The Politics of Replacement: Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars

The Politics of Replacement explores current demographic conspiracy theories and their entanglement with different forms of racism and exclusionary politics such as sexism.

The book focuses on population replacement conspiracy theories, that is, those imaginaries and discourses centered on the idea that the national population is under threat of being overtaken or even wiped out by those considered as ＂alien＂ to the nation and that this is the result of concerted efforts by ＂elites＂. Replacement conspiracy theories are on the rise again: from Eurabia fantasies to Renaud Camus’ The Great Replacement, white supremacist discourses are thriving and increasingly broadcasting in mainstream venues. To account for their rise and spread, this edited volume brings together research on various dimensions of population replacement conspiracy theories: different theoretical and methodological approaches, different social scientific and humanities (inter)disciplinary backgrounds, different geographical case studies (across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania), different time periods (medieval archives, colonial archives, Nazi archives, postcolonial migrations, post-9/11), and different forms of racialization and racisms (Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism against migrants and refugees). It also explores the entanglement of population replacement discourse with gendered violence. The book is organized into four sections: (1) exploring the historical background of the current rise of demographic conspiracy theories; (2) tracing the (neoliberal) governmentalities in and through which replacement discourse operates; (3) analyzing the particularly intense focus on the threat of Muslims in contemporary replacement conspiracy theories, and (4) investigating the connection between replacement conspiracies, gender, and violence.

This title is essential reading for scholars, journalists, and activists interested in the contemporary far right, conspiracy theories, and racisms.

Sarah Bracke is Professor of Sociology of Gender and Sexuality at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. She is the Principal Investigator (PI) of the research project EnGendering Europe’s ＂Muslim Question＂.

Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar is an associate researcher at the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt Oder, Germany. His research interests focus on racism, Islamophobia and antisemitism, conspiracy theories, and the far-right.