Activity
Panel: Heritage and the politics of nostalgia among far-right groups in EuropeDescription
This panel sets out to discuss the nationalist revival and new authoritarianisms in Europe by addressing the heritage claims of the contemporary far-right. Since the fall of the Berlin wall, far-right parties have moved from the margins to the mainstream in Europe’s political landscape. Latching onto successive EU crises (i.e. the European debt crisis and the refugee reception crisis) and to inequalities caused by economic globalization, these forces have kindled nationalist, colonial and dictatorial nostalgia. What the majority of far-right parties have in common is the rhetoric of reviving “the lost homeland”. They draw on the past with an eye toward recreating it. Not as it was, but as glorified moments and idealised ways of life lodged in collective memory. We have long known that heritage is an important agent in politics of identity and belonging, an agent which can have dire consequences when used for exclusionary purposes. Research has shown how its strategic manipulation can destroy trust in the future and disrupt social relations. That we need to act is clear, but how should we best understand the strategic use of heritage by the far-right? How do we approach their exclusionary iterations of the past in a research capacity? And how do we relate to our own and our disciplines’ role in feeding such politics? This panel dives into these challenges by way of concrete examples of far-right uses of heritage.| Period | 30 Aug 2020 |
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| Event type | Conference |
| Conference number | 5 |
| Location | LondonShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |