[{"_id":"project:7403","_type":"project","abstract":{"sv":"Radikalnationalism är på frammarsch på flera håll i världen. Dess framgångar tycks rida på en våg av politisk nostalgi: en längtan tillbaka till en föreställd plats och tid i det förflutna då livet var enklare och folket lyckligare. Nationalistisk nostalgi hävdar att vissa människor har större rätt att ”känna sig hemma” på vissa platser än andra slags människor, vars existens sägs gå att diskutera. Nationalister producerar den föreställda nation de framställer som hotad genom att projicera den bakåt till ett idealiserat förflutet och lovar återskapa dess svunna storhet. Make the Nation Great Again. Nostalgi är inte enbart en nationalistisk fantasi utan genomsyrar vår samtid. På sociala media postar användare bilder på sitt eget och andras förflutna. Kaféer och restauranter bygger miljöer med svartvita fotografier av svunna tiders städer och kändisar. Reklam, tv-serier, filmer och retro-trender inom design, möbler, kläder och prylar kan få människor att längta efter tider och platser de själva aldrig har upplevt. Svenska radikalnationalister är en del av denna trend och har vunnit visst gehör för deras romans kring svunna tider i ett tänkt homogent och harmoniskt Sverige, där alla var vita, talade svenska och delade samma grundläggande värderingar. I kölvattnet av radikalnationalismens framgångar har åsikter, ideal och sakpolitiska krav som tidigare ansetts extrema börjat normaliseras, dvs. rekontextualiseras och omfattas som sunda eller acceptabla av aktörer i huvudfåran och betydande delar av befolkningen. Därmed förskjuts ramarna för vad som går att tycka offentligt, vilket kan studeras genom att undersöka hur begrepp, åsikter och föreställningar färdas mellan sammanhang och tider. En viktig kanal för det radikalnationalistiska budskapet är kulturproduktion, skönlitteratur, visuell konst och musik. För att säkra den nationella renässans som eftersträvas räcker det inte att kontrollera gatan, riksdagen och universitet, understryker Joakim Andersen, en av miljöns intellektuella. ”För ett bestående avtryck behöver vi musik, skönlitteratur, poesi och konst som förmedlar våra myter och ideal.”Projektet syftar till att 1) skapa ny kunskap om hur vit nostalgi uttrycks och sprids genom radikalnationalistisk kulturproduktion och 2) spåra i vad grad politisk nostalgi och radikalnationalistiska åsikter vunnit insteg i huvudfårans politiska kultur och det offentliga samtalet. Syftet uppfylls genom att studera samtida radikalnationalistisk skönlitteratur, musik och visuell konst, samt analysera politiskt kampanjmaterial producerat i den politiska huvudfåran och undersöka i vilken utsträckning begrepp, åsikter och sakpolitiska krav som härrör från tidigare marginaliserade radikalnationalistiska sammanhang kommit att normaliseras.Arbetet bygger på resultaten från det VR-finansierade projektet Arga vita män? som undersökte radikalnationalismens affektiva dimensioner och fann att kärlek (till Sverige, svenskheten, den svenska kvinnan, de blonda svenska barnen, midsommar och julafton) var en nog så viktig drivkraft som hat. Gardell noterade hur nostalgisk miljön var och hur detta förändrat dess framtoning. Målningar av Carl Larsson och John Bauer har i stort ersatt bilder på Hitler och Mussolini; istället för aggressiv vitmaktmusik dominerar dansband, schlager och vissångare; SS-frivilligas memoarer och Mein Kampf har tappat mark till förmån för deckare, kärleksnoveller, fantasy och historiska romaner. Hur kan denna utveckling förstås? Vilken roll spelar nostalgi i samtidspolitiken?Projektet befinner sig i framkant av forskningen kring fascism, populism, nationalism och politisk förändring, men väntas få betydelse också utanför forskarsamhället. I de länder där radikalnationalism vunnit insteg har akademisk frihet, minoritetsrättigheter, pressfrihet och likhet inför lagen successivt begränsats. För de som finner en sådan utveckling problematisk kan projektet bidra med viktig kunskap. För att åtgärda ett problem måste man förstå det.","en":"Nostalgia matters. Movies, tv-series and the retro industry feed nostalgic yearnings for bygone times and places. Marketing the past may make people miss what they never had, and hence cannot have lost. Politicized nostalgia contrasts the uncertainties and anxieties of the present with the imagined happiness of an idealized past, and are used in nationalist campaigns to “Make the Nation Great Again”. Centered on monoculturalism, nativism, and the politics of home and belonging, politicized nostalgia has made an inroad in Swedish politics too. In its wake, radical nationalist ideas, ideals, and practices long considered “extreme” are being “mainstreamed”, i.e., recontextualized and embraced as acceptable by mainstream actors and significant parts of the population. A main avenue to communicate nationalist nostalgia is cultural production, literature, art, and music. Carl Larsson, John Bauer, Björne and Evert Taube may be as important to get the radical nationalist message across as any party program. Yet this material is typically overlooked by scholars of radical nationalism who rarely even meet those he or she seeks to understand. The purpose of this project is twofold. Firstly, to produce critical knowledge on how white nostalgia is produced and disseminated in and by radical nationalist cultural production, and, secondly, to trace the possible impact of politicized white nostalgia and radical nationalist sentiments on mainstream political culture and public discourse."