Wolfish White Nationalisms? Lycanthropic Longing on the Alt-right

ABSTRACT

This article takes aim at what, on its face, appears counterintuitive: the figure of the wolf in the iconography of alt-right groups in Canada and the US. In settler colonial states until quite recently wolves have historically been reviled and exterminated. Indeed, in the US and Canada, wolves were often conflated with Indigenous peoples and both were constructed as obstacles to colonial progress. This collapse of racial and species categories comes as no surprise as it has been and remains a central part of racialization and national identity in settler states. But in this case, there is a discursive reversal in the attempt to craft an alternative nationalism, one that hinges on the association of animals with white nationalism and misogyny. I use examples from two groups – one in the US and one in Canada – that have deployed wolf imagery in the elaboration of their often nativist and misogynistic mythology. Through these examples, I contend that wolves occupy a complex space in these alt-right movements, serving as ambiguous ciphers – simultaneous markers of both persecution and unbridled wildness – for their violent narratives about masculinity, alternative nationalism and white identity.

KEYWORDS:

• Wolves
• alt-right
• animal iconography
• animal geographies

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributor

Stephanie Rutherford is an Associate Professor in the School of the Environment. Her work is interdisciplinary, focusing on the intersections among the environmental humanities, animal studies, and cultural geography. She is currently writing a book on the history of wolves in Canada.

ORCID

Stephanie Rutherford http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0322-3424

Notes

1 There is a distinction between the terms white supremacist and white nationalist, though as Merrill Perlman writes in the Columbia Journalism Review, ‘they are in the same family' (Perlman 2017). White supremacists view white people as inherently superior to other races. White nationalists, according to the SPLC (SPLC n.d.), ‘believe that white identity should be the organizing principle of the countries that make up Western civilization’. Alt-right is a broader term for a movement is made up of white supremacists and white nationalists, but might also include men’s rights activists, so-called ‘western chauvinists’ and conspiracy theorists.

2 Reintroduction has been a fraught project; while some celebrate the return of the wolf to the American West, others have mobilized against this program, for many of the same reasons early settlers did: wolves kill livestock.

3 This is perhaps truer of the Wolves of Vinland than it is of La Meute, which, while not driving the move to the right in Quebec, is certainly echoing and bolstering a nativist vision in the province.

4 This translates roughly to ‘May he wear a wolfish head’ or ‘May his be a wolf’s head’. According to the Guide to Latin in International Law, and Donovan on page 147, caput lupinum or caput gerat lupinum, refers to the practice of exile or outlawing, were a person would exist outside of legal protection.

5 See, for examples, the Anti-Racist Canada’s collection of his tweets at http://anti-racistcanada.blogspot.com/2018/02/arc-living-rent-free-in-cdn-wolfpacks.html.