National Menace: Mediating Homo/sexuality and Sovereignty in the Polish National/ist Discourses

Abstract

The bio-political discourses of nationhood and homo/sexuality burgeon geo-culturally and historically, and this article presents a case-study of Poland post-2004 EU enlargement. Focused on the (televised) presidential media orchestrations of the ‘EU and homosexual menace’ and parliamentary resolutions, the tensions between nationhood and sexuality are analysed through the prisms of dislocation, surplus, rhetoric of fear and antagonism. The presented argument: (1) discusses the complex simultaneity of discursive relations (rejection and dependency, flagrancy and obscurity, desire and abjection) spanning political and cultural narratives; (2) accentuates the evocative role of the emotive repertoire of media strategies deployed in the political and cultural ‘sex wars’ over the notion of ‘sovereignty’ in the post-2004 Poland and ‘EUrope’; (3) underlines ‘discourse consciousness’ of the populist political institutions.