Fears, Conspiracies and Race Wars – Sarah Bracke on the Replacement Myths
In 2024 the book The Politics of Replacement Demographic Fears, Conspiracy Theories, and Race Wars, edited by Sarah Bracke and Luis Manuel Hernández Aguilar was published. In this book a variety of authors explore current demographical myths that center on the idea that so-called “elites” are trying to overtake or extinguish a so-called originally national population by replacing them with those who are considered alien bodies.
The book brings into conversation research on different dimensions of population replacement myths: theoretical and methodological approaches, social scientific and humanities (inter)disciplinary backgrounds, geographical case studies across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, and Oceania, time periods (medieval archives, colonial archives, Nazi archives, postcolonial migrations, post-9/11), and different forms of racialization and racisms (Islamophobia, antisemitism, racism against migrants and refugees) and their intersections with gendered violence. The book is organized into four sections: (1) exploring the historical background of the current rise of demographic conspiracy theories; (2) tracing the (neoliberal) governmentalities in and through which replacement discourse operates; (3) analyzing the particularly intense focus on the threat of Muslims in contemporary replacement conspiracy theories, and (4) investigating the connection between replacement conspiracies, gender, and violence.
In this video Sarah Bracke introduces the idea of replacement myths and how it is explored in the book:
