The far-right on ice: National identity and masculinity in Izborskii Club’s portrayals of Arctic nature in Russia

Keywords: political geography, the Arctic, far-right, hydrocarbons, Russia
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 08:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 09:20 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 60

Abstract

The paper investigates the far-right's authoritarian and ethno-nationalist politics in the Russian Arctic. The research focuses on three interconnected concepts – nature, national identity and masculinity – in examining how Izborskii Club, one of the most prominent far-right organisations in Russia, imagines and politicises Arctic nature. The club promotes authoritarianism, anti-liberalism and ethno-nationalism and plays an influential role in defining national geopolitical imaginary as it operates in tandem with the authoritarian Russian state. By drawing on visual content analysis and iconographical interpretation, the research asks more specifically how these images represent and constitute national and gender identities around spatially and historically specific narratives. The research shows that the club portrays the Arctic in the context of technological and scientific activity and defines nature in terms of its untapped potentialities. The club advocates for more profitable state-led use of resources defined by national interests and, in doing so, presents hydrocarbons as the key in unlocking the ‘Arctic civilisation’. Through national iconographies, such as flags and military submarines, the act of resource exploration is presented as an expression of national but also masculine identities. The construction of racialised and gendered national identities and the process of the production of natural resources are intertwined at spatial but also temporal levels. Resource exploration is constituted as a performative act of white Russian identity as it constructs a link between social identity and land/resources. The act of resource extraction is also framed temporally, as it is framed in terms of national wealth, progress and prosperity.