Performing Islamophobia in the Australian parliament: the role of populism and performance in Pauline Hanson's "burqa stunt"

Drawing on a multimodal approach to Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), this research critically examines the 2017 “burqa stunt” of Australian far-right populist politician, Pauline Hanson. Adapting Scalmer's (2002) conceptualisation of the “political gimmick”, this paper makes the following arguments: Firstly, that Hanson's “burqa stunt” must be understood as an articulation of Islamophobia and political performance. It was the interplay of Hