ECHO-DESIRE Research Seminar with Eviane Leidig

Description

Talk description

On mainstream social media platforms, far-right women make extremism relatable. They share Instagram stories about organic foods that help pregnant women propagate the “pure” white race and post behind-the-scenes selfies from anti-vaccination rallies. These social media personalities model a feminine lifestyle, at once promoting their personal brands and radicalizing their followers. Amid discussions of issues like dating, marriage, and family life, they call on women to become housewives to counteract the corrosive effects of feminism and champion the Great Replacement conspiracy theory, which motivated massacres in Christchurch, El Paso, and Buffalo.

In this talk, based on the book The Women of the Far Right: Social Media Influencers and Online Radicalization (Columbia University Press, 2023), Eviane Leidig offers an in-depth look into the world of far-right women influencers, exploring the digital lives they cultivate as they seek new recruits for white nationalism. Leidig argues that far-right women are marketing themselves as authentic and accessible in order to reach new followers and spread a hateful ideology. This insidious—and highly gendered—strategy takes advantage of the structure of social media platforms, where far-right women influencers’ content is shared with and promoted to mainstream audiences. This timely and accessible book also details online and offline approaches to countering extremism

Bio

Dr. Eviane Leidig is a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow at Tilburg University. Her research specializes on the global far-right, gender, and online radicalization, recruitment, and propaganda, as well as social media platforms’ content moderation policies. She is affiliated with the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo, the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism in The Hague, and the Global Network on Extremism and Technology in London. She regularly gives talks and consults for policymakers and practitioners such as the U.S. State Department, Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Council of Europe, the EU Radicalisation Awareness Network, NATO, national and regional intelligence agencies, as well as advises tech companies on countering online extremism. Eviane has appeared in international media outlets such as Bellingcat, The Independent, Al Jazeera, Foreign Policy, BBC, and The Australian Broadcasting Corporation. For more information, see her personal website: evianeleidig.com.

Period	23 Nov 2023
Event type	Seminar
Location	Brussels, Belgium