The Great Replacement Ideology as Anti-Gender Politics: Affect, White Terror, and Reproductive Racism in Germany and Beyond

Billy Holzberg*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

1 Citation (Scopus)

Abstract

This chapter positions the great replacement conspiracy theory as a deep story of anti-gender politics. Starting with the analysis of how the conspirational ideology that the national population is replaced through engineered mass migration and falling birth rates is articulated in Germany, the chapter traces its transnational circulation in white supremacist networks. It shows that, while the conspiracy theory directly embraces racist, antisemitic, and Islamophobic ideologies, its affective grammars—the constructed fear of a declining populus and increased migration, the aggrieved entitlement over female sexuality, and passionate attachment to the protection of the white nuclear family—are by no means confined to neo-Nazi networks. Instead, they are part of increasingly mainstream anti-gender discourses that focus on cementing a naturalised sex/gender binary and positioning the white nuclear family as the foundation of the nation, animating social movements, political parties, and state policies. As such, the chapter highlights the importance of demographic anxieties and eugenic desires for understanding and contesting transnational anti-gender politics today.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationTransnational Anti-Gender Politics
Subtitle of host publicationFeminist Solidarity in Times of Global Attacks
PublisherPalgrave Macmillan
Pages183-202
Number of pages20
ISBN (Electronic)978-3-031-54223-7
ISBN (Print)978-3-031-54222-0
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 9 Jun 2024

Publication series

NameThinking Gender in Transnational Times
VolumePart F2970
ISSN (Print)2947-4361
ISSN (Electronic)2947-437X

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