Raping turtles and kidnapping children: Fantasmatic logics of Scandinavia in Russian and German anti-gender discourse

ABSTRACT This study examines the social, political, and fantasmatic logics involved in production of contemporary discourses about Scandinavia as a symbolic site imagined place sexual moral decay gender dysphoric dystopia by actors global anti-gender movement. Empirically, we draw on rich digital archive multi-modal media texts from an ongoing research project movements Russia Germany – two countries which provide particularly poignant examples sites this mode propaganda is currently rise. In analysis, explore discursive workings prominent node material that vulnerable child show how figure construed instrumentalised to add urgency fuel outrage among domestic audiences Germany.