrant Finns Party in the

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national elections in 2008–2015 (Hatakka, 2017; Pettersson & Nortio, this volume). In this chapter, we conceptualize the visual rhetoric of the far-right as an important aspect of the technology-mediated affective economy of the political immigration question and digital racism.1 As forms of affective practices (Wetherell, 2012), visual forms of communication are essential to the circulation of racist discourses in the contemporary, mediated society. We first review the theoretical approach of investigating visual rhetoric as affective, discursive practices in the mediated affective economy. Then, through the three selected cases, we demonstrate the affective practices concentrated to visual content by the Finnish farright movements. We argue that instead of just accumulating negative emotions, visual discourse has a central role in the formation of these collectives. We conclude by discussing the importance of visual communication in producing anti-multiculturalist discourse and related social action, and the methodological issues that arise for discursive researchers when shifting the empirical focus from textual to visual content.

Affective Economies and Practices Recent research has emphasized the importance of affect and emotions in politics and in political communication. Effective messages are often framed affectively and build on figurative language (e.g., Burgers et al., 2016). They aim to bypass rational thinking by talking directly to the receivers’ prejudices and basic emotions such as joy or fear (e.g., Bennett & Livingston, 2018). Due to their effectiveness, emotions and affects are, thus, a resource for those in power or those who are striving to accumulate power by generating social movements. Even though the emotional is often constructed as the opposite of rational (e.g., Billig, 1991), modern psychology considers the emotional and the rational as 1 Racism here refers to prejudice, discrimination, or marginalization of people and groups based on the belief of a race as a differentiating category. However, as argued by Song (2014) and Titley (2019) the concept of racism is constantly shifting and debated, which has led to question the existence of racism, its historical basis, and severity in public debates (also Pantti et al., 2019).

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deeply intertwined (e.g., Zajonc, 1998). Thus, emotions are integral for human decision-making and action. Emotions motivate people and support the formation of new groups and social action (e.g., Gould, 2010; Nussbaum, 2016; Persson, 2017). Thus, one way for political actors to exercise power is changing a society’s emotional atmosphere or bringing out new ‘regimes of feeling’ (Reddy, 2001). Scholars have argued that right-wing populist political leaders have managed to rise to power by taking advantage of the emotional cultural ‘era of anger’ that emerged as a response to modernity and globalization (Ahmed, 2004b; Mishra, 2017; Wodak, 2015). Also, within discursive psychology, recent research on discursive practices and their social implications has begun to consider embodied experiences, such as emotions (e.g., Wiggins & Osvaldsson Cromdal, 2020). Following this line of research, in this chapter we understand both emotions and affects as part of the same continuum in a similar way as Ahmed (2004a, 2004b), who sees both connected with meaning-making processes. Such an approach considers immediate affective reactions as part of a larger emotional pool that also include emotions of sadness, joy, or hope. While emotions or affective states could be considered as individual, biological, or even primary psychological reactions (Damasio, 1994), they are also social in the sense that they are influenced by cultural norms, social structures, technologies, and practices. Affects, thus, are also collective, which becomes visible in the compassionate, fearful, hateful, or ironic responses to public events (Nikunen, 2019; Wetherell, 2012). Indeed, this social and cultural approach to affects and affectivity is perhaps most well-known through the work by the cultural theorist Sara Ahmed (2004a, 2004b), who conceptualizes affects not as psychological states but as cultural practices and relationships between human bodies and cultural signs. Later, Margaret Wetherell (2012, 2015) has proposed to bridge the gap between psychological, discursive, and cultural accounts of affects by building on social psychological theories of affect and fostering a ‘productive dialogue’ between discursive and cognitive approaches. In this vein, Wetherell (2012) suggests that affects should be analyzed as practices. For her, affective practice is the ‘moment of recruitment and often synchronous assembling of multimodal resources’ (Wetherell,

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2012, p. 159) when humans, as both biological bodies and social actors, negotiate, evaluate, make decisions, and communicate based on their personal experiences, social structures, and cultural norms. Thus, affects are sedimented in social formations (p. 103); they are deeply intertwined with shared cultural and political understandings (Ahmed, 2004a; Nikunen, 2019; Wetherell, 2012). Affect, thus, is a distributed, relational, and historical phenomenon, entangled in contextual settings of social life (Wetherell, 2015). It is precisely these entanglements and contextual embeddedness that make affects powerful. Ahmed (2004a, 2004b) highlights that affects become powerful and gain value through circulation. They appear in discursive form as signs, figures, objects, and ideas, which then move in social relationships. In this circulation, affects and affective objects become shaped by conscious experiences and meaning-making processes.

Visual Communication as Affective Practices In many ways, the current media ecosystem not only mediates affects but also supports affectivity. Affectivity and affective attunements are essential to forming networked publics in digital environments (e.g., Papacharissi, 2015; Persson, 2017). Papacharissi (2015) depicts social media platforms as a storytelling infrastructure that enables the feeling of being present and invites forms of affective expression. Moreover, these infrastructures support affectivity by enabling circulation and repetition or the signs and figures they are attached to, which accumulates affects’ power (Ahmed, 2004a). Ahmed (2004a, 2004b) refers to this logic of circulation with the concept of affective economy. In the affective economy, racism and extreme nationalism gain power from collective, shared affects that acquire more value through repetition. Indeed, considering the growing prevalence of visual online content, exploring images and their circulation appears as central to the affective economy. Images have vibrant capacity to accumulate and carry meanings. Digital images seem to be sticky surfaces where affects nest (Ahmed, 2004a, 2004b; Byford, 2019; Horsti, 2016), and bring urgency and visibility to issues they are attached to (Pantti, 2016). Through visual

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communication, complex social and political issues might be reduced to simplistic visual frames that promote certain problem definitions, causal interpretations, or moral evaluations (Coleman, 2010; Zelizer, 2010). Visuals work to modify and amplify affect as audiences convert their affective understandings and assessments into visual expression (Doerr, 2017; Joffe, 2008; Proitz, 2018). Therefore, images are not just representations, but instead, networks of situated associations and affects (Carah, 2014). Through circulation, they contribute to the shared, affective discourses, thus highlighting the collective dimension of affective meaning-making (Nikunen, 2015). The effectiveness of images and their circulation as a political tool becomes understandable via the concept of affective economy (Ahmed, 2004a). Images have even more power than texts to modify and activate collective affects because they can convert the abstract, distant, and complex into the concrete, proximate, and simple with affective significance for large audiences (Proitz, 2018), thus contributing to the normalization of certain discourses (Crosset et al., 2019). However, the force of the images does not only stem from their ability to simplify things. As Margaret Wetherell (2012) has stated, historically produced interpretative associations are an inseparable part of images. Images carry along with them the history of repetition of certain discursive connections and meanings that gives image circulation its power as a political tool. The members of far-right communities presumably share a similar interpretative frame for certain images, and the possibility to react and comment on social media reassures that everyone in the community comes to understand the joint interpretation. In the context of right-wing politics, several recent studies have explored the different functions of visual communication. Studies applying qualitative, including discursive, approaches addressing farright images on social media have mainly focused on small samples of certain pictures, tracing the routes of individual images and related discourses (e.g., Byford, 2019; Horsti, 2016; Pantti, 2016). Some studies have explored the communicative value of YouTube for the far-right in building movement memory and political mobilization (e.g., Askanius & Mylonas, 2015; Ekman, 2014; Laaksonen et al., 2020). One prominent focus has been Internet memes that are used by far-right and

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alt-right groups as tools to crystallize the message in an easily shareable form that helps in reaching new audiences (Crosset et al., 2019; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020). As discursive signs, memes are strategically ambiguous (e.g., Shifman, 2013; Tuters & Hagen, 2020) and therefore fit well to construct the discourse of the others shown to be central for the far-right movement (Mudde, 2019; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). They are also well fitted to visualize the heroic past of the nation emphasized by far-right actors (Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Nikunen et al., 2021; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). As has been concluded in previous research that has brought discursive and visual perspectives together into a multimodal analytical approach (e.g., Burke, 2018; Hakoköngäs et al., 2020; Lennon & Kilby, 2020; Pettersson & Sakki, 2017, 2020; Sakki & Martikainen, 2020), such an approach is indeed essential if one aims to capture the multi-layered, complex and persuasive dimensions of online political communication. In the remainder of this chapter, we explore the visual communication by the Finnish far-right as discursive, affective practices in the affective economy facilitated by social media platforms. For them, visual communication is a practice of assembling multimodal resources to build affective, social, and political formations, which advance the political goals of these groups and through their persuasive power, take part in forming the general discourse of multiculturalism in the Finnish society. In this chapter, in line with the ‘affective turn’ in discursive psychology advanced in particular by Margaret Wetherell (2012) we examine emotions as practices entangled with the visual and discursive communication of far-right actors, and how these serve to appeal to, mobilize and persuade an audience (cf. Augoustinos, this volume). The three cases explored in this chapter are reported elsewhere, but in this chapter, we revisit them with the lens of visual affectivity. All the material we report on is collected from public social media sites and are thus freely available for research use (e.g., TENK, 2019). However, as the pictures often portray persons, they are personal data and therefore require ethical considerations. This means, for example, that re-publishing the images would require permission from both copyright holders as well as the persons in the pictures. Due to the controversial nature of the actors studied, we do not have the required permissions. Furthermore, we

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acknowledge that re-printing the images also takes part in their affective circulation. Therefore, we have omitted the actual images from this chapter but aimed to describe their content in detail.

Visual Dimensions of Soldiers of Odin Our first case study explored the collective dimensions of visual affective practice in the Soldiers of Odin (SOO, see Bauvois, Pyrhönen & Pyysiäinen, this volume) Facebook group. We looked at the visual affective practice of sharing visual content in a particular social context of the movement and the sociotechnical environment of Facebook, and the ways in which political ideologies are driven affectively through visual collective practices (Nikunen et al., 2021). While social media platforms shape and encourage certain forms of interaction, groups tend to establish their own particular practices and affective styles over time. The starting point of the study was to explore how the SOO’s Facebook site invites ‘affective attunement’ through sharing images: how affectivity in social media is connected to the visual and discursive meaningmaking process, technological affordances, and relations between users and communities. We analyzed 286 images posted in the SOO Facebook group.2 To understand how images evoke their affective character, it is important to analyze not only their representational level, but also how images become embedded and shaped in circuits of social practice. To do this we analyzed the representational level of the images (what is in the image), their mode (how images are constructed, sourced, and circulated ), and their reactions (how images are responded to with the emoji reactions Like, Love, Haha, Wow, Sad, Angry3 ). (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Rose, 2014). We first categorized all images in different themes and then chose the three largest themes for further analysis: (1) Muslims/migrants 2 Data was collected through the Facebook Graph API. The analyzed images were posted between December 2015 (when the SOO Facebook group was founded) and February 2017. 3 We understand that these reactions arise from a limited selection of emoticons and should not be interpreted as an exhaustive reflection of the emotions and affects in the group, but rather those supported by the platform.

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(2) Vikings, and (3) Self-portraits of SOO members. The three groups of images presented different affective repertoires and they also invited distinct emotional reactions. The first group of images depicted stereotypical representations of Muslims and migrants as dangerous or bogus asylum seekers. The mode of these images was propagandist; they constituted selective, exaggerated, manipulative, coordinated efforts to influence perceptions of particular groups of people, Muslims and migrants (Cole, 1996). Their generic framing draws on a digital bricolage culture of memes, which produce associative and stereotypical ideas—general rather than detailed and contextual (e.g., Shifman, 2013). With memetic comparisons and visual combinations, the images sought to ‘disclose the ugly truth’ about Muslims and migrants as allegedly violent, primitive frauds. Posting and sharing these images visualized the group’s ideological grounds and legitimized the SOO’s role as protectors. Not surprisingly, propagandist images were reacted to mostly with anger and ‘haha’ reactions. Anger and laughter appeared to respond to the claims inscribed in the representations, and as public responses, these reactions also fortified their affective feel. The images in the second theme consisted of pictures of Vikings and their god, Odin. They draw on Viking figures as ‘racially pure’, representing superior strong white masculinity. The pagan cult of Odinism has rapidly gained popularity in North American and European neoNazi and far-right groups (e.g., Pollard, 2016). The mode of the images was mythical; drawings of ancient, ruthless Viking warriors operated on the level of fantasy. The images carried ‘mythic essence’: dark, dramatic drawings of objects and texts with a historical feel. The Viking imagery invented and naturalized the connection between the Viking warriors and the SOO. The mythic pictures were reacted to with hahas, likes, and loves, but more importantly, they were least reacted to with angry emoticons. While other themes evoked clear affective responses, the mythic images were responded to with more subdued reactions and embrace. The third theme was the most popular one consisting of images where the members of the Soldiers of Odin pose with their backs to the camera, showing the SOO logo on the back of their jackets. They convey a sense of joint masculine power and discipline with heavily built bodies and

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shaved heads. Posing in different places and settings, the images stressed the group’s sense of presence: We are everywhere. The mode of these images was phatic: they functioned to strengthen and maintain social relations, a sense of us-ness. Their affective force lay in their appearance, standing one after another, fortifying a sense of unity and togetherness. Again, not surprisingly these images were responded to mostly with likes and hearts, thus demonstrating their function as a positive reaction toward the group, solidifying the sense of community. Overall, the study showed how images and their responses together amplified particular affective registers; the group incorporated different sensibilities of propagandist, mythic, and phatic communication and reacted to these images distinctly. The clear differences in the reactions among the three themes illustrate how visual affective practice works. Each image theme attracted distinct reactions, whereas the group shared an understanding of how to respond with shared norms of interpretation. Visual affective practice was also furthered by the social media infrastructures, affordances, and platform policies such as an imperative of sharing, algorithmically enhanced networks of like-minded groups and space for community-building. Overall, the public sharing of images and their reactions operated as a collective visual practice reflecting and shaping moral values. This further demonstrates the importance of visual affective practice in political identity-building and the ways it is used to legitimize controversial, harmful ideas and activities, such as racism, as a collective, affective truth in a new media environment.

Affective Authenticity of Anti-Immigration Online Videos The pictures of SOO members posing on the streets was not the only dimension of visual narration connecting physical and virtual spaces during the so-called refugee crisis. Our second case example focuses on the video activism of Finnish anti-immigration movements; the ways in which they used online videos to stream and record their street activism during demonstrations 2016–2017 (Laaksonen et al., 2020). We investigated the YouTube presence established by two major Finnish

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anti-immigration movements, Finland First (Suomi Ensin) and Close the Borders! (Rajat kiinni!), and key figures associated with the movements. These Finnish groups have followed the international trajectory of YouTube becoming a dominant space for the far-right as alternative media (e.g., Askanius & Mylonas, 2015; Ekman, 2014). We used network analysis combined with qualitative analysis of the video content and genres to examine how YouTube was utilized by these emergent groups for movement building and promoting their views of the refugee question. Our focus in the original study (Laaksonen et al., 2020) was on the forms and discursive strategies utilized in the anti-immigration video activism. Through the qualitative analysis we divided the videos into three main categories, based on their style, content, and function: documentation (live streaming and recording events), vlogs, and re-cuts (re-framed content, edited compilations of other material). Furthermore, by exploring the chosen message strategies we identified three central strategies of video activism: movement building through documentation, discursive controversy generation, and personal branding practices. The combination of genres and strategies interestingly builds on existing wellknown genres from both mainstream television and from YouTube itself, thus generating a mixture of traditional media and platform logics. They construct not only the collective movement identity, but also emerging proto-political and political personalities. The genre of documentation was most prominent in our data. It consisted of videos that reproduce the documentary reporting style of mainstream television, with an aim to authentically observe real events such as demonstrations and marches as they happen. The visual presentation often included an audio commentary that further framed the events shown visually. Live-streaming and documentaries were used to mediate visual material directly from the Suomi Maidan sit-in counterdemonstration that went on for several months in central Helsinki, showing the quarrels the demonstrators had with the neighboring sit-in demonstration by the refugees and their allies, or with the police. These videos produced a visual archive for the collective identity of the movement, with an aim to promote affective inclusion for like-minded spectators

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and supporting circulation of not only the discourse, but also the visual experience. As an immediate and affective practice, the videos extend the space and time of street action and foster discursive and affective participation remotely (also Ekman, 2014). By live-streaming their political struggle online, the anti-immigration activists presented themselves as victims of the too permissive immigration policies, but at the same time as soldiers defending the nation from the ‘dangerous, illegal immigrants’, inviting the online viewers as their witnesses. Indeed, a prominent discursive strategy in the videos, both in audio and visual material, was to create antagonism, otherness, and resentment toward the discursively constructed common enemy—the immigrants and the pro-immigration activists. By constructing the other, they also built their own movement and promoted us-ness like the case of Soldiers of Odin. Thus, in their video practices, the anti-immigration activists clearly followed the discursive framing of the otherness that has been shown to be a prominent feature of far-right rhetoric (e.g., Mudde, 2019; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). Visually, this was done, first, by video recording any events where there seemed to be immigrants or pro-immigration activists acting in an undisciplined manner, intruding the nationalists’ demonstration, or having debates with the police. Second, contradictions were frequently built by re-framing media content from the mainstream media by visual or contextual elements such as video titles, descriptions, or subtitling. Another authenticity-enforcing genre prominent in our data were the vlogs: following the emblematic genre of YouTube, these videos typically featured an individual or a few persons talking to the camera in monologue style, inviting input from their viewers. Some were diary-like, long sessions filmed in a domestic setting, while others were more programmatic talk-show-style sessions with regular showtime and sometimes invited guests. The most established channel was the weekly YouTube talk-show branded as ‘Hate-speech FM’, which featured two hosts in a domestic setting, discussing current issues and commenting on national and international mainstream media reports in a talk-show style. This channel also had a branded visual identity with starting frames and overlay texts.

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Aesthetically, the anti-immigration documentary videos were amateurish and unedited, lacking the stylized imagery and symbolism present in the Soldiers of Odin pictures or in neo-fascist videos (Ekman, 2014). The lack of post-production elements could be considered as one way of conveying authenticity, however, combined with genre styles that clearly borrow from existing media formats. This was particularly evident on one channel in our data that focused on streaming investigative journalism style documentaries from everyday situations where Finns were experiencing some kind of alleged injustice due to special rights given to immigrants or refugees. The affective attunement of anger related to injustice can be a powerful feeling motivating social action (Nussbaum, 2016). Only the Hate-speech FM show differentiated from our material with its visually and structurally branded style—while the rhetoric still stayed faithful to the genre of rough, rude, and authentic language like the other videos. As an affective practice, the online videos were a form of emotional investment from the activists, building both us-ness and otherness and through them constructing and reinforcing controversies through the visual authenticity afforded by the live video clips. The videos became assembled as visual resources to the narrative of the far-right actors, bringing immediacy and a sense of realness to their political claims. They combined a feeling of authentic presentation, showing and archiving things as they happen with the credibility introduced by adopted media genres that the receivers are familiar with. Thus, they live by and make use of existing visual conventions.

Affective Economy of Circulating Visuals For the images to gain prominence and affectivity, they need to be shared and circulated in the affective economy (Ahmed, 2004a). Our third case study (Hokka & Nelimarkka, 2020) focused on the circulation of far-right and nationalist-populist images online by scrutinizing

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the image circulation of Finnish nationalist-populist Facebook groups.4 The study showed how the possibility to circulate images among users and groups—a foundational feature of online platforms—creates space for implementing and spreading far-right rhetoric. Reacting to images, commenting on images, and circulating them are affective practices through which shared collective affects and emotions of far-right and nationalist-populist supporters, such as fear, insecurity, resentment, and hatred toward perceived ‘enemies’ (Salmela & Scheve, 2017) can be expressed. We first conducted a thematic analysis of the 7607 images that circulated in the Finnish nationalist-populist Facebook groups. In the analysis, each image was categorized according to its theme. Over one third of the images (37.2%) were related to refugees and/or Muslim immigrants, in general, people of color that were represented in a stereotypical way. Less than one third (24.3%) criticized institutions of the ‘elite’ such as the government and the EU, but also the leftist movements or politicians. Nearly 10% of the images presented could be considered as extreme ‘nationalist’, portraying either Finnish soldiers in the Second World War or the actions of the far-right groups themselves. Together these images strongly marked the ‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’ of the nation: immigrants and/or people of color, feminists, and ‘leftists’ were mocked relentlessly whereas ‘white (male) warriors’ or far-right activists were hailed as saviors of the nation and the white race. Yet, a closer look into the online practices of image circulation revealed that not only the number of images is significant when analyzing the rhetoric of far-right images. Certain images are more ‘sticky’ than others as they grab users’ attention in the constant flow of social media content and make them react (Paasonen, 2016). Thus, reactions, likes, comments, and sharing indicate that the user has invested their affective attention to these particular images, and used their time to react by liking, writing a comment, or possibly sharing the image. For this reason, we took three central images into closer investigation: (1) the most reacted image, (2) the most commented image, and (3) the most 4

The size of the communities varied from a few hundred to nearly 64,000 users. Data were collected from February 2009 to February 2017 using Facebook API. Most images were posted in late 2015 and early 2016. In total, we collected 54,688 posts and 7607 images.

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circulated image; and conducted a discourse-historical analysis (Reisigl & Wodak, 2009) to see which kind of images catalyzed feelings and actions. The most reacted image depicted a demonstration by the Soldiers of Odin in the main street of the city of Tampere, Finland, in February 2016. Although the SOO Facebook group was clearly the largest community (over 60,000 members) during the research period, and politically significant as the previous case shows, SOO was not the most active community: three other communities had significantly more posts and comments despite their smaller size. In the image, the marchers are pictured from behind, which underlines their unity in their similar black jackets with the SOO logo. It is an image of men-as-soldiers that represents and intertwines masculinity, discipline, power, and nationalism as heroic virtues in front of the perceived enemy (see Ekman, 2014; MillerIdriss, 2017; Mosse, 1996). The vast number of reactions demonstrates the affective force of the image and indicates which kind of images are most strongly approved by the Finnish nationalist-populist movement. The most commented image was an image of the freshly crowned Miss Helsinki with the runners-up in January 2017. The post related to the image was written in English, indicating that the original sender, who probably was Finnish, wanted to reach international audiences. Even though the commenters apparently came from different countries across Europe and North America, they repeated the similar, racist interpretations of the image, either explicitly or ironically declaring the new Miss Helsinki as unfit to represent ‘Finnishness’ because of her dark skin color and mocking her appearance either as manly or ape-like, so engaging in blatant dehumanization of her (Haslam, 2006). The comments illustrated how commenting works as an affective practice which enables expression of collective resentment and hatred. They also indicated how the affective economy of image circulation works on online platforms: the reactions and discussions related to images offer a space for far-right groups to create bonding between its members locally and transnationally by repeating similar messages and getting approval from other members. The third image that was most circulated among the Finnish nationalist-populist Facebook groups was a modification of Finland’s

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coat of arms. The official coat of arms has a yellow lion on red background, but the modification had the same colors as the Finnish flag: blue and white, which are generally considered to be ‘national’ colors. The modification was accompanied with a Finnish text: ‘Finland first. We will not surrender; we will not give up’. This clear, easy-to-share message was the likely reason for its wide circulation. The text referred to a claim of a constant threat to the nation, both inside the state (e.g., immigrants and other ‘suspicious’ groups) and outside (e.g., the EU or certain non-European countries). The claim is typical of extreme nationalist movements throughout Europe (Bowman-Grieve, 2009; Ekman, 2014; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Salmela & Scheve, 2017). The image works as a call to battle for the members of the far-right and nationalist groups. Its ‘stickiness’ and affective force is grounded on the shared fear against invasion by the mentioned groups and hatred against the enemy. Yet, images were not only circulated between local groups. Rather, our investigation showed how image circulation on a transnational and global level fueled far-right movements. To track the movement of the over 7600 images shared in these groups, we conducted a reverse search to find images like those on the communities.5 Image fingerprinting and similarity analysis was used to identify exact matches. To explore the transnational dimension, we applied automated language detection to examine the main site of each image URL domain and its language to identify Finnish sites and non-Finnish sites. The list was then manually curated to highlight large global platforms (e.g., Instagram, Pinterest, imgur), as on these platforms the language of the site would not correctly indicate potential users’ nationalities. The analysis of the image circulation from and to the Finnish nationalist-populist and far-right groups showed that the great majority of the images had been published on some non-Finnish, such as Swedish or British sites too, either before or after appearing on Finnish Facebook groups. The images from Finnish websites and global platforms were in the minority. However, when we analyzed which images were most often shared on the Finnish Facebook communities, the significant role 5 This was done using the meta reverse image search service Incandescent (http://incandescent. xyz/).

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of global platforms became evident; the analysis revealed that an image also present on a global platform was shared more often in the studied communities than images from Finnish or non-Finnish sites. Therefore, global platforms seem to have a central role in image circulation in the cross-national context. The results of the third study implicate the significance of image sharing and circulation for the far-right movements. Even though the analysis scrutinized the image circulation in Finnish far-right and nationalist-populist Facebook communities, our investigation offers a broader view on the affective practices of image circulation among transnational far-right movements. While the ‘stickiest’ images in the Finnish communities came from Finland, even these images related to the transnational far-right network either ideologically or through the platform features, such as commenting. Furthermore, the platforms themselves act effectively both as an image resource and as a publication channel. Thus, the local far-right, although motivated by local concerns, can use transnational and global image material to strengthen their supporter’s ideological and affective stances.