},"project_id":"2021-02862_VR","identifier_short":"2021-02862","dates":{"start_date":"2022-01-01","end_date":"2024-12-31"},"organizations":[{"funding":[{"_id":2,"id":"202100-5208","sv":"Vetenskapsrådet","en":"Swedish Research Council"}]},{"coordinating":[{"_id":978,"id":"202100-2932","sv":"Uppsala universitet","en":"Uppsala University"}]}],"people":[{"project_leaders":[{"_id":"authority-person:13508","orcid":"0000-0003-2491-1995","name":"Gardell, Mattias","role":"principal_investigator","affiliation":[{"_id":877450,"sv":"Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om rasism (CFR)","en":"Centre for Multidisciplinary Studies on Racism","parent":[{"_id":1266,"sv":"Teologiska fakulteten","en":"Faculty of Theology","parent":[{"_id":1174,"sv":"Humanistisk-samhällsvetenskapliga vetenskapsområdet","en":"Disciplinary Domain of Humanities and Social Sciences","parent":[{"_id":978,"id":"202100-2932","sv":"Uppsala universitet","en":"Uppsala University"}]}]}]}]}]},{"other_personnel":[]}],"tags":[{"_id":11767,"id":"50901","sv":"Tvärvetenskapliga studier","en":"Social Sciences Interdisciplinary"},{"_id":11801,"id":"60502","sv":"Kulturstudier","en":"Cultural Studies"},{"_id":11803,"id":"60599","sv":"Övrig annan humaniora","en":"Other Humanities not elsewhere specified"}],"titles":{"sv":"Vit nostalgi. Hemhörighetens och tillhörighetens politik","en":"White Nostalgia. The Politics of Home and Belonging"},"total_funding":"3988000","type_of_awards":{"sv":"Projektbidrag","en":"Project grant"},"publications":[{"id":"diva2:2052878","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2026]]},"title":"Easter Riots and the Politics of Autocratization in Reconquista Sweden","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Manga","given":"Edda","affiliation":[{"name":"Multicultural Centre, Stockholm;  Södertörn University"}]},{"family":"Gardell","given":"Mattias","ORCID":"0000-0003-2491-1995","localId":"mattgard","affiliation":[{"id":"877450","name":"Uppsala universitet, Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om rasism (CFR)"}]}],"abstract":"Public Quran burnings provoked the Easter Riots of 2022 and justified a nativist shift in Swedish politics to repel the alleged “invasion” of culturally incompatible people and restore the Swedish Model without rolling back the neoliberal reforms that produce rising inequalities and segregation. By operationalizing a novel definition of racism as technology and highlighting the political impact of nostalgia, provocation tactics and affect, the article offers a study of racial capitalism in motion, which currently is transforming Sweden from social to Herrenvolk democracy.","ISBN":"9789004757639","DOI":"10.1163/9789004757639-011","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-584428","page":"257-289","container-title":"Racial Capitalism : In the Shadow of the Swedish Model","keyword":"Racial capitalism; Quran burnings; Provocation; Autocratization; Racism","publisher":"Brill Academic Publishers","note":"[ed] Irene Molina; Diana Mulinari; Anders Neergaard","published":[{"raw":"2026-04-14T13:25:00.000+02:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2026-04-14T13:25:48.281+02:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2026-04-15T10:15:18.944+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-584428"},{"id":"diva2:1918014","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2024]]},"title":"By the Cleansing Flames of Fire : Koran Burnings, Racialized Religion and Politized Nostalgia in Sweden","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Gardell","given":"Mattias","ORCID":"0000-0003-2491-1995","localId":"mattgard","affiliation":[{"id":"877450","name":"Uppsala universitet, Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om rasism (CFR)"},{"id":"887409","name":"Uppsala universitet, Religionshistoria och global kristendom"}]}],"abstract":"This chapter focuses on the burning of the Quran and the Hebrew Bible and the relation between bibliocaust and holocaust. I will begin with the recent series of Quran burnings in Sweden and then revisit history, from the ceremonial Quran burnings in Granada 1499 via the Nazi bonfires of 1933 back to our time and show how book burnings throughout this history have been used as a way of ridding society of the evil these books were seen as associated with and how this frequently included the people who read and cherished these books.","ISBN":"9781800505070","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-544351","page":"59-82","container-title":"Violence, Conspiracies, and New Religions : A Tribute to James R. Lewis","keyword":"Religion; Violence; Quran burnings; Political Nostalgia; Racism; Islamophobia","publisher-place":"Sheffield","publisher":"Equinox Publishing","note":"[ed] Margo