ABSTRACT
Xenophobia and white nationalism are dominant features of contemporary politics, especially in North America and Europe. The turmoil of the Trump presidency, Brexit, and the culture wars regarding demographic and social change, have created a fertile ground for white nationalist movements that often find their rhetoric, fantasies, and aspirations reaching mainstream audiences and even seats of power. A target for many white nationalists and right-wing extremists is refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers, who are held accountable for many of the anxieties that incite white moral panics. In this chapter the author argues that the figure of the refugee has always played a complicated and contradictory role in global culture. While those fleeing persecution and danger have been, in some traditions, seen through the lens of victimhood and thus deserving of sanctuary, the author argues that equally important are a series of thematic frames structuring news coverage, discourse, and cultural representation that have helped to produce the refugee as a figure of threat. These are the ideas of refugees as a security threat, as a demographic threat, and as an environmental threat to existing populations and nations.