Conclusion Our three cases demonstrate the crucial role of visual communication for the far-right groups whose discourses are mediated in the affective economy sustained by social media platforms. Images work to amplify affective registers and sensibilities typical for the groups. This was particularly visible in the propagandistic, mythic, and phatic communication styles present in the images shared in the Soldiers of Odin group, where the emotional reactions implied that there is a shared register of affective interpretations. Similarly, the modified coat of arms image that was the most circulated image among the nationalist-populist Facebook groups highlighted fear against invasion and love toward the own nation—both deemed central and sticky affective stances to the right-wing nationalistic discourse (see Sakki & Pettersson, 2016; Salmela & Scheve, 2017). Visual affective practices, supported by social media infrastructure, support community-building of the like-minded across time and space

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(Byford, 2019). This was particularly visible in the shared visual– emotional repertoire in the Soldiers of Odin visuals, but also in the affectively framed YouTube communication by Suomi Ensin and Rajat Kiinni! movements. The YouTube videos further worked to generate visual authenticity and immediacy for the movements’ messages, afforded timeliness through the streaming video practice. The third study proved how image circulation enables the functioning of affective economy that fuels the far-right movement as it creates a sphere for expressing far-right discourse as well as belonging to the ‘white race’ and the ‘right’ political group. Thus, the visual discourse of these groups acts as an argument for mobilization, identification, and positioning (e.g., Joffe, 2008; Potter, 2012). Further, visuals play a crucial role in constructing and positioning the antagonists, the deviant others (see Crosset et al., 2019; Mudde, 2019; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016). Among the images that circulated in the national-populist Facebook groups over one third were representations of stereotypical Muslim immigrants or refugees, and the secondlargest group represented elite institutions or leftist groups. Both groups were also discursively constructed as a common enemy throughout the YouTube material in our second study, by filming their actions with a stigmatizing commentary, and by generating derogating re-cuts of their appearances in mainstream media. Visuals, thus, play a role in legitimizing controversial ideas and harmful stereotypes as they become embedded in the collectively created, affective truth shared in these digital collectives, again essential for the discursive constitution of the collective negative emotions (e.g., Wodak, 2015). Investigating the affective visual practices by the Finnish far-right groups also sheds light on the transnational networking capabilities afforded by the images. It could be argued that images are more polysemic and ambiguous than text (e.g., Joffe, 2008), which means the sender has less control over the elicited emotions: the affective assemblage is a precarious structure and risky strategy for political mobilization. However, given the shared registry of affects evident through the emotional reactions given to images in the Soldiers of Odin group, it seems that the affective stances and related discourses are consolidated enough in the far-right movement. Furthermore, the traces of

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transnational network-weaving on YouTube shows that these affective and visual practices have the potential to connect the nationalist groups across borders and language-barriers. Image circulation seems to create and sustain rightist and nationalist networks and connections that twist between local groups, transnational sites, and global platforms. In this way, the visual discourse and its circulation work as effective political tools to gather existing and potential supporters together online and unify the political message of the far-right supporters on a transnational level. All in all, it is crucial how the increasingly visual communication on the social media platforms generates a supporting infrastructure of social mobilization. We suggest that the affective stances typical of the right-wing movements, such as anger, shame, and feelings of injustice, accompanied with the heroic nationalistic narratives, are particularly well-suited for the affective, discursive, and visual practices afforded and encouraged by social media. Most notably, the design and algorithms of the platforms support and encourage sharing and circulating images, simultaneously reinforcing their affective stances. This is further supported by features such as the emoji reactions implemented by Facebook in 2018. Furthermore, while previous research has emphasized the centrality of negative emotions to the far-right movement (e.g., Mishra, 2017; Salmela & Von Scheve, 2017), our empirical cases demonstrate how they also have a generative role in the sense that they enhance the sense of community among the far-right actors online. The affectively framed visuals seem to play a fundamental part in achieving this, as also suggested, for example, by Joffe (2008). Based on our empirical cases it could be stated that emotions and visual communication are an essential feature of the social formations that feed the attention and success of these movements. Indeed, it is not only a question of visuality or circulating visuals, but how these visual elements live and produce further life in their contextual settings: how the visuals are reacted to, how they elicit identification, and how they are shared and circulated. They simultaneously operate by producing presence and immediacy, but also movement memory through a visual archive. Thus, they invite affective attunement with the

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far-right discourses and ideologies in the present but also in a historical continuum. Furthermore, affect and visual representation are deeply intertwined with political understandings and arguments central to these groups—in Wetherell’s (2012) terms, in the assemblages of multimodal resources. This generates a call for a multifaceted exploration of these assemblages. As Fenton (2016) points out, the radical politics itself cannot be left out from the analyses of digital mobilization. Therefore, it is ever more important to study also the verbal and visual political discourses connected to nationalism, multiculturalism, and racism, as well as the psychological processes related to their reception (see also Pettersson & Sakki, 2020). Methodologically, however, studying visual content and its circulation in the digital environment introduces novel challenges for research, particularly when exploring large visual datasets. While there are established methodological approaches for studying image content and composition in qualitative research (e.g., Kress & Van Leeuwen, 1996), they are laborious and therefore only recommended for smaller sets of data. Automated methods to provide textual label objects that the visual recognition system ‘sees’ on pictures are emerging and increasingly used by social scientists (Bosch et al., 2019; Naik et al., 2017). However, raw image labels only provide a rough perspective on what is on the image, and thus rarely directly answer questions relevant for social sciences (Naik et al., 2017). An alternative approach is to use images as raw data; this can be done to identify similar images via image fingerprints, like we did to explore image circulation, sort images by colors, or draw composite images that represent multiple images (Pearce et al., 2020). The benefit of these approaches is that they are native to the visual mode, whereas transforming the image into text labels reduces the representation. Nevertheless, particularly from a discursive psychological orientation, visual analysis calls for human eyes (cf. Augoustinos, this volume). Our studies all applied a mixed methods design. This shows our preference to include human interpretation in the analysis, following ideas prominent also in large-scale analysis of textual data (Grimmer & Stewart, 2013; Laaksonen et al., 2017). Furthermore, analysis of visual content on platforms cannot be separated from understanding the platforms, their affordances, and context, which further highlights the need to

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bring in humans into the analysis. Finally, the landscape of social media is constantly changing. Many newer visual platforms offer fewer opportunities to automatically extract and track content. Therefore, tracing the visual communication by radical political groups becomes increasingly difficult, albeit it is ever more important for understanding their role in society. To this end, we strongly advocate interdisciplinary research endeavors that bring communications and discursive psychological perspectives into dialogue, as this chapter has aimed to do. Acknowledgements This research has received funding from Academy of Finland grant no 295948 (HYBRA). The authors wish to thank Mervi Pantti and Gavan Titley and other members of the Hybra team who contributed to the data collection and analysis.

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9 “A Counterforce Against Hate”: A Discursive Analysis of Affective Practices in Mobilization Against the Radical Right in a Context of White Innocence Minna Seikkula Why Silakat [Baltic herrings]? This Christmas we saw something exceptionally cruel. Two children under the age of 7, evacuated from the al-Hol camp to safety in Finland, were chased by car and on foot by dozens of adult people. These racist pursuers livestreamed the chase on their YouTube channels. Hundreds of viewers were watching the streams and writing derogatory comments about the children, as well as guiding the streamers to catch the children. They also collectively found out the names of the authorities [assisting the children]. […] These events are sad proof that racism and the populist politics that encourages hatred has gone too far. Founding call of Silakkaliike, signed 25.12.2019 by 12 co-founders (translation by author) M. Seikkula (B) University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_9

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This is how the founders of Silakkaliike, a mobilization against the radical right in Finland, describe the reason for initiating a new group. The passage refers to an affect-loaded series of events that took place in Helsinki, Finland and online during Christmas 2019. Throughout the autumn, there had been media disputes over whether the Finnish government should repatriate Finnish citizens, 11 Finnish women and their 33 children, from the al-Hol camp in north-eastern Syria. Like the other inhabitants of the camp, the Finnish women and children were relatives and family members of Isis combatants. In late December 2019, Finnish authorities evacuated two orphaned children from the camp. The above quoted passage refers to a peculiar episode upon the arrival of the young children, escorted by Finnish authorities at the airport in Helsinki. Radical right youtubers, or “the racist pursuers” mentioned in the quotation, stalked the children at the airport. Their livestream of the arrival of the young children provoked hundreds of hateful and derogatory comments. Even if the harassment of young children appeared bizarre, the different forms of media activism have been a part of the intimidation strategies by far and extreme right supporters and anti-immigration activists in Finland—sometimes also overlapping with the activities by the Finns Party, in particular (see Ylä-Anttila et al., 2019). The local Finns Party organization in Helsinki also shared the streamed material in their social media feed. At the same time, harassment of young orphans on Christmas provoked an outcry against “the racists”. The quotation above summarizes the founding narrative (see Polletta, 2009) of Silakkaliike (Herring movement), a mobilization that according to the founders drew inspiration from the Italian Movimento delle sardine (Sardines movement) against the far-right in Italy and that quickly gained online popularity during the last days of December 2019 and early January 2020. The emotionally loaded story of young, orphaned children being harassed during Christmas by evil racists points to an affect-filled antagonism on which many antiracist discussions and mobilizations rely on— racism is often connected to extremist deeds about “whose horror there is universal consensus” (Lentin, 2016, 35). It is possible that clear-cut antagonisms facilitate mobilization of social movements, and appealing stories most certainly do so (Polletta, 2009). In less than a week the

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Silakkaliike online mobilization that outspokenly protested against the harassment of “al-Hol orphans”, but also more broadly against “racism, populism and politics fuelling hatred”, had engaged over 20,000 people in a Finnish-language Facebook group (which in the context of Finnishspeaking social media is a significant amount). The first discussions in the Facebook group addressed in many ways the question who can, and who should be, members or supporters of Silakkaliike. Although the mobilization’s prominent face in public, one of the founders, Johannes Koski, was a social media savvy, urban, liberal activist and a white nativespeaking Finn, the discussants joining the Silakkaliike group were keen to remind each other that they were and they welcomed people of different ages, also from rural locations and across the political spectrum. Whether or not Finns Party supporters fit into the group rose quickly as one heated topic in the group. More broadly, there seemed to be confusion—Silakkaliike supporters seemed to agree that they were up against “racists” and “populists”, but how to transform this into action appeared unclear to many. One concern that was not articulated in the predominantly, but not exhaustively white group, was how the mobilization appeared from the perspective of those people subjected to racism. As such, the Silakkaliike discussions reflect more general tendencies in antiracist discussions that have been identified in earlier research, namely, the attachment to the figure of the racist (Ahmed, 2012; see also Gilory, 1990) and focus on racism as an exceptional phenomenon (Goldberg, 2009; Lentin, 2016). In this chapter, I analyze the online discussions that took place right after the founding of Silakkaliike in late December 2019 and early January 2020. More specifically, I approach the discussions through the notion of affective practice (Wetherell, 2012)—the discursive patterns (in this case, repetition in written language) that emotional or affective expression towards distinct objects create. This means that I combine in my approach discursive psychological analysis of affective practice with critical theorization of race, racism and antiracism (Goldberg, 2009; Lentin, 2011, 2016; Wekker, 2016). I identify three distinct forms of affective practice that centre first, on refrainment from hate and from emotions in general; second, on disgust; and third, on a quest for hope.

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An analysis of these modes of affective practice sheds light on repetitive patterns in antiracist discussions from a previously under-addressed perspective, namely, theorization of affect. By answering the question of how antiracist mobilization is articulated as an affective practice, I provide a nuanced understanding of possibilities and challenges in antiracist organizing against the radical right. At the same time, my analysis exemplifies how critical theorization of racism and antiracism benefit from analytical tools developed in the discursive psychological approach.

Critical Analyses of Antiracism and Affective Practice A relatively established point of view in critical theorization of racism and antiracism is that race and racism are systematically dismissed in contemporary discussions (e.g. Bonilla-Silva, 2018; Goldberg, 2009)— observations on continuous denial and belittling of racism have also been made in discursive and social psychological research (e.g. van Dijk, 1992; Wetherell & Potter, 1992). Critical analyses of antiracism develop this observation further by pointing out that partial understanding of race and racism also characterizes some of those approaches that label themselves antiracist (e.g. Gilroy, 1990; Lentin, 2016; Pitcher, 2009). In fact, a repeated scholarly critique is that antiracism assumes a raceneutral social reality against which racism is observed as an exceptional phenomenon (ibid.) instead of grasping racialized inequalities, exclusion and exploitation as part of European societies (see Goldberg, 2009; Lentin, 2011). In such discursive environments, antiracism tends to imagine “a clear and straightforward confrontation between racism and itself, between racists and antiracists and (in the most reductive sense), between ‘good’ and ‘bad’” (Pitcher, 2009, 11). In other words, racism is intelligible through its exceptional perpetrators, in a supposedly racismfree environment. Such an orientation risks leaving racialized relations and experiences of everyday racism untouched, and hence it reinforces white normativity (see Seikkula, 2019b). One way to articulate an analytical description of such settings has been the notion of white innocence

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(Wekker, 2016), which also provides an analytical trajectory for understanding a denial of race and racism in a context of a small Northern European nation state, as I will explain more thoroughly in the next section. While I suggest that the scholarly critique against exceptionalist understandings of racism provides an insightful perspective for comprehending racism, and also highlights potential pitfalls of antiracism, I further suggest that it is worth considering the repeated juxtaposition “between ‘good’ and ‘bad’” as Pitcher (2009, 11) has it, from the perspective of theorization of affect. In the field of cultural studies, theorization of affects has highlighted affects or emotions as relationality towards objects. Affects describe distinct orientations towards objects as well as intensity of those orientations. Meanwhile they also show how human beings become invested in social norms (see Ahmed, 2004, 2010). Some affects draw us closer to the objects they are projected on, other affects encourage withdrawal from the object they are attached to. In other words, affects have a constitutive role in social and cultural boundary-making—or, as Wetherell et al. (2018, 2) explain, attention to affect “allows us to deepen our understanding of how people develop attachments and commitments to the past, things, beliefs, places, traditions and institutions”. A focus on affect provides an opportunity to better grasp what makes antiracist mobilization against the radical right dis/appealing and how it relates to narratives and identities included in the cultural reservoir. While Ahmed’s (2004) discussion on distinct affects and their effects is illustrative as it comes to the orientation that they tune (proximity/withdrawal), her discussion is less explicit on the ways in which affects can be observed or analyzed in social science. Affect undeniably refers also to bodily processes, neural firing and non-verbal communication—yet, as stressed by Wetherell (2012, 2013) who develops a theory of affect for social scientific research, a great part of the power of affect is constructed within the discursive order. Wetherell stresses affects as part of meaning-making processes—or, in her words “it is the discursive that very frequently makes affect powerful, makes it radical and provides the means for affect to travel” (Wetherell, 2012, 20). In other words, affects are mediated (also) through discourse, and thus expression of affects

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through the discursive is a central location for an analysis of affect. I maintain that her approach can be read in parallel to Ahmed’s (2004) theorization of the circulation of affect and affective value. In this sense, affects do not reside in us nor in the objects we desire, fear, hate or love. Instead, affects are generated and circulated through routine, repetition and rituals in human interaction. Wetherell (2012) develops affective practice as a unit of analysis. She suggests that analysis of affective practice allows us to observe “the organization of discursive and emotional regimes as well as their practical and situated patterning” (ibid., 98). How then is one to observe affective practice? Wetherell et al. (2018, 5) suggest that among the central elements of affective practice are “retrospective sense-making around emotion episodes, the cultural resources available to mediate affect, and the subject and identity positioning process”. In other words, accounts on emotion as well as emotional or affective accounts on ourselves (or those who are not-us) are key elements in analyzing affective practice. Drawing on such a discursive understanding of affective practice, I analyze the ways in which Silakkaliike supporters’ discussions on the goals and strategies of their mobilization are mediated by affective practices, which I label disgust and hope as well as refraining from emotion.

Antiracist and Anti-Fascist Mobilizations in Finland Before I introduce the material for my analysis, a few words on the significance of mobilizations against the radical right in Finland are in order. Since the mid-2000s, the pan-European anti-immigration racist agenda has been efficiently disseminated in Finnish-language political debates (e.g. Horsti, 2015; Keskinen, 2013; Mäkinen, 2017). A great deal of mainstreaming of parliamentary anti-immigration racism—a set of rhetorical means and advocacy for practices that portray European whiteness both superior and under an attack (see Keskinen, 2013)— has been done by the Finns Party (although also other political parties have contributed to anti-immigration racism, see ibid., 226). At the

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same time, a partly overlapping development has been the emergence of non-parliamentary extreme-right groups (cf. Mäkinen, 2017) and related far-right social media sites (see Ylä-Anttila et al., 2019). At the same time, if not before, ever since the Finns Party’s grand victory in the 2011 parliamentary election, the party’s blatant anti-immigration racist political rhetoric has marked the party members and supporters to occupy the position of “the racists” in the public imagination in Finland (Horsti, 2015; Mäkinen, 2016). This has made racism, a previously silenced topic, the subject of heated societal and political debates (see Seikkula, 2019a, 98). Yet, from a perspective of critical race analysis, these discussions often cover only a part of the phenomenon (cf. Seikkula, 2019b). Racism is the subject of heated debates because the anti-immigration racist stand has also been vocally contested. In other words, like other European countries, anti-immigration racism has provoked counterreactions in Finland, although possibly in smaller scale (cf. Fella & Ruzza, 2013). There has been relatively little scholarly discussion on nonparliamentary initiatives directly challenging the extreme and far-right (see Hatakka, 2020; Seikkula, 2019b). However, since the mid-2010s, a couple of antiracist mass demonstrations have mobilized an unforeseen number of people to protest explicitly against anti-immigration racist statements by far-right parliamentary politicians, and violence by non-parliamentary, right-wing extremists (see Haavisto, 2018; Rastas & Seye, 2019). Regarding online activism, Horsti (2015) briefly mentions the antiracist strategy to expose online racist speech to the public, and Hatakka (2020) analyzes such practice in more detail from a media studies perspective. Nikunen (2018) and Haavisto (2020) analyze solidarity with refugees as a counterforce against anti-immigration racism; Pantti (2016) addresses popular reactions that anti-immigration racist protests provoke on social media platforms. The work by Hatakka, Horsti, Nikunen, Haavisto and Pantti gives some indication of the fact that anti-immigration racist stands have not simply been accepted by the general public in Finland—even if anti-fascist antiracism is considered marginal (see Seikkula, 2019b). The Silakkaliike mobilization should be understood as a part of the continuum of such reactions.

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While counter-reactions against the radical right often explicate their critique as one against racism, they rarely address racialized relations or race. A persistent belief that Finland has existed “outside of racist histories and pasts” (Tuori, 2009, 20) still shapes much of the context within which also antiracist activism operates. Like other Nordic countries, a false image of a white and homogeneous nation—maintained also through excluding the histories of minorities and their struggles—has been particularly hard to dislodge from the metanarratives within the nation-state discourses. Through analytical terminology provided by critical theorization of race, racism and antiracism, the Finnish context could be described as one of “white innocence” (see Wekker, 2016). White innocence points to patterns of imagining racism-free spaces, either by linking racism to countries like the United States of South Africa, or to societal margins at home, “located in working-class circles” (Wekker, 2016, 525). White innocence describes the broader framework of the online discussions I analyze.

Material and Methods The material for this study consists of the twenty most commented discussion threads that mention racism in the Silakkaliike Facebook group during the seven days after Christmas 2019, between December 27, 2019 and January 4, 2020, and in addition, a public statement by the Silakkaliike founders (28.2.2019), and an info sheet of rules published by the group administrators (no date). The time from late December 2019 to early January 2020 covers the first days of the newly founded Silakkaliike that rapidly grew as an online community. The group was founded on December 25, 2019, and in early January it had already more than 20,000 members. I selected the twenty broadest discussions during the given time that in one way or another address the goal of Silakkaliike and/or its supporters to act against racism. Hence, the discussion threads possibly comment on racism and antiracism beyond the harassment of the two evacuated children during Christmas 2019. From early on, the Silakkaliike activists stressed that the movement has also other areas of interest, such as work against climate change denialism. However, the

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discussions on racism were the most prominent ones and other themes did not receive an equal amount of attention in the formative debates. While my focus is on the analysis of the online discussions, I also refer to additional descriptions of the movement (the public statement and the rules) in order to provide a more nuanced understanding of the discussions I analyze. The twenty discussion threads consist altogether of 2806 comment entries. As such, the online discussion threads are naturally occurring negotiations on common goals, identities and strategies among many people who choose to respond to the original call of Silakkaliike, to act as a counterforce against hate. In other words, the online discussions catch an important phase in social mobilization: from small-scale collective action to large social movements, distinctive activist pursuits require a shared understanding of a cause (Polletta, 2009), and in the online discussions I analyze, the discussants are developing one. At the same time, the public Facebook group attracted discussants who sought to disturb the discussions of the social movement in the making—and being weary of so-called “Internet trolls”, seeking to exclude them from the group was a frequently addressed topic in the comment threads that I analyze. My data gathering and analysis are motivated by an understanding that discussions in the context of Silakkaliike are likely to articulate broader antiracist concerns and interests. In the analysis, I have looked for repetitive themes and topics. In other words, my interest is not in the role of individual contributors or their identity, but instead in the most frequently commented topics by a large crowd of online discussants. Gathering material in an online group requires ethical consideration. As suggested by Sugiura et al. (2017), the questions of informed consent or expectation of privacy are not straightforward in the online context. This applies also to the Silakkaliike Facebook group that at time of my data gathering, in spring 2020, was a community of almost 30,000 people. I informed the moderators of the public Facebook group of my research interests but ensuring an informed consent from everyone who contributed to the 2806 entries I analyzed was not meaningful,

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given also that I was not interested in the role of individual contributors. The moderators of the group also pointed out that informing the group members about my research might attract the attention of “Internet trolls”, which could lead to very confusing discussions. Therefore, I follow the somewhat provocative suggestion by Sugiura et al. (2017, 195) that “the convention that all research participants should give full and free consent to participating research” is not possible in the online context. However, the anonymity of individual discussants is in my view an ethical concern to consider. I directly cite my Englishlanguage translation of some of the originally Finnish-language entries (the discussions that I analyzed were conducted in Finnish, and the quotes that I present in the chapter are my translations). However, the passages that I cite reveal nothing that would allow recognition of individual authors. I have also chosen to cite such comments that, due to the repetition in the material, resemble many other entries. In the consideration of ethical implications of this research, I also consider that the discussants were aware of the public nature of their online communication, since one of the common concerns was that the hostile Internet trolls kept publishing screenshots from the group in other online fora. My reading of the material was informed by the theorization of affective practice (Wetherell, 2012, 2013; Wetherell et al., 2018; see also Nikunen, 2018). In practice, I specifically focused on words that describe emotional episodes, but also object-orientation and identity construction that might not explicitly refer to emotion (at least not in a way that seems obvious from the perspective of the author of the comment, see Wetherell, 2012, 100), but contain, according to my interpretation, expressions that encourage shared meaning-making as an affective orientation. To ensure that my observations were systematic, I created a system of thematic coding. This entailed three main categories: explicit naming of emotions (e.g. hate; fear; love), topics that entailed descriptions of emotional episodes (I named these, e.g. psychologizing racism; racist online propaganda) and construction of identities and counter-identities (I named these, e.g. villains; friends; heroes; victims; community). Although online discussions are supposedly dialogues, reading through the comment threads highlighted to me the non-dialogic character of online discussion. Often the comments

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are only vaguely related to the previous ones, and the commentators primarily provide their own opinion on the topic at hand. Therefore, I coded the individual comments and not sections of dialogue. My analysis of affective practices is based on a cross-reading of the coding scheme and the literature on affective practice. This means that I explored the coded material through literature that discusses the functions of distinct affects. Somewhat similar to those discursive psychological constructionist approaches that stress the performative nature of discourse (cf. Potter & Wetherell, 1987; Wetherell & Porter, 1992), I grasp the online discussions as context and time bound social activity through which affect-mediated cultural order is re/constructed and negotiated (cf. Ahmed, 2004). In other words, I do not claim that the online material I observe tells something about the psychological processes of the people who wrote the comments. Instead, my analysis explores construction of repetitive discursive practices entangled with affect in antiracist activism against the far-right.

Counterforce Against Hate, Refraining from Affect Already Silakkaliike’s call for mobilization stressed the movement as a counterforce against hate. The founding call, published on December 25, 2019, urged “a peaceful counterforce against populist politics that prompts hate and racism”. From the perspective of analyzing affective practice, this statement contains two key elements. First, by addressing racism and hate—anti-immigration racism is commonly addressed in the Finnish language public debate as “hate-speech” and racism and hate merge in many antiracist statements—Silakkaliike positions itself in opposition to racism/hate. Second, the movement is described in terms of peaceful activity. As I will show in more detail shortly, by stressing peacefulness (or as will be discussed, affect-avoidant, factoriented discourse), the discussions within Silakkaliike promote not only non-engagement with hate, but also refrainment from affective reactions as an antiracist strategy.

