Masculinities from the Right

Abstract

Oliver Geden, doctoral candidate at the Institute for European Ethnology at the Humboldt University in Berlin, examines concepts of masculinity in the contemporary populist right—a theme for which there, surprisingly, have long been no relevant studies available. Using party materials and interviews, he reconstructs strategic positions on masculinity and gender relations at differing organizational levels of the Austrian “Haider Party,“ or Austria’s Freedom Party (FPÖ). Instead of a monolithic “Neo-Macho-Project,“ he finds at the party’s core not only admittedly similar attempts at traditionalization at all levels, but also perspectives on the gender thematic that, based on context, range from the pragmatic, to the insecure, to the neo-naturalist. By including group interviews of the party’s youth organizations, the publication is lent a particular explosive energy. Geden analyzes the ethical implications for method and research as brilliantly as he does the central theme itself.