In the Free Sweden: Place, and Belonging in a White Separatist Community

Rapid demographic changes have been framed by the far right movement internationally as a foreign invasion of the homeland. The threat of the so-called Great Replacement warns Swedes will soon become a minority within Sweden. For the activists of Det Fria Sverige (The Free Sweden), their homeland has already been lost. The "invasion" has been successful and stricter immigration measures are not enough. It is time to retreat, raise the barricades, raise their families, and prepare for a Sweden where Swedes are a minority in their own country. I have spent the last year and a half listening to and observing these activists preparing for "replacement" and working to create the white separatist society they desire. Through ethnographic methods, this article then asks: How is the far right social movement working to restore that lost homeland? What everyday personal and institutional dilemmas do activists face in their pursuit of white separatism? And how do they solve them? To answer these questions, I engage with the localist turn in far right studies. I treat local geographies as both containers of utopian and nostalgic myths of homogenous pasts which are central to the creation and negotiation of territorial, political identities. Local places are where the idealised (white) society to come (and long gone) meets the everyday challenges of creating and maintaining a movement. My everyday, often mundane experiences with far right activists revealed the frictions between idealised futures and pragmatic, bureaucratic realities. I conclude my presentation with a note on the ethical dimensions of far right ethnography and engaging with narratives of white victimisation.