Political Science » Research » Cristian Norocel

Ov Cristian Norocel

Guest Doctoral Student

E-mail: cristian.norocel@statsvet.su.se

Contact information at Stockholm University »

Doctoral candidate, Department of Political and Economic Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki/ Helsingin yliopisto/ Helsingfors universitet, Helsinki/ Helsingfors (Finland) (2007 -) .

E-mail (main): cristian.norocel@helsinki.fi

Research Interests

• Theorizing of radical right populism and parliamentarian extremism from a feminist/ post-colonial perspective;

• Femininities and Masculinities and the identity performative in a political context;

• Gender and conceptual metaphors theory in the political discourses;

• Political parties and leadership and comparative politics;

• Areas of interest and expertise: the Northern Countries (focus on Finland and Sweden), Central and Eastern Europe (especially Hungary, Romania, Moldova), former Republics of the Soviet Union (the Baltic Countries, Moldova), the EU;

Research Project

I started my PhD research after being accepted at the Department of Political and Economic Studies, University of Helsinki with a research project pertaining to issues of gender studies/gender equality and democracy in January 2007. The research project has benefited from the intellectual input and the close fieldwork made possible by my being welcomed as a Guest PhD student at the Department of Political Science/ Statsvetenskapliga institutionen from Stockholm University/ Stockholms universitet, Stockholm (Sweden) (2008-).

The project more specifically entails a cross-country analysis of the extremist masculinity ideals developed and promoted by the means of gendered conceptual metaphors in the radical right populist discourses in several countries: Finland, Romania, and Sweden. The subjects of my analytical endeavor are the True Finns (PS, Perussuomalaiset/ Sannfinländarna) in Finland, the Greater Romania Party (PRM, Partidul Romania Mare) in Romania and the Sweden Democrats (SD, Sverigedemokraterna) in Sweden. It is aimed to cast more light on the specific places of resistance against gender equality, and against the processes of EU integration.

The research project is an inter-disciplinary dialogue. It draws its resources from scholarship focusing on the study of masculinity and the feminist performativity; at the same time, it is anchored in political sciences, with a special sensitivity to the outburst of rightist extremism within the wider European context and developing an innovative way of employing conceptual metaphor theory. The research project will contribute to the political and scientific goals of cultural diversity as well as democratic equality.

Awarded Research Grants

• My present research project is funded by The Finnish Cultural Foundation/ Suomen kulttuurirahasto for a period of three years. More recently, I was awarded a grant for the completion of my doctoral thesis from The Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation/ Ella och Georg Ehrnrooth Stiftelse.

• I was awarded the TAPRI Research Grant for 2008/2009, undertaking my research at the Tampere Peace Research Institute/ Tampereen Rauhan- ja konfliktintutkimuskeskus (TAPRI), within the University of Tampere/ Tampereen yliopisto, Finland.

• Besides that, I was awarded several research travel grants by the Oskar Öflund Foundation/Oskar Öflunds Stiftelse; the Nordic Research School in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies; the Roskilde Universitetscenter, Institut for Samfund og Globalisering.

Professional Membership

• Member of the Graduate School in Political Studies in Finland (POLITU- Politiikan tutkimuksen tutkijakoulu/ POLFORSK- Politologiska forskarskolan) (2007-);

• Founding member of Nordic Association for the Study of Men and Masculinities (NFMM- Nordisk förening för forsking om män och maskuliniteter) (2009-);

• Member of the European Sociological Association (ESA) (2009/2011);

• Member of the Finnish Political Science Association (FPSA- Valtiotieteellinen yhdistys/ Statsvetenskapliga föreningen i Finland ) (2009-);

• Member of the Swedish Political Science Association (SWEPSA- Statsvetenskapliga förbundet) (2009-);

• Doctoral students’ representative within the Board of ESA Research Network on Political Sociology (RN32) (2009/2011).

Publications

Selected articles in peer-reviewed journals, e-journals, and invited book chapters

"Heteronormative Constructions of Romanianness: A Genealogy of Gendered Metaphors in Romanian Radical-Right Populism 20002009". In Debatte: Journal of Contemporary Central and Eastern Europe 19.1-2 (2011): pp. 453-470.