Kitts","published":[{"raw":"2024-12-04T08:43:00.000+01:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2024-12-04T08:43:42.843+01:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-04-02T12:03:40.219+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-544351"},{"id":"diva2:1820179","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2024]]},"title":"'The Radicalisation of Western Man' : The Great Replacement, White Radical Nationalism, and Lone Wolf Violence","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Gardell","given":"Mattias","ORCID":"0000-0003-2491-1995","localId":"mattgard","affiliation":[{"id":"877450","name":"Uppsala universitet, Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om rasism (CFR)"}]}],"abstract":"This chapter, analyzes the actions and writings of transnational far-right terrorist actors like Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant, examining the influence of key ideas like the Great Replacement theory and tracing their genealogy in a much longer history of radical nationalist thought. Having followed the intertextual references in this earlier historic white nationalist literature, the article arrives at the observation that modern-day white extremist manifestos rarely contain anything new, but rather reproduce ideas and perspectives that have been around for a long time: a weaponized white entitlement to land, resources, and privileges; the idea of a fundamental connection between white people and the territory claimed to be exclusively theirs; blood and soil, race, and space; the colonial venture, and the “right” to white racial lebensraum at the expense of other kinds of people; the project of “reclaiming” Europe for white (Christian) folks by forcibly excluding the nonwhite presence; the crusades and the Reconquista; claims of being the rightful manager of the racialized classificatory order; the demographic panic; and the fear of losing power, control, hegemony, and majority advantage; and, of course, the dystopic projections of racial suicide, racial genocide, and racial replacement.","ISBN":"9780197771266","DOI":"10.1093/oso/9780197771266.001.0001","ScopusId":"2-s2.0-85200703604","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-518154","page":"301-322","container-title":"Radicalisation : A Global and Comparative Perspective","keyword":"Radicalization; Fascism; Violence; Lone Wolf; White Radical Nationalism","publisher-place":"London","publisher":"Oxford University Press","note":"[ed] Akil N. Awand; James R. Lewis","published":[{"raw":"2023-12-16T16:56:00.000+01:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2023-12-16T16:56:55.399+01:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-08-28T16:32:34.647+02:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-518154"},{"id":"diva2:1816489","type":"chapter","issued":{"date-parts":[[2023]]},"title":"Fascism and the Violent Replacement of <i>The People </i>","language":"eng","author":[{"family":"Gardell","given":"Mattias","ORCID":"0000-0003-2491-1995","localId":"mattgard","affiliation":[{"id":"877450","name":"Uppsala universitet, Centrum för mångvetenskaplig forskning om rasism (CFR)"}]}],"abstract":"Why do white radical nationalists across the global north believe that (white) ‘native’ people are currently being ‘replaced’ with (nonwhite) ‘alien’ people? Why has an increasing number of individual white nationalists come to the conclusion that ‘resistance’ against this alleged ‘invasion’ of ‘their’ territory best is launched by them indiscriminately killing nonarmed people they do not even know the names of?  Why would such atrocities be hailed as exemplary acts of heroic masculinity? Building on ethnographic material and text analysis of white radical nationalist writings, this chapter explores these questions by 1) tracing the genealogy of the white genocide/great replacement theory to the history of settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing and the replacement model white nationalists find in their historiography of the Spanish reconquista; 2) following the tracks of the lone wolf through the political landscape of white nationalism; 3) discussing the role of the hero, violence, eros, and death in fascist cultural production; and 4) investigating the role of the People as a political referent in different versions of post-1945 fascist revolutionary theory. ","ISBN":"9781032304069","DOI":"10.4324/9781003305927-21","ScopusId":"2-s2.0-85180065304","NBN":"urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-517066","page":"245-261","container-title":"The Politics of Replacement : Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars","keyword":"Fascism; lone wolves; racism; politicized nostalgia; political violence; conspiracy theory; hero politics; masculinity","publisher-place":"Abingdon; New York","publisher":"Routledge","note":"[ed] Sarah Bracke; Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar","published":[{"raw":"2023-12-02T12:36:00.000+01:00"}],"created":[{"raw":"2023-12-02T12:36:14.970+01:00"}],"updated":[{"raw":"2025-11-17T14:19:26.913+01:00"}],"URL":"https://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-517066"}],"links":[{"type":"pid","link":"https://su.diva-portal.org/smash/api/project/swecris/project:7403"}]}]