Covid-19: crisis, emotional governance and populist fantasy narratives

Abstract

This short article discusses how different fantasy narratives have come together during the Covid-19 crisis in various far-right movements, parties and audiences across the world and how much of these fantasies rely on racialised and gendered notions of a fantastical world-order in which particular forms of emotional governance provide a relief and sense of security to certain societal groups. This involves a close engagement with crisis and crisis narratives in relation to ontological insecurity and anxiety; how such crisis narratives have materialised in fantasies related to borders and corona nationalism, and the emotional governance of these particular fantasies in the hands of populist leaders and their increasingly receptive audiences.