The Nature of the Far-Right's Nature: ‘Nature’, ethno-nationalism and the Finns Party

Sammanfattning: The thriving far-right has been transforming social and political space in Western Democracies for decades. Yet despite the contemporary ecological crisis and other environmental problems, there is a considerable lack of research on the far-right’s positions on nature. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to filling the research gap and to investigate the ideological relations between the far-right’s ideas of nature and ethno-nationalism, the core of the far-right’s ideology. This thesis departs from a theoretical interest towards how different ideas of nature can contribute or give rise to nationalistic, racist or sexist agendas. The theoretical interest is supplemented by empirical research where the Finns Party’s representations about nature are studied. Empirical evidence demonstrates that nature and natural protection are important themes in the party’s official publications. Basing on textual analysis, four analytical themes are introduced to illustrate the ways in which ideas of nature can be related to the far-right’s ethno-nationalism: homeland, human nature, population and limits of nature, and nature as object. This thesis argues that ideas of nature can serve as an important component of the far-right’s ideology’s ethno-nationalist core because, through certain ideas of nature, the far-right does not only define nature but also human nature. In this way, nature can function as a means to formulate social relations of power because through particular ideas of nature the far-right, such as the Finns party, naturalises ‘fixed’ human properties (rational, civilized, moral). Furthermore, the protection of nature is justified through spatial and temporal rhetoric and it is equated with the protection of place and the protection of the culturally defined nation. The far-right’s ideas of nature can have important spatial and temporal implications: by emphasising the connection between culture and nature or the belonging and rootedness in the homeland, the far-right attempts to designate everyone’s place and mark those who are ‘out of place’.