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In the Facebook discussions, several entries about the goals and purposes of Silakkaliike echo the ethos of the call for mobilization. For instance: Extract 1 1 2

It’s not about what party we support, it’s about what we can be together: a counterforce against hate!

Extract 2 1 2

We don’t hate anyone even if we’d disagree. We don’t hate anyone, even if we think differently about things

While the quotes in extracts 1 and 2 establish a position “against hate” they also imply that there are people who do hate. In fact, as the two quoted discussion entries imply, the question becomes how to deal with the individuals spreading hate. This also means that racism is consistently made intelligible through its perpetrators. Here, it is useful to bear in mind the critique by race critical scholars (see Goldberg, 2009)—an emphasis on racism as hate risks turning racist practices into a psychological disposition and individualizing racism. This refers, among other things, to how “responses to racism tend to exercize the figure of ‘the racist’” (Ahmed, 2012; see also Lentin, 2016)—racism is intelligible through known, individual perpetrators (and not observable, e.g. in societal practices or experiences of racialized discrimination). However, my point here is to observe the affective practices that diagnosing hate encourages—and it can be argued that hate serves as a description of a disruptive and emotionally excessive political movement (i.e. the radical right). Yet, it is noteworthy that the discussions consistently rely on an image of the racist perpetrator. It is hardly a coincidence that the first quote refers to political party affiliation as a proxy of difference of opinion, possibly between racist and non-racist people. The online discussions repeatedly refer to the Finns Party members and supporters as the ones who spread hate and racism. This corresponds to the observations by Hatakka (2020), who discusses another

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antiracist Facebook group and maintains that the most targeted actors in antiracist discussions in Finland are specifically Finns Party members and supporters. While a need to counteract against “spreading hate” is rather unanimously accepted as a goal of Silakkaliike in the Facebook discussions, the group was more divided on strategies for how to accomplish this. Immediately, a hugely debated issue in the discussion threads became how to deal with “the racists”—whether or not all Finns Party supporters are racist; can they be allowed in the group; should Silakkaliike engage in discussions with them and so forth. The relationship to Finns Party members was the single most commented topic during the observation period, and this led also to several discussants pleading that the Facebook group should move on to other topics too. The two following quotes exemplify the polarization within the group. Extract 3 1 2 3 4

I also don’t think that a person who has voted for the Finns Party should be seen simply as a supporter of all values of the party, but it should be talked about that by voting for the Finns Party you give more power to racism and misanthropy

Extract 4 1 2 3 4

If this group is not a site to call out and judge those who advance racism and contribute to normalizing it, how is this movement any different from a chatter by the “rational majority” ( tolkun ihmiset) that there’s plenty of already?

In the first quotation, the commentator distinguishes the voters and supporters of Finns Party (lines 1–2) from the racism and hatred spread by the party (lines 3–4)—according to them, individual Finns Party supporters might be innocent of racism. The second quotation is a comment in a thread on whether Finns Party members and supporters should be named as racist. The commentator challenges the discussion that refuses to call out and condemn the ones guilty of racism (line 1). In other words, the discussants disagree on the extent to which they should

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approve of antagonism against racist perpetrators. Competing views on this subject also lead to heated debates in the group. At the same time, “we don’t hate”, as formulated in extract 2, characterizes the dominant ethos in the movement. For instance, the rules of the movement published in the Facebook group in January 2020 stress that Silakkaliike promotes “decent” behaviour and fact-oriented argumentation. In other words, the “official” or dominant position of the movement is not to engage in hate. From this position, also the Facebook discussants emphasized the following strategies for the movement: Extract 5 1 2

We’re against racism and the rise of the extreme right, but we remain always matter of fact, science and rationality based, empathic and hopeful .

Extract 6 1 2

You should not engage with the emotion but instead strive to stick to the facts.

Extract 7 1

If someone provokes you, not getting provoked is an important skill .

In other words, while hate—an affect that suggests an aggressive and disruptive relation to its object (Ahmed 2004)—is identified as the problem against which social mobilization is needed (cf. Polletta, 2009), the main response against it suggested in the context of Silakkaliike seems to be refusing to circulate the affect. The quotations urge the supporters of the movement not only to refrain from aggression but also to control their affective reactions more broadly and to prioritize facts. The strategy to focus on facts and scientific knowledge can be understood

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as a reaction against disinformation and fake news, often connected to “hate-speech” (cf. Hatakka, 2020; Ylä-Anttila et al., 2019). It is worth noting that although previous research has identified stressing facts as a common rhetorical strategy by the radical right as well (see Potter, 1996; Sakki & Pettersson, 2016, 2018), this was not reflected in the material that I analyzed. Given Hatakka’s (2020) argument that a continuous antiracist online reporting on the radical right might also provide fuel for the radical right and anti-immigration racist discussions, the strategy of not engaging appears justified. At the same time, I suggest that the urged strategy that contrasts facts and affective practice (Augoustinos et al., 2018) should be considered more thoroughly. The description of a peaceful movement and the calm and fact-based alternative can be interpreted as a moderate movement’s way of distinguishing from radical antiracism (cf. Hatakka, 2020; Seikkula, 2019b). In other words, while the discussed practices distinguish Silakkaliike from the racists, the same descriptions potentially hint at unwanted, aggressive and polarization-enforcing forms of antiracism—and hence, such emphasis on “decent antiracism” can be interpreted even as contributing to the discourse of “the two extremes” (see Seikkula, 2019a, 99). Further, the possible limitations that result from emphasizing calmness, peacefulness and controlling one’s emotions as the preferred type of affective practice can be explored through Lorde’s (1984) discussion on the difference between hate and anger. While she too sees hate as a destructive emotion, she suggests that anger can be translated into transformative politics. It needs to be noted that Lorde’s discussion is situated in the context of Black feminism in the 1980s, and hence, it differs drastically from the predominantly white Silakkaliike group. Yet, the way in which Lorde stresses anger as a transformative force opens up a horizon of a political project that has affective practice at its heart (see also Gunaratnam & Lewis, 2001). The promoted strategy to “stick to the facts” was also critiqued by some of the discussants. It was brought up that for people “who have been intimidated by racist and scandalizing views on immigrants”, “facts don’t matter”, or as in the following quote, the anti-immigration pursuers are not interested in facts. At the same time, the challenge of providing fact-based counter arguments against racist disinformation

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has also been brought up in previous research (see Pyrhönen, 2015). Yet, as the following quote also illustrates, the Silakkaliike discussants’ counterstrategies are tied to the “filth” they wish to critique. Extract 8 1 2 3 4 5

When such a huge proportion of these comment threads is filled with lowdown nastiness, unspecified intimidation or direct racist, misogynist, homophobic etc. boo-hoo that doesn’t even try to claim anything—the filth is just let out. How do you argue with that? Here, at least I welcome the new means of reaction, the suggested by Silakkaliike

In order not to contribute to the circulation of hate, yet, to signal silent disapproval, an emergent strategy from the Facebook discussions was to post a fish emoji (line 5) as a reaction to racism and hate-speech in online environments. While many Silakkaliike supporters saw posting the emoji as a suitable means to act as “a peaceful counterforce against populist politics that prompts hate and racism”, one could also argue that the practice centres on and even highlights the racism and hatred it claims to oppose. Next, I analyze this contradictory fascination with “nasty” and “filthy” comments by the radical right.

Practice of Disgust and a Quest for Hope While Silakkaliike promoted itself as a non-provocative, peaceful counterforce against hate and racism—abandoning, in particular, aggressive and negative affects, but ideally, controlling affects in general—I argue that distinct affects shape the antiracist practices that the movement encourages. A common nominator to these is that they centre on the political enemy of the movement, the racist radical right. The discussions I observed constantly brought up offensive statements by supporters of anti-immigration racism. The discussion threads cite sometimes in length the writings of the main ideologists in Finnishlanguage anti-immigration advocacy (see Keskinen, 2013) and antiimmigration racist statements by (other) Finns Party members and candidates. Besides quoting these directly, Silakkaliike supporters also paraphrase the anti-immigration racist agenda, for instance: “Both the

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party leader and the vice leader have said that all human beings do not have equal worth”. As such, Silakkaliike resembles the antiracist online activities that Hatakka (2020) studied: activists focus heavily on showcasing the prevalence of anti-immigration racist rhetoric. From a mediaanalysis perspective, Hatakka (2020) argues that such an approach risks contributing to giving visibility to and boosting the anti-immigration racist agenda. While I agree with Hatakka’s argument that the discussion repeatedly quoting anti-immigration racists statements waters down possible antiracist intents, I also suggest that the enthusiasm to distribute “racist filth” is best understood as an affective practice. The fact that the Silakkaliike discussants repeatedly quote content that they at the same time explain to be repulsive and dangerous should be understood as a practice of disgust. Similarly, suggesting posting the fish emoji as a reaction to anti-immigration racism on different online media platforms follows a similar type of affective engagement with an object. Disgust describes a social process, where something that feels threatening and contaminating is expelled from one’s proximity, yet, an attraction towards the repellent object remains (Ahmed, 2004, 82–100). In other words, disgust is an ambivalent orientation—at the same time, as the Silakkaliike supporters declare that their main objective is to act as a counterforce against “racist boo-hooers”, they seem to be stuck in a vicious cycle that centres on the political enemy. I suggest that Probyn’s (2000) discussion on disgust provides a fruitful perspective to reconsider this common mode of operation in Silakkaliike. According to Probyn, utterances of disgust call also others to witness the wish to pull away from the repulsive object (ibid., 131)—or, as Ahmed (2004) has it, disgust is foremost a speech act that demands a witness, and as such it speaks of the person who is disgusted more than of anything else. In other words, posting the fish emoji, for instance, not only expresses dismay against the critiqued content, but it also serves as a declaration “look, I’m not looking”. Disgust as an orientation also provides an analytical description to the struggle in the Silakkaliike discussions to move beyond the antagonism. The movement and its supporters continuously define themselves through their opposing side. Constructing a difference between Silakkaliike supporters and the radical right included also other nuances. While the racist statements are

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a subject of dismay in the Silakkaliike Facebook group, some also stressed empathy and understanding—or perhaps more accurately, pity—towards the racist perpetrators (see Sakki & Hakoköngäs, this volume). For instance, the discussants described how their “friends who are full of hatred against the society and immigrants” are “either lonely or otherwise unhappy in life” and “most racists and boo-hooers are just pouring out that they feel bad”. While some suggested that misfortunate racists are “people who are socially and economically in a weak position and who imagine that immigrants take their money and opportunities”, others also stressed that poor and working-class people should not be stigmatized because “in fact, more than one research indicates that a typical Finns Party voter is a middle-aged, well-off man”. The image of the lower class, marginal racist has been detected also in prior academic analyses (Mäkinen, 2016; Seikkula, 2019a), but this was actively contested in the discussions analyzed here. Yet, the discussion on misfortunate racists— reflecting pity, feeling for others rather than empathy as suffering with others (cf. Spelman, 1998)—repeats a setting where racist perpetrators are depicted as individuals who differ from the public. At the same time, this underscores racism as a phenomenon of individual psychology (cf. Goldberg, 2015), and an important question is, to what extent this perceived marginality is accepted as an excuse to overlook the responsibility of interlocutors who influence the political climate. Further, while the discussants are keen to acknowledge “hate as a cry for help”, the perspectives of people targeted by racism were mainly absent from the discussion. In other words, “immigrants” or “foreigners” were not a part of the suggested affective practices in the discussions. Thus far, I have illustrated how Silakkaliike appears primarily as a practice of disgust, an ambivalent affect that stresses the position of the disgusted subject through the expression of repulsion towards the disgusting object. However, the Facebook discussions also contain expressions of longing for hope or happy objects (cf. Ahmed, 2010). In addition to the comments on what “racist boo-hooers” or Finns Party members have said and done, the online discussants express delight about the newly founded group:

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Extract 9 1 2

Wonderful that now there’s Silakat as a counterweight against propaganda ❤

Extract 10 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

I’ve noticed in several discussions here that many Silakka members have felt that they’ve been left alone, for instance, at work or in other social circles or even in their family because of their views against racism. That’s really sad. This is one more reason why Silakkaliike is important: it’s also a community where one can find one’s ideological home. I feel privileged about the fact that […] I almost never encounter racist or discriminatory attitudes in my close circle. A tight bubble, I’d say!

