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Rhetorical-Performative Analysis of the Urban Symbolic Landscape: Populism in Action

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Discourse, Culture and Organization

Part of the book series: Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse ((PSDS))

Abstract

This chapter introduces a rhetorical-performative analysis as a tool for exploring urban symbolic landscape and populism and hence deals with relationality and materiality from the postfoundational perspective. It connects the articulation theory of cultural theorists Stuart Hall or political theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe and spatial analysis of cultural geographer Doreen Massey to the study of populism. The case of Hungary shows how political frontiers have been articulated in the public space, contestable interpretations of the past are deliberately used and key symbolic urban landscapes transformed radically to articulate a political ‘us’—and ‘them.’ In the 2010s, in the Hungarian capital Budapest, the top-down process transforming urban space faced bottom-up movements which reproduce the populist logic of articulation.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter’s theme relates research since 1999, with the latest empirical findings discussed in Palonen (2017). This research has been conducted as part of Academy of Finland projects Populism as Movement and Rhetoric (Kovala 2012–2016), Asymmetries in European Intellectual Space (Jalava 2012–2016), and the consortium on Mainstreaming Populism in the 21st Century (Herkman 2017–2021).

  2. 2.

    Kálmán Széll (1843–1915) was a finance minister (1875–1878) and PM (1899–1903).

  3. 3.

    Moszkva tér, a Hungarian road movie directed by Ferenc Török, set a tone of a generation in 2001. A novel based on ethnographic research was written about the lives of Budapest’s homeless (Pőcze 2014).

  4. 4.

    In the late 1990s, the now-removed eternal flame memorial commemorated victims of the 1956 uprising.

  5. 5.

    The parliament’s resolution (61/2011, VII. 13) including the Imre Steindl Program (Akçalı and Korkut 2015: 77).

  6. 6.

    The Arrow Cross Party controlled the Hungarian government from October 1944 to April 1945. The party had roots in the mid-1930s in the Hungarian parliament and was composed of Hungarian citizens.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Emilia Palonen

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  1. Emilia Palonen
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  1. Department of Sociology, Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, Munich, Germany

    Tomas Marttila

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Palonen, E. (2019). Rhetorical-Performative Analysis of the Urban Symbolic Landscape: Populism in Action. In: Marttila, T. (eds) Discourse, Culture and Organization. Postdisciplinary Studies in Discourse. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94123-3_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-94123-3_8

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  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-94122-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-94123-3

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