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Emotions, power and space in the discourse of ‘People of the Real World’

The article investigates the discursive trope of ‘People of the Real World’ (PRW) as it was launched by the leader of the Swedish Christian Democrats, Göran Hägglund, during a political campaign week on the Island of Gotland in 2009. Sociological and cultural theories of local vs. cosmopolitan identity, of emotions, and of space, are used to analyse the speech and a selection of newspaper articles from 2009. The PRW discourse defends local, sedentary communities against globalization and cosmopolitanization. It draws on the collective emotional resources of ‘normals’ as they feel threatened by the social and political advancement of previously marginalized groups, undermining the former group’s power to define social space. It thus contributes to the social and political cultivation of resentment among those who identify with conservative, anti-cosmopolitan values.