Mathilda Åkerlund has recently published an article titled The Sweden paradox: US- far-right fantasies of a dystopian utopia. In this article she analyzes how Sweden has come to be imagined and represented on the websites of US far right organisations.
ABSTRACT
This paper analyses how Sweden has come to be imagined and represented on the websites of US far right organisations since the start of the so-called ‘migration crisis’ of 2015. It focused specifically on when Sweden is discussed by the US far right and in relation to what events, and what values and associations are attributed to Sweden. The analysis showed that news events were not reported on by US far-right organisations as they took place in Sweden but instead appropriated and accentuated when they could be used to make certain points directed at the audiences of these organisations. Furthermore, the findings showed that the texts tended to focus on scaremongering about Muslim immigrants and Islam in ways that highly resembled those of the European far right. The paper discusses how such framing helps the international far right form a coherent narrative and all-applicable template for the problems of Muslims facing the Western world. Finally, the analysis showed how Sweden is positioned in a complex juxtaposition: as something both good and bad; superior while also inferior; a great nationalist role modelbut also a warning example, and how Swedish whiteness plays a central role in these depictions.
Mathilda Åkerlund is a postdoc in the Department of Sociology at Umeå University, researching far-right discourse online.