Guest lecture: Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius at BFM

In this talk, the lecturer – Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius – will present a work-in-progress paper, co-authored with Ilana Hartikainen (University of Helsinki). The paper examines right-wing media discourse on migration in Poland and Czechia as a site of structural racism, which both represents and perpetuates societal and institutional patterns of belonging and exclusion. From the intersectional perspective, media – viewed as part of the ‘hegemonic domain’ – interfaces with structural racism within the ‘matrix of domination’, i.e. the social organisation of power. Right-wing media discourse on migration specifically is steeped in ‘domopolitics,’ which imagines the state as a ‘home’: while natives naturally belong to this home and can invite guests thereto, they must also protect it from unwanted arrivals. 

Methodologically, the paper deploys the notion of ‘chronotopes’ – discursive constructs that fuse space and time – in a close reading of the spatiotemporalities of racism articulated in two comparably popular, politically oriented online outlets: the Polish WPolityce.pl and the Czech ParlamentniListy.cz. Interested in the domopolitical imaginary, it zooms in on the chronotopes of the ‘homeland’, the ‘EU’, and ‘outside Europe’. In so doing, the paper unpacks the ambiguous and simultaneous feelings of proximity and inferiority that Poland and Czechia have towards Western Europe, as well as their compensatory sense of superiority over, but also fear of, the non-‘Western’ world. While the two outlets differ in whether they support the approach to migration adopted by their respective national government (WPolityce.pl) or advocate for more hardline measures (ParlamentniListy.cz), the broad picture of migration in both cases turns on similarly racist and domopolitical ideas. Firstly, the chronotope of the ‘homeland’ – which exists in and responds to the present – rests on the ethno-racial fantasy of homogenous, white nations that must be protected from the existential threat that an infestation with ‘coloured’ and/or non-Christian others poses. Secondly, the ‘EU’ embodies the dreadful, dystopian future of failed multiculturalism, wherein migrants have overrun native populations. Finally, ‘outside Europe’ figures as a barbarian space where migrants originate, but it also leaks into the EU as ‘no-go’ zones occupied by those migrants. Inherently primitive, this ‘outside Europe’ is essentially stuck in the past, devoid of the present, and poised for the imminent colonisation of Europe.

Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius is a Postdoctoral Researcher (Core Fellow) in media and communication at the Helsinki Collegium for Advanced Studies, University of Helsinki. Having previously done research on ethical trade communication, she is currently working on a project concerning mediated racism and nationalism in Poland. Her articles have been published in journals across disciplines such as 'Nations and Nationalism', 'Globalizations', 'International Journal of Cultural Studies', 'Journal of Nonprofit & Public Sector Marketing', and 'Media and Communication'.

NB! Kinga Polynczuk-Alenius is also giving an on-line guest lecture at Tallinn University on Tuesday, 19 October. More on this lecture here.