By Simo K. Määttä, University of Helsinki
The ARENAS project has published a new contribution in its ongoing glossary of right-wing extremism, this time examining one of the most contested and rapidly evolving terms in contemporary political discourse: “wokism.”
The article is written by Simo K. Määttä, a researcher at the University of Helsinki, one of ARENAS’s twelve partner institutions. The team at the University of Helsinki plays a significant role within the project, leading Work Package 6 on ethics and politically sensitive science, and contributing substantially to Work Package 3, which examines how extremist narratives circulate across languages, borders, and political contexts. This broader focus on circulation is central to understanding how a term like “woke” can travel from African American vernacular English into the rhetorical arsenal of far-right politicians across Europe.
In his contribution, Määttä traces the historical roots of the word “woke” from its earliest recorded uses in pan-Africanist writing in the 1920s, through its renewed prominence during the Black Lives Matter movement, to its current incarnation as a political catchall deployed by figures ranging from Ron DeSantis to Matteo Salvini. Drawing on sociolinguistic frameworks, including Sara Ahmed’s concept of “sticky emotions” and the notion of floating signifiers, he shows how the term has been systematically distorted to serve as a tool for those seeking to dismiss campaigns for social and racial justice, while presenting that dismissal as a principled defence of free speech.
The glossary of right-wing extremism is coordinated by Steven Forti and brings together historians, sociologists, political scientists, and sociolinguists from across the ARENAS consortium. Entries are designed to be accessible to broad audiences, making complex ideological phenomena legible without oversimplifying them.
Määttä’s piece is a timely and rigorous contribution to this effort, and a clear demonstration of the kind of cross-disciplinary, transnational analysis that lies at the heart of the ARENAS project.