Lebensraum’s Tropical Turn

Abstract

In 1981 the ATF, FBI, and U.S. Customs Service agents arrested a group of American and Canadian White nationalists as they were on their way to overthrow the government of Dominica. Although seemingly improbable, the event is important because it illustrates the hegemonic nature of the relationship between the United States and Caribbean countries and, also, the globalization of White nationalist violence. In this paper I show that extant theory on White nationalism can be used to explain the White nationalist plot. In particular, I invoke the concept of Lebensraum and the fact that White nationalists espouse multiple objectives—in addition to racism—to explain their intent to subvert a Black country and to live there.

Is ‘white nationalism’, nationalism?

“…Similar proposals have existed throughout Europe and central Asia (Liyanage, 2021), the Caribbean (Vickerman, 2021) and South Africa (Holmes, 2020). In each of these contexts, the territory of the proposed ethnostates is fundamentally contested, with individual groups claiming completely different parcels of land for the purpose.…”