“Who’s Afraid of the Big, Bad…?”: Populismand the Threatened Border in Austria
Keywords:
borders, migration, Austria, media discourse, Islamophobia, Easten Europe, rightwing populismAbstract
This paper analyses the performative power of the discourse on the transgression of borders and boundaries. Drawing on research in Austrian right-wing populist political and media discourse, I show how different imaginations of threat are connected to different conceptualisations of boundary-drawing. Stigmatized representations of Muslims and Eastern European males as the threatening “Other” differ regarding the kind of border transgressions and violence used against the body politic. I argue that by invoking the “threatened border”, the populist discourse creates a powerful image of an endangered ethno-national community, projecting a utopian future where the border will be restored. Therefore, this article elaborates on the relationship between nationalism and borders by emphasizing the performative nature of the populist discourse on borders and boundaries.
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