"Gendering violence in the school shootings in Finland" (co-authored) Johanna Kantola, Ov Cristian Norocel and Jemima Repo. In European Journal of Women’s Studies 18.2 (2011): 183-197.

"Reading 'Princepele' through the Eyes of the Doomed - Queering Nationalism and Masculinity in a Communist Romanian Novel". In SQS - Suomen Queer-tutkimuksen Seuran Lehti - Tidskrift för Queerforskning i Finland - Journal of Queer Studies in Finland, 1-2 (2010), pp. 1-11.

"Constructing radical right populist resistance: Metaphors of heterosexist masculinities and the family question in Sweden", NORMA: Nordic Journal for Masculinity Studies, vol. 5, issue 2, p. 169-183.

“Romania is a family and it needs a strict father: conceptual metaphors at work in radical right populist discourses.” In Nationalities Papers, 38.5 (2010), pp. 705-721.

“Globalisation and its male contenders? The question of conservative masculinities within the radical right populist discourses across the EU.” In Globalisation – Challenges to Research and Governance, pp. 237-250. Jukka Kultalahti, Ilari Karppi, Olli Kultalahti, Ernesto Todisco, eds. (2009). Helsinki, Finland: East-West Books Helsinki.

“Bracketing the Problems at Home, Scrutinizing the Near Abroad: Does the ‘Compatriots’ Nationalist Discourse Portray a Russian Foreign Policy Entrapped in the Democratization Process?” In Alternatives. Turkish Journal of International Relations, 4.1-2, (2005), pp.124-138.

“The Ubiquitous Otherness. Nationalism, and Heterosexual and Homosexual Masculinities in Romanian Communist Literature.” In Nationalisms Across the Globe: An Overview of the Nationalism of State-Endowed and Stateless Nations, Vol. I: Europe, pp. 301-313. Wojciech Burszta, Tomasz Kamusella and Sebastian Wojciechowski, eds. (2005). Poznan, Poland: Wyższa Szkoła Nauk Humanistycznych i Dziennikarstwa.

“The Nation Endangered. Ethnic Purity and Nationalist Heroic Masculinity in the Inter-war Romanian Legionary Movement.” In Nationalisms Across the Globe: An Overview of the Nationalism of State-Endowed and Stateless Nations, Vol. I: Europe, pp. 261-275. Wojciech Burszta, Tomasz Kamusella and Sebastian Wojciechowski, eds. (2005). Poznan, Poland: Wyższa Szkoła Nauk Humanistycznych i Dziennikarstwa.

A selection of conference papers

"Constructing radical right populist resistance: Metaphors of heterosexist masculinities and the family question in Sweden" - presented at Årskonferencen i Foreningen for Kønsforskning i Danmark "Magt og Mobilisering – lokalt, nationalt og globalt", within Workshop "Højrepopulisme i et kønsperspektiv"/ "Rightwing populism in a Gender Perspective" (30.04.2011) Aalborg universitet, Aalborg, Denmark.

“The Rhetorical (Re)Constructions of the Swedish Folkhem: A Feminist Reading of Conceptual Metaphors” – presented at XLIII Politiikan tutkimuksen päivät/ XLIII Annual Meeting of Finnish Political Science Association (FPSA), within the directed panel “Moulding Identity, Trust and Commitment in the Nordic Countries: Balancing between Assimilation and Accommodation in the (Post)Multicultural World?” (20-21.01.2011) University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

“A Feminist Reading of Conceptual Metaphors: the Construction of Radical Right Populist Masculinities in Sweden” – presented at the Second European Conference on Politics and Gender , within Section 4: Research Methodologies and Methods (13-15.01.2011) Central European University (CEU), Budapest, Hungary.

“‘Give Us Back Sweden!’ A Feminist Reading of the (Re)Interpretations of the Folkhem Conceptual Metaphor in the Swedish Radical Right Populist Discourse” – presented at REMESO workshop “Right wing populism and the Sweden Democrats” (17.11.2010), REMESO – Institutet för forskning om migration, etnicitet och samhälle, Linköpings universitet, Sweden.

“Constructing Radical Right Populist Resistance: Metaphors of Heterosexist Masculinities and the Family Question in Sweden” – presented at the first interim Conference of ESA RN 32 Political Sociology, Workshop 1 C: “Populism at the polls and beyond: causes and consequences” (4-5.11.2010), Université Lille 2 (CERAPS), France.

“Manufacturing Belonging from a Radical Right Populist Perspective: Metaphors of National Family and Heterosexist Masculinities in Sweden”- presented at the 3rd Conference of the NordForsk Network on Multidimensional Equality and Democratic Diversity (DEMDI), Workshop 1: “Citizenship and belonging” (28-29.10.2010), Sigtuna, Sweden.

“Writing Histories of Pure Swedish Families: Metaphors of Heterosexist Masculinities (Re-)Defining the Family in the Swedish Radical Right Populism“- presented at the 8th European Social Science History Conference (ESSHC 2010), Workshop SEX08: “(Re)-Producing the Nation, Histories of (Re)-Defining the Family? ” (13-16.04.2010) Hogeschool Ghent, Belgium.

“Obsessions of Romanian Purity: Masculinity Metaphors in Romanian Radical Right Populism 2000-2009.”- presented at The ECPR Joint Sessions of Workshops (ECPR Joint Sessions) Workshop 17: “Disassembling Populism (and Putting It Back Together Again): Collaborative Empirical Research on Interactions among Populism’s Attributes” (22-27.03.2010) Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster, Germany.

“Defending Romanianness and Heteropatriarchy. Masculinity Metaphors in Romanian Radical Right Populism”- presented at the XLII Politiikan tutkimuksen päivät/ XLII Annual Meeting of Finnish Political Science Association (FPSA), within the directed Panel “Can Others Become Part of Us? Questions of National (Im)Purity” (11.03-12.03.2010) University of Helsinki, Finland, and Tallinn University, Estonia.

“Conceptual Metaphors at Work in Radical Right Populist Discourses: Romania is a Family and It Needs a Strict Father”- presented at the 5th European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR) Conference, within Section Gender and Politics, Panel “Feminism and Conservatism: An uneasy co-existence?” (abstract) (10.09-12.09.2009), Universität Postdam, Germany.

“How About Taking Gender in the Theorizing of Populism?”- presented at the 9th Conference of European Sociological Association (ESA), within RN 32 Political Sociology, Panel “The Extreme Right” (abstract) (2.09-5.09.2009), Lisbon University Institute (ISCTE), Portugal.

“Violent masculinities and school shootings in Finland” (written together with Prof. Johanna Kantola and Ph.D. Student Jemima Repo) – presented at Foranderlige Mænd og Maskuliniteter i Ligestillede Samfund/ Changing Men and Masculinities in Gender Equal Societies conference, within Theme H: Uddannelse og opdragelse af drenge og piger: normalisering og formning af genus/ The education and upbringing of boys and the formation of masculinities (28.01-30.01.2009), Roskilde University, Denmark.

“Performing Masculinity within the Nationalist Discourse across the EU – A Comparative Study of Finland, France, Sweden, and Romania -” – presented at XV NOPSA (Nordic Political Science Association) within the Populism workshop (06.08-09.08.2008), Tromsø University, Norway.

Selected book reviews

Keskinen, Suvi, Salla Tuori, Sari Irni and Diana Mulinari (eds.). “Complying with colonialism. Gender, race and ethnicity in the Nordic region” (Ashgate: 2009). Social Anthropology /Anthropologie sociale, 18.2 (2010).

Smith, Iyall Keri E. and Patricia Leavy (eds.). “Hybrid Identities. Theoretical and Empirical Examinations” (Brill: 2008). Comparative Sociology, 9.3 (2010).

Parpart, Jane L., and Zalewski, Marysia (eds.). “Rethinking the Man Question.Sex, Gender, and Violence in International Relations” (Zed Books: 2008). Cooperation and Conflict, 44.4 (2009).

Cockburn, Cynthia. “From Where We Stand: War, Women’s Activism and Feminist Analysis” (Zed Books: 2007). Comparative Sociology, 7.4 (2008).

Gingrigh, Andre, and Marcus Banks (eds.). “Neo-nationalism in Europe and beyond: perspectives from social anthropology.” (Berghahn: 2006). Social Anthropology /Anthropologie sociale, 16.1 (2008).

Enloe, Cynthia. “The Curious Feminist: Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire” (University of California Press: 2004). Social Anthropology /Anthropologie sociale, 15.2 (2007)