One way to interpret the delighted comments about the establishment of the group is that they express hope, a positive orientation towards an insecure future (Ahmed, 2004). While hope undoubtedly is a crucial element in successful political mobilization, I suggest that joy and positive attachment to the newly found countermovement can be analyzed also in a parallel to the way in which Ahmed writes about feminist attachments. The joyful comments build upon disgust or grief—the existence of Silakkaliike is wonderful because it is “a counterweight against propaganda” (extract 9, line 1) or a comfort to those who do not get reinforcement to their views against racism in their social circles (extract 10, line 5). In other words, also hope comes back to ressentiment (see Ahmed, 2004, 174). On the one hand, as Ahmed underscores, “there is no pure or originary action”, no politics that would act without reaction. To some extent, Silakkaliike cannot be anything else than a reaction. On the other hand, the Silakkaliike online conversations construct the movement only as relations that hold on to the seemingly resented object. Silakkaliike is directed only towards a critique of the anti-immigration racist radical right, as such the movement is not “moving” but “remains compelled by that which it is against” (see Ahmed, 2004, 175). Although hope is one of the affects that Ahmed is most optimistic about, an investment in hope can transform into an attachment to an “ego ideal”—also the hopeful comments are sustained by racism outside of their “bubble”.

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Conclusion In this chapter, I have analyzed what I term, following Wetherell (2012), affective practices in Silakkaliike, an antiracist mobilization against the radical right. The fact that the Silakkaliike origin story is instrumentally linked to the attack on “al-Hol-orphans”—events that included the radical right harassing young children during Christmas 2019—is illustrative of the relations and the direction of the emotionally laden conduct that the Silakkaliike movement encourages. On the one hand, the explicit message of the movement is to serve as a counterforce against hate. When Silakkaliike supporters declare not to engage with the aggression put forward by the radical right, they seemingly refrain from affects and emphasize control of emotions. On the other hand, I show how the discussions continuously gravitate towards the radical right and how Silakkaliike repeatedly defines itself through its political enemy. This tendency, common in antiracism more broadly, is best understood as a practice of disgust. When the focus of the discussions is on a demonstrative shock and denouncing the anti-immigration racism of the radical right, racialized relations in the society are a non-concern. In other words, the overwhelming emphasis on the radical right and extremist racism reimagines a space of white innocence. The emphasis on extremes and the inability to perceive racialized exclusions in the society has been pointed out in critical research on racism before (e.g. Ahmed, 2012; Gilroy, 1990; Lentin, 2016; Pitcher, 2009). However, a discussion on affective practices—repetitive, emotionladen patterns in discursive behaviour—provides a chance to grasp this tendency in a more nuanced way. Following the theoretical discussions on disgust, I argue that the constant showcasing of the prevalence of anti-immigration racist rhetoric functions as an affective practice through which Silakkaliike constructs itself through its opposing side. At the same time, a study of antiracism from the perspective of affect can encourage both scholarly and activist discussions to find ways to avoid this cul-de-sac of reinforcing a fixed perception of exceptional racism imagined as an isolated event in society. The discussions that I analysed imply a yearning for hope and positive affects. Another way of approaching this is anger as a source of transformative politics described

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by Lorde (1984) as a way of calling out racist practices, but also as energy for imagining different worlds. For future discussions, activist or academic, considering this and the way in which Ahmed (2004) develops these ideas further could be a fruitful way forward. Ahmed suggests that anger against objects or events has the potential of transforming to a bigger critique beyond the immediate object “and opens itself up to possibilities that cannot be simply located or found in the present” (ibid., 175).

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Haavisto, C. (2018). The power of being heard: How claims against racism are constructed, spread, and listened to in a hybrid media environment. In P. Hervik (Ed.). Racialisation, racism, and anti-racism in the Nordic countries, approaches to social inequality and difference (pp. 62–229). Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Haavisto, C. (2020). “Impossible” activism and the right to be understood: The emergent refugee rights movement in Finland. In Nostalgia and hope: Intersections between politics of culture, welfare, and migration in Europe (pp. 169–184). Springer. Hatakka, N. (2020). Expose, debunk, ridicule, resist! Networked civic monitoring of populist radical right online action in Finland. Information, Communication & Society, 23(9), 1311–1326. Horsti, K. (2015). Techno-cultural opportunities: The anti-immigration movement in the Finnish mediascape. Patterns of Prejudice, 49 (4), 343–366. Keskinen, S. (2013). Antifeminism and White identity politics: Political antagonisms in radical right-wing populist and anti-immigration rhetoric in Finland. Nordic Journal of Migration Research, 3(4), 225–232. Lentin, A. (2016). Racism in public or public racism: Doing anti-racism in ‘post-racial’ times. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 39 (1), 33–48. Lorde, A. (1984). Eye to eye: Black women, hatred, and anger. Sister Outsider. Mäkinen, K. (2016). Uneasy laughter: Encountering the anti-immigration debate. Qualitative Research, 16 (5), 541–556. Mäkinen, K. (2017). Struggles of citizenship and class: Anti-immigration activism in Finland. The Sociological Review, 65 (2), 218–34. Nikunen, K. (2018). From irony to solidarity: Affective practice and social media activism. Studies of Transition States and Societies, 10 (2). Pitcher, B. (2009). The politics of multiculturalism: Race and racism in contemporary Britain. Palgrave Macmillan. Polletta, F. (2009). It was like a fever: Storytelling in protest and politics. University of Chicago Press. Potter, J. (1996). Representing reality. Discourse, rhetoric and social construction. London: Sage. Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987). Discourse and social psychology: Beyond attitudes and behaviour. Sage Publications, Inc. Probyn, E. (2000). Carnal Appetites: Foodsexidentities. Routledge. Pyrhönen, N. (2015). The true colors of Finnish welfare nationalism: Consolidation of neo-populist advocacy as a resonant collective identity through mobilization of exclusionary narratives of blue-and-white solidarity. University of Helsinki.

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10 Concluding Remarks: The Future of Multiculturalism? Martha Augoustinos

Transnational mobility, migration, and humanitarian crises have made cultural diversity an increasing social and political reality in most western liberal democratic countries. As this volume makes clear, this is no less the case in Nordic countries such as Finland, Sweden, and Norway, countries which have had until recently, relatively homogenous populations compared to their western counterparts. How societies manage the constantly changing ethnic and cultural mix of the population is central to maintaining social cohesion, facilitating positive intergroup contact, and generating mutually respectful attitudes towards cultural and ethnic difference. The ethos of multiculturalism has typically been adopted by governments as a public policy for dealing with the challenges that living in a culturally pluralistic society can present. Valuing M. Augoustinos (B) School of Psychology, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia e-mail: [email protected]

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7_10

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and embracing cultural diversity has been seen as integral to the promotion of justice, equal opportunity, positive group identity, and intergroup harmony (Verkuyten, 2009; Verkuyten & Martinovic, 2006). Indeed, recent empirical research in social psychology suggests that cultural diversity is associated with both psychological and social benefits including: a reduction in intergroup differentiation and prejudice, an increase in egalitarianism, positive attitudes towards minorities, reductions in group stereotyping, and the generation of more complex and socially inclusive forms of shared national identity (Crisp & Turner, 2011). Despite this, multiculturalism has become increasingly under threat both politically and publicly, in both political and in everyday public discourse. Once celebrated as a value orientation that binds people together, now, more than ever, it is derided as an ethos that divides and produces dissent. In the UK and western Europe multiculturalism has been publicly declared to have been a public policy ‘failure’ and as a result, governments there are moving towards more assimilationist approaches to manage cultural diversity (Vasta, 2007). This book addresses this pressing social issue and asks how did we get to this situation, at a time in history when cultural and ethnic diversity is now the norm? More specifically, how has this contested issue been discursively negotiated in Nordic countries which have had a proud history of social democratic values? As this book shows, the rise of populist and right-wing politics across the globe has been central in propagating dissent and anxiety around cultural diversity, aided and abetted by the proliferation of social media platforms. Hate speech, once considered taboo and ‘unspeakable’ has become an epidemic in online communication where it can be exploited strategically for political ends (Bilewicz & Soral, 2020; Sakki & Hakoköngäs, this volume). The changing political landscape and proliferation of digital media have combined to produce conditions that are conducive to disseminating hate and prejudice towards migrants, refugees, and other minority groups. As Pettersson (2019) has detailed, conspiratorial theories that the political left, ‘multiculturalists’, and the elites are working together to threaten the ethnic and cultural homogeneity of the nation are common tropes in contemporary hate speech. Alarmingly, the discursive tropes of the far-right are creeping into the mainstream and are becoming

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commonplace in centrist parties for strategic electoral gain. The so-called European refugee crisis in 2015 which saw unprecedented numbers of displaced persons seeking refuge in Nordic countries fuelled such anxieties further as political actors mobilised to represent this humanitarian crisis as threats to the cultural make-up of the nations in the region (Pettersson & Nortio; Haavisto, this volume).

The Turn to Discourse and Rhetoric in Psychology The chapters in this book are united by their commitment to interdisciplinarity and in particular, the growing rise of critical discursive approaches in the social sciences to understand debates and controversies on race, prejudice, multiculturalism, nationalism, and immigration. What is said, argued, and discussed in such debates has been the focus of this research and has included analysing formal political discourse and everyday talk and conversation by ordinary members as they negotiate meanings and nuances around such issues. Collectively this body of work has challenged positivist methods and cognitive understandings of psychological topics such as attitudes, beliefs, emotion, self, and identity. Conventionally viewed as cognitive constructs in the minds of individuals, discursive psychology (DP) has located these as collective discursive practices enacted in social interaction. It is in formal and informal discourse where these objects can be seen to be constructed, negotiated, contested, and rationalised. In contrast to conventional theories that view language as merely a medium through which cognition finds expression, language or discourse in DP is treated as a social practice which constructs reality rather than merely reflects it, builds identities, persuades, and mobilises hearts, minds, and action. This ‘quiet revolution’ in psychology (Augoustinos & Tileag˘a, 2012) has also shown how constructs which were once viewed as stable, unitary, and consistent—attitudes, beliefs, values, and the like—are flexible, contradictory, and ambivalent. Indeed, attitudes towards multiculturalism have always been ambivalent, combining both positive and negative sentiments in contradictory ways. Even in a country like Australia,

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that consistently proclaims to be the most successful multicultural country in the world displays tensions and anxieties about this identity. Although questionnaires and opinion surveys over recent years show high levels of support (86%) for multiculturalism among the Australian public (Scanlon Foundation, 2016), dig a little deeper, examine what people actually say, formally and informally, and you’ll find that Australians articulate significant reservations about the nature and degree of cultural diversity in Australia. Indeed, public concern and ambivalence over state-sanctioned multiculturalism has recently increased with claims that such policies have actually undermined the nation’s social cohesion and national identity (Hopkins, 2011; Mansouri & Pietsch, 2011; Pardy & Lee, 2011). More specifically, the dominant majority express concern that multiculturalism favours religious and cultural minorities over the ‘mainstream’ population. Critical discursive research has been at the forefront of examining such inconsistencies by analysing the fine detail of everyday talk and reasoning. As Pettersson and Nortio argue (this volume), while there is an abundance of work discussing the philosophical, political, and theoretical underpinnings of multiculturalism, there is currently limited understanding of how people interpret multiculturalism, and how these interpretations influence their support for different societal models (Verkuyten, 2004, 2005). It is important to address this current gap in existing knowledge not only because increasing cultural diversity is an everyday reality for people navigating the demands of living in liberal democratic societies but also in examining how successful multicultural policies have been in accomplishing social and interactional goals, such as improving intergroup harmony and minimising group conflict. Discursive psychological approaches have also been at the forefront of examining naturalistic data, both formal talk that is produced in institutional settings such as political discourse (Venäläinen & Menard, this volume) and in informal talk to be found in online forums (Sakki & Hakoköngäs; Seikkula, this volume) and Facebook posts (Haavisto; Bauvois et al., this volume). The use of naturalistic data as a rich source of analytic materials has come at a time when digital communication and social media has proliferated at an ever-increasing rate. Everyday chatter and interaction have traditionally been treated as irrelevant noise

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by psychology and cognate disciplines, but, as we have seen in recent years, digital media has proven to be a significant source of social influence and persuasion. As the chapters in this book show, these data are in abundance and hold clues to how debates are framed and contested in everyday life. Moreover, as Sakki and Hakoköngäs (this volume) show, critical discursive research has the capacity to examine both the production of professional talk about contested issues and its reception by the lay public in online platforms. How meanings are dialogically negotiated and contested therefore can be analysed in the cut and thrust of online debate. Critical discursive research has also extended to analysing visual imagery that increasingly circulates in social media to evoke emotions such as fear and hate that are central to mobilising support for exclusionary social practices (Laaksonen et al., this volume). The introduction to this book has already detailed the extensive research by discursive psychologists in recent years, especially in examining the language of asylum and the increasing dehumanisation of refugees and asylum seekers (e.g., Augoustinos et al., 2018; Kirkwood et al., 2016). In the remainder of this conclusion, I would like to emphasise how this tradition of scholarship has shown us that every ideology, multiculturalism included, contains the rhetorical seeds of its own undoing. Michael Billig’s (1987) work in rhetorical psychology has been significant in this regard demonstrating how every argument contains the seeds of its own counter argument. This is no less the case for liberal egalitarian values and ideals that can be flipped on their head and strategically used to undermine the principles which they seek to protect. As critics have pointed out, multiculturalism itself has typically been framed within discourses of ‘tolerance’, where the dominant majority are simply expected to ‘put-up’ with those who are othered. In the rest of this chapter, I highlight how the chapters in this book contribute to the rhetorical tradition and moreover, warn us of the limits of liberal egalitarianism as a coherent ideological blueprint in advocating for social justice and equality.

