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Rape(d) nation: tropes of sexual violence and rape fantasies in far-right 'Sweden-memes'
Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education, Media and Communication Studies.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-9615-5597
Södertörn University, School of Culture and Education, Media and Communication Studies. Malmö University, Sweden.ORCID iD: 0000-0003-4953-2852
2026 (English)In: Feminist Media Studies, ISSN 1468-0777, E-ISSN 1471-5902, p. 1-18Article in journal (Refereed) Epub ahead of print
Abstract [en]

This paper examines prevalent tropes of sexual violence and rape circulating in far-right discourses in and around Sweden. Combining Discourse Analysis with a feminist reading of memes depicting rape collected in online spaces known to harbour far-right extremism, we ask: What is the scene of rape? What are its key tropes enacting in a discursive sense? How can we understand these iterations of sexual violation as key fantasmatic scenes of contemporary fascism? We explore a series of discursive figures and anthropomorphised representations of Sweden identified across these memes. These include Captain Sweden-a proxy for Sweden as a "cucked" nation; the Swedish Soyboy as an emblem of a feminized, castrated state; the Rapefugee invoking the threat of the abject Other, and finally the Swedish woman who occurs in contradictory form as slut, victim and race traitor. These tropes form nodal points in the articulation of the pervasive narrative of Sweden's, and in extension, the liberal order's crisis and retreat. Articulated around fantasies of perversion and abjection, they have evolved into emblems of Western moral degeneration and a loss of male power and serve as entry points to understanding the unfolding resurgence of fascist authoritarian ideology facing liberal democracies.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Routledge, 2026. p. 1-18
Keywords [en]
Far-right fantasies, rape tropes, memes, digital reactionary movements, misogyny
National Category
Media and Communication Studies
Research subject
Baltic and East European studies
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:sh:diva-60036DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2026.2660242ISI: 001757556900001Scopus ID: 2-s2.0-105038189439OAI: oai:DiVA.org:sh-60036DiVA, id: diva2:2061551
Part of project
Networked misogyny in Sweden, Germany and Russia: articulations, intersections and transnational flows, The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies
Funder
The Foundation for Baltic and East European Studies, 23-PR2-0010Available from: 2026-05-21 Created: 2026-05-21 Last updated: 2026-06-03Bibliographically approved

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Brock, MariaAskanius, Tina

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Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • harvard-anglia-ruskin-university
  • apa-old-doi-prefix.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-harvard.csl
  • sodertorns-hogskola-oxford.csl
  • Other style
More styles
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  • de-DE
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  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
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  • asciidoc
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