ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give an overview of some of the milestones of nationalist and fascist thinking and cultural politics in Chile during the twentieth century. It focuses on two periods of intense nationalist mobilisation, both related to transnational phenomena of right-wing ideologies: the first one comprises the 1920s and 1930s and the rise of the Chilean Movimiento Nacional Socialista (National Socialist Movement); the second one is located during the 1970s and 1980s in the context of the Chilean military dictatorship. The chapter combines an analysis of key elements of modern nationalist and fascist imaginaries (as well as their transnational dimensions) on the one hand; and, on the other, a depiction of concrete political actions of cultural agents in these historical contexts of ideological polarisation and, many times, overt violent repression and persecution. This chapter particularly considers the construction of an “Us” versus “Them” rhetoric at play during these periods and discusses the rhetorical and aesthetical dimensions at the core of right-wing authoritarian politics with their imaginaries of cultural decadence and nationalist regeneration.