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Self-Sufficient Rhetorical Arguments Wetherell and Potter’s (1992) seminal analysis of racial discourse in New Zealand demonstrated how self-sufficient rhetorical arguments most notably premised on principles of equality and justice were used in both formal and informal discourse to justify and rationalise inequalities in New Zealand society. For example, minority rights were undermined by the argument that ‘minority opinion should not carry more weight than majority opinion’: an argument that stands as rhetorically selfsufficient, (that is, requiring no further warrant) in a liberal democracy where majority opinion rules. Likewise, who could argue with one of our most cherished liberal democratic values—‘everyone should be treated equally’? Yet this argument was strategically deployed to argue against policies that would redress inequalities for minorities, policies such as affirmative action in employment and education. In a similar vein, Venäläinen and Menard’s intersectional analysis (this volume) shows how gender equality is used as a rhetorical tool to argue against immigration and multiculturalism in Finland. Immigrants and refugees are positioned as threats to gender equality, where migrant men in particular, are demonised as perpetrators of sexual violence. It is no surprise that such fears would be generated by the extreme right, but as Venäläinen and Menard demonstrate, it was also drawn upon by the political left, albeit implicitly. Invoking equality then can be used in ways that work to sustain and perpetuate social inequalities and to marginalise minorities. Bauvois et al. (this volume), also, document the dangerous relationship between gender equality and protectionism. Protecting ‘local women’ from sexual harassment and violence by migrant men became the identity mantra of the far-right vigilante group Soldiers of Odin (SOO) in Finland. Despite issues of gendered violence among the nonimmigrant majority, gender equality is equated with ‘Finnishness’, an assumed national trait and sensibility that cultural and religious minorities do not readily apprehend. Indeed, this rhetorical resource was also at the heart of one of Australia’s most notorious race riots in 2005. Colloquially known as the ‘Cronulla’ riots, an area in Sydney’s southern beaches, young majority group (white) males congregated and were

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mobilised by social media and commercial radio to condemn youth from Middle Eastern backgrounds in the service of protecting ‘Australian’ (white) women.

Strong Borders Are Necessary for ‘Successful’ Multiculturalism and Social Cohesion Continuing the theme that every ideology can be used flexibly in unanticipated ways, more recently in Australia, it has been argued by political leaders that refugees and asylum seekers represent a threat to multiculturalism itself (sic!). This argument has been used by previous Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, a strong advocate of Australia’s multicultural policies but who has defended Australia’s harsh treatment and exclusion of asylum seekers—policies which have attracted harsh criticism from the United Nations and human rights groups since 2001. Indeed, Australia has ‘grappled’ with the political problem of refugees during the last 20 years, well before the so-called crisis in Europe in 2015. As critical discursive research elsewhere has shown, asylum seekers have been constructed negatively as a threat to the nation and its sovereignty. Since 2001, unauthorised arrivals of so-called ‘boat people’ have been placed in mandatory detention in isolated detention centres and relocated offshore to Pacific Island states. These policies, which have largely received bipartisan support from both the conservative Liberal-National Coalition and social-democratic Labour have, nonetheless attracted widespread condemnation. How then, can political leaders with strongly espoused liberal egalitarian values justify such policies? In a speech entitled ‘In Defence of a Free Society’, delivered to journalists and ministers at the Disraeli Prize Speech presentation in London, Prime Minister Turnbull argued that border control is central to social cohesion and multiculturalism itself. Indeed, in the extract below he offers the Australian experience as a ‘cautionary tale’ to European nations as to what may be at stake if such restrictive immigration policies are not adopted. Malcolm, Turnbull. 2017 . Disraeli Prize Speech: In Defence of a Free Society, Transcripts from the Prime Ministers of Australia, 10 June 2017

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Turnbull: As Europe grapples today with unsustainable inflows of migrants and asylum seekers, the Australian experience offers both a cautionary tale and the seeds of a potential solution. The lesson is very clear: weak borders fragment social cohesion, drain public revenue, raise community concerns about national security, and ultimately undermine the consensus required to sustain high levels of immigration and indeed multiculturalism itself. Ultimately, division. In contrast, strong borders and retention of our sovereignty allow government to maintain public trust in community safety, respect for diversity and support for our immigration and humanitarian programs. Unity. Security. Opportunity. Freedom.

This paradoxical argument that strict border control is the very foundation of a successful multicultural society of course serves important ideological functions. It is deployed here rather creatively to counter claims that Australia’s border protection policies are in fact discriminatory, even racist, and contravene obligations under the United Nations Convention for Refugees, to which Australia is a signatory. Positioning those who cross borders as a threat to multiculturalism is a strategy that enables Turnbull to adopt an anti-racist identity: after all he is a champion of multiculturalism so why would he and his government be motivated by racial intentions? By positioning weak borders with a multitude of threats—that is, they ‘fragment social cohesion, drain public revenue’, ‘raise… concerns about national security’—a consensus of the need for strict border control becomes evident. This strategy not only seeks to justify actions as being a moral necessity but also to erase the inhumane consequences of such actions. Again, what we see at play here is the use of liberal egalitarian values (protecting multiculturalism) to justify and defend exclusionary practices that construct those seeking humanitarian asylum as threats to national security and social cohesion.

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Reason Versus Emotion as a Discursive Affective Practice The chapter by Laaksonen et al. (this volume) demonstrates the growing significance of visual rhetoric in the digital communication of the farright in generating anti-multiculturalism discourse. Likewise, Seikkula (this volume) shows how affect is entwined in anti-racist mobilisations against the radical right in Finland. Both chapters draw on Margaret Wetherell’s (2012) notion of affective practice in conceptualising how discourse and affect are inextricably entangled across multiple modalities. Wetherell (2012, 351) argues that ‘talk, body actions, affect, material contexts and social relations assemble in situ’, that circulate and travel through human interaction. This is perhaps no more so the case than in the era of social media and digital communication which can produce and generate multi-modal content quickly and which can be responded to instantaneously. Emotion is understood here as entangled with discourse and other psychological modalities in practice to produce accounts that have cultural and even moral relevance—they are accounts that resonate because their relevance is both felt and understood . It is this complex merging of emotion with discursive expression that renders such accounts rhetorically powerful. Seikkula, (this volume) in particular, examines how emotion is typically constructed in anti-racist rhetoric in opposition to reason. Edwards (1997, 1999) has highlighted how this rhetorical contrast between emotion and reason is common both within psychology, and in everyday common-sense. It is typically mobilised to accomplish specific evaluations, most notably, to construct emotions as ‘irrational’ in contrast to reason and rationality. As Billig (1987) notes, the notion of prejudice (that is, to pre-judge) has traditionally been associated with irrationality, poor reasoning, and unexamined views: in the absence of reason, emotions are seen as taking over and interfering with decision-making and social judgments. We see how this contrast was mobilised by the Finnish anti-racist movement—Silakkaliike—which described itself as “a counterforce against hate”, urging its members to refrain from engaging with emotion and to use “fact-oriented discourse” as an anti-racist strategy. In this way

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identity boundaries are constructed between the anti-racist movement and the radical right: the former as fact-driven and therefore rational, the latter as driven by emotion (hate) and therefore lacking reason and rationality. Significantly, Seikkula argues that these identity boundaries evoke ambivalent emotions such as pity and disgust towards ‘racist perpetrators’ that functions to position racism as a problem of an extreme minority rather than a systemic and structural problem for society. It also functions to psychologise racism as an individual pathology requiring moral rehabilitation of flawed individuals. As the chapters by Aldrin Salskov, Backström and Creutz, and Backström, Creutz and Pyrhönen (this volume) also warn, demonising far-right nationalists in this way and failing to engage in sustained dialogue with their concerns serves only to perpetuate and reinforce their world view and to increase political polarisation between ‘us’ and ‘them’. This rhetorical contrast, however, is not fool proof. Indeed, rationality itself can be justified and legitimated on the very basis of emotions that are seen to be ‘natural’ and normative. Radical right groups typically justify their affective discursive practices (hate and fear specifically) on purported ‘facts’ about migrants, refugees, multiculturalists, political elites, and other outgroups. This often takes the form of storytelling, narratives or accounts that circulate and proliferate in the public and private sphere (Augoustinos & Every, 2007). Moreover, the radical right itself has become adept at curbing their emotional language, presenting themselves as reasonable and driven by realistic and practical threats that others dare not acknowledge (Pettersson & Augoustinos, 2021). In this way ‘facts’ and ‘emotions’ become contested objects themselves that are entangled across modalities, expressed in discourse, feelings, behaviour, and social practices, producing what Ahmed (2004) refers to as the ‘affective economy’. As Aldrin Salskov et al. (this volume) argue, there has been far too little social scientific research examining this affective economy, specifically, the complex dynamics underpinning the anger and hate articulated by radical nationalists. These three rhetorical patterns that I have identified as worthy of note are not exhaustive: they simply demonstrate the inherent difficulties in countering racism and advocating for minority rights in everyday life.

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Bearing in mind the limits and slippery contradictions within liberaldemocratic principles I have emphasised above, what rhetorical arguments are most proficient in countering not only far-right extremism, but also implicit racism? The chapters by Haavisto and Seikkula (this volume) are steps in this direction but there is much more to be done in future discursive research analysing how anti-racist and multicultural advocacy works in situ. Is abstaining from emotion and appealing to ‘facts’ an effective practice? How can powerful images drawn from the lived experience of refugees be used effectively to unsettle the public’s conscience (mind and heart) and to demand social justice? As Goodman et al. (2017) found, it was not until the photograph of a 3-year-old boy Alan Kurdi washed up on the beach at Kos on September 2, 2015, that the mainstream media started referring to the exodus of people from Syria as a refugee crisis rather than a migration crisis. Indeed, Time magazine lists this photograph within the ‘100 iconic images that changed the world’. Moreover, as Aldrin Salskov et al. (this volume) suggest, how might engaged and respectful dialogue with radical nationalists disrupt the polarised conflict that has characterised debates about multiculturalism, migration, and refugees?

More Future Directions In an article entitled, ‘Against the notion of a new racism’, Colin Leach warned us in 2005 that old-fashioned blatant racism was still alive and well: that historical continuities between the past and present should not be ignored (see also Walker, 2004). It is somewhat ironic that social psychology and the social sciences more broadly have spent the last 50 years claiming that old-fashioned racism and right-wing extremism was no longer a problem, and that new forms of subtle and socially acceptable racism had taken their place. To be sure, theories of new racism, unconscious bias, and the like, have had their place, alerting us to the ways in which inequality is reproduced and naturalised in wealthy democratic countries, but our obsession with such theories come at a cost when we lose sight of changing historical and social conditions that can return us to an uglier past. The research in this volume from

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the social democratic north provides unsettling evidence that the farright extremism that was so strongly condemned in the aftermath of the Second World War is back bolder than ever, aided and abetted by social media and digital platforms of communication. As social researchers we have a moral responsibility to examine and understand the rising tide of far-right extremism, the mechanisms through which it spreads, and how to respond to it in ways that do not inadvertently reinforce political polarisation. The contributors to this volume have taken up this challenge and have demonstrated how critical discursive approaches are best suited to analysing the increasing rise of nationalist rhetoric and policies of exclusion during the twenty-first century. Far-right discourse on the ‘perils’ of multiculturalism have begun to spill over into the political mainstream, as political parties of all persuasions see the electoral gains that may be won by mobilising the language of us and them. The rapidly changing landscape of digital media has made language and communication the most important site for analysis in ways that perhaps were not anticipated, certainly not by the discipline of psychology which still struggles to treat discourse and rhetoric as constitutive. The challenge for discursive researchers is how to keep up with the enormous amount of naturalistic data produced in multi-modal formats. Contributors to this volume have been at the forefront of show-casing new methods of analysis that integrate linguistic, visual, and affective online content (Pettersson & Sakki, 2020; Laaksonen et al., this volume). This work has adapted to the changing communicative conditions by drawing on other disciplines such as media and communication studies that have better tools at their disposal. It has also drawn on innovative theoretical approaches that do not treat discourse as disembodied text and talk (Wetherell, 2012). Critically, it has also called for researchers to move beyond simply analysing the properties of far-right discourse alone and adopt a more critically reflexive approach to understand the complex intergroup dynamics between both populist and anti-populist rhetoric: a self- perpetuating dynamic that reinforces hostilities and political polarisation. The advent of social media and online communication has made multi-disciplinarity imperative: indeed, collaborations with IT experts

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and computer science are to be encouraged in this changing landscape. As Laaksonen et al. (this volume) argue, although there are limits to developing and applying algorithms for analysing rich qualitative data, such algorithms are nonetheless useful tools for identifying and collecting data. This is especially the case for identifying potentially harmful hate speech. The regulatory requirements being adopted by many western liberal democracies to restrict such communication has become a pressing issue: under European Union Law, hate speech is illegal and concerted efforts have been implemented to regulate it across European signatories (European Commission, 2020). In the United States, however, hate speech is protected under the First Amendment Right to free speech in the American Constitution. Of course, freedom of speech and so-called political correctness are hotly contested issues on their own and have also been subject to detailed discursive analysis (e.g., Pettersson, 2019). To conclude then, the future of multiculturalism is at a crossroad. As researchers, it is important to employ innovative methods of empirical investigation that will generate broader, comprehensive, understandings of competing versions of cultural diversity and how they are discursively constructed in political rhetoric and everyday talk. Further critical discursive research that examines how diversity is constructed in multimodal formats and in intergroup interaction is essential to analysing how such representations operate within the current changing political landscape.

References Ahmed, S. (2004). Social text , 22 (2 (79)), 117–139. https://doi.org/10.1215/ 01642472-22-2_79-117 Augoustinos, M., Due, C., & Callaghan, P. (2018). Unlawful, uncooperative, and unwanted: The dehumanization of asylum seekers in the newsprint media in Australia. In S. Gibson (Ed.), Discourse, peace, and conflict (pp. 187–204). Springer.

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Augoustinos, M., & Every, D. (2007). The language of “race” and prejudice: A discourse of denial, reason, and liberal-practical politics. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 26 (2), 123–141. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X0 7300075 Augoustinos, M., & Tileag˘a, C. (2012). Twenty five years of discursive psychology [Editorial]. British Journal of Social Psychology, 51(3), 405–412. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.2044-8309.2012.02096.x Bauvois, G. Pyrhönen, N., & Pyysiäinen, J. (this volume). Underdogs shepherding the flock: Outgrouping the internal enemy in action. Backström, J., Creutz, K., & Pyrhönen, N. (this volume). Making enemies: Reactive dynamics of discursive polarization. Bilewicz, M., & Soral, W. (2020). Hate speech epidemic. The dynamic effects of derogatory language on intergroup relations and political radicalization. Political Psychology. Advance online: https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.12670 Billig, M. (1987). Arguing and thinking: A rhetorical approach to social psychology. CUP. Crisp, R. J., & Turner, R. N. (2011). Cognitive adaptation to the experience of social and cultural diversity. Psychological Bulletin, 137 , 242–266. Edwards, D. (1997). Discourse and cognition. London: Sage. Edwards, D. (1999). Emotion discourse. Culture & Psychology, 5, 271–291. European Commission. (2020). The EU code of conduct on countering illegal hate speech online. https://ec.europa.eu/info/policies/justice-and-fundam ental-rights/combatting-discrimination/racism-and-xenophobia/eu-codeconduct-countering-illegal-hate-speech-online_en [retrieved 11.9.2020] Goodman, S., Sirriyeh, A., & McMahon, S. (2017). The evolving (re)categorisations of refugees throughout the “refugee/migrant crisis”. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology. Hopkins, N. (2011). Dual identities and their recognition: Minority group members’ perspectives. Political Psychology, 32, 251–270. https://doi.org/10. 1111/j.1467-9221.2010.00804.x Kirkwood, S., Goodman, S., McVittie, C., & McKinlay, A. (2016). The language of asylum: Refugees and discourse. McMillan and Palgrave. Leach, C. W. (2005). Against the notion of a new racism. Journal of Community & Applied Social Psychology, 15, 432–445. Mansouri, F., & Pietsch, J. (2011). Local governance and the challenge of religious pluralism in liberal democracies: An Australian perspective. Journal of Intercultural Studies, 32, 279–292.

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Pardy, M., & Lee, J. C. H. (2011). Using buzzwords of belonging: Everyday multiculturalism and social capital in Australia. Journal of Australian Studies, 35, 297–316. Pettersson, K. (2019). “Freedom of speech requires actions”: Exploring the discourse of politicians convicted of hate-speech against Muslims. European Journal of Social Psychology, 49 (5), 938–952. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp. 2577 Pettersson, K., & Augoustinos, M. (2021). Elite political discourse on refugees and asylum seekers: The langauge of social exclusion. In C. Tileaga, M. Augoustinos, & K. Durrheim, The routledge international handbook of discrimination, prejudice and stereotyping. Routledge. Pettersson, K., & Nortio, (this volume). Introduction: The far-right discourse on multiculturalism in everyday talk. Pettersson, K., & Sakki, I. (2020). Analysing multimodal communication and persuasion in populist radical right political blogs. In M. Demasi, S. Burke, & C. Tileag˘a (Eds.), Political communication: Discursive perspectives (pp. 175–203). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-60223-9_7 Sakki, I., & Hakoköngäs, E. (this volume). Dialogical constructions of hate speech in established media and online discussions. Sakki, I., & Pettersson, K. (2016). Discursive constructions of otherness in populist radical right political blogs. European Journal of Social Psychology, 46 , 156–170. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2142 Salskov, S. A., Backström, J., & Creutz, K. (this volume). From angry monologues to engaged dialogue? On self-reflexivity in studying polarised conflict. Scanlon Foundation. (2016). Multiculturalism discussion paper. Monash University. Venäläinen, S., & Menard, R. (2021). Intersectional mobilisations of gender equality and protectionism in Finnish parliamentary sessions and online discussions around immigration. Vasta, E. (2007). From ethnic minorities to ethnic majority policy: Multiculturalism and the shift to assimilationism in the Netherlands. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 30 (5), 713–740. Verkuyten, M. (2004). Everyday ways of thinking about multiculturalism. Ethnicities, 4, 53–74. Verkuyten, M. (2005). Immigration discourses and their impact on multiculturalism: A discursive and experimental study. British Journal of Social Psychology, 44, 223–240.

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Index

A

B

affects 16, 191–195, 197, 203, 207, 221, 227, 232, 235, 236 affective practices 5, 122, 132, 192, 193, 195, 197, 199, 201, 202, 204, 209, 218–222, 226, 227, 230, 231, 233, 234, 236 Ahmed, Sara 191, 193–195, 202, 219, 221, 222, 227, 228, 230, 233–237 Aldrin Salskov, Salla 16, 163 algorithms 190, 208 anti-Semitism 85 asylum seekers 9, 11, 114, 120, 124, 125, 127–132, 198 Augoustinos, Martha 5–11, 17, 86, 88, 98, 106, 123, 231, 241

Backström, Joel 13, 15, 139, 163 Bauvois, Gwenaëlle 13, 61 Billig, Michael 6, 7, 88, 106, 108 Burke, Shani 7–12, 196

C

Chadwick, Andrew 10, 11, 13 Creutz, Karin 13, 15, 16, 139 critical discursive psychology 2, 9–11, 13, 86–88, 106

D

discourse 1, 2, 5–15, 17, 86–88, 93, 96, 97, 99, 101, 103, 104, 106, 116, 118, 119, 130, 178, 190–192, 196, 201, 204, 206, 221, 227, 231

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2022 K. Pettersson and E. Nortio (eds.), The Far-Right Discourse of Multiculturalism in Intergroup Interactions, Palgrave Studies in Discursive Psychology, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89066-7

257

258

Index

discursive psychology 6–8, 10, 11, 14, 15, 17, 86, 106, 116, 118, 119, 132, 133

Halla-aho, Jussi 3, 14, 56–58, 62, 64, 67, 71, 72 hate-speech 5, 7, 11, 13, 14 Hokka, Jenni 16, 189, 202 Hopkins, Nick 6, 52, 75, 122

E

Edley, Nigel 10, 11, 86, 88, 118 Edwards, Derek 10, 89, 96 emotions 102, 190–193, 197, 203, 207, 208, 219, 221, 226, 231, 236 European refugee crisis in 2015 5, 16, 191

F

Facebook 8, 15, 86, 119, 120, 129–132, 191, 197, 203–208, 219, 224, 225, 228–230, 232, 234 Finland First movement 115, 200 Finns Party 3, 14, 56–58, 61, 70, 93–96, 101, 107, 114, 191, 218, 219, 222, 228, 229, 232, 234 Five-step model 60, 68, 72, 73

I

ideological dilemmas 14, 88, 89, 104 interdisciplinarity 2, 12, 13, 17, 132, 252 Internet memes 8, 190, 191, 195, 196, 198 interpretative repertoires 14, 89, 104, 105 intersectionality theory 13 interviews 15, 118–120, 125, 129, 130

K

Keskinen, Suvi 65, 222, 232

L

Laaksonen, Salla-Maaria 16, 57, 115, 118, 189, 195, 199, 200, 209

G

gender equality 13 Gibson, Stephen 7, 9, 105 Goodman, Simon 7–12, 124

H

Haavisto, Camilla 15, 113, 118, 120, 125, 223 Hakoköngäs, Eemeli 8, 11, 12, 14, 85, 190, 191, 196, 234

M

Marková, Ivana 15, 85, 89 media studies 10, 15, 113, 118, 123, 132, 223 Menard, Rusten 13, 14, 25 Moscovici, Serge 86, 87 Mudde, Cas 4, 101, 104, 106, 113, 189, 196, 201, 207 multiculturalism 51–57, 71, 73–75

Index

multimodality 11, 193, 196, 209 N

nationalism 15, 61, 129, 132, 133, 194, 204, 209 Nelimarkka, Matti 16, 119, 189, 202 Nikunen, Kaarina 4, 5, 16, 92, 189, 193–197, 223, 226 Nortio, Emma 1, 2, 4, 9, 10, 55, 56, 62, 86, 87, 192 O

online discussions 14, 16, 57, 104, 106, 219, 224–228 P

Pettersson, Katarina 1, 2, 4–8, 10–12, 53–55, 61, 73, 86, 88, 91, 93, 94, 96, 99, 101, 102, 104, 106, 118, 190, 192, 196, 201, 205–207, 231 polarization 13, 15, 107, 229, 231 populism 3, 4, 219 Potter, John 52, 53, 73 Potter, Jonathan 6, 8, 10, 12, 88, 89, 95, 96, 102, 163, 227, 231 prejudice 9, 11, 102, 192 Pyrhönen, Niko 13–15, 51, 56, 57, 139, 197, 218, 223, 232 Pyysiäinen, Jarkko 14, 51, 54, 73, 197 R

racism 6, 7, 15, 16, 63, 66, 89, 91, 94, 97, 98, 100, 104, 106,

259

107, 114, 122, 123, 125, 129, 132, 192, 194, 199, 209, 217–222, 224, 226–236 Reicher, Stephen 6, 52–54, 60, 68, 72

S

Sakki, Inari 2, 4–8, 10–12, 14, 54, 55, 61, 73–75, 85, 88, 96, 101, 102, 104, 106, 190, 196, 201, 205–207, 231, 234 Seikkula, Minna 16 Silakkaliike (Herring movement) 16, 217–219, 222–225, 227–236 Social identity theory (SIT) 53, 54, 73 social representations 15, 86, 87, 89, 106, 108 Soldiers of Odin 14, 57, 72, 191, 197–199, 201, 202, 204, 206, 207 Stokoe, Elizabeth 116 subject positions 14, 88, 89, 104

T

Tajfel, Henry 53 Tileag˘a, Cristian 6, 11, 12, 116 Trump, Donald 3 Turner, John 53

V

van Dijk, Teun 6, 98, 123, 220 Venäläinen, Satu 13, 14, 25, 66 Verkuyten, Maykel 1, 6, 7, 10, 52, 54–56, 60, 72, 73, 75, 88 violence 5, 123, 125, 130, 223

260

Index

visual communication 16, 191, 192, 195, 196, 206, 208, 210

X

xenophobia 5

W

Y

Wetherell, Margaret 6, 8, 10–12, 52, 53, 73, 95, 163, 192–195, 209, 219–222, 226, 227, 236 Wilders, Geert 3 Wodak, Ruth 6, 10, 113, 193, 204

YouTube 8, 124, 191, 195, 199–201, 207, 208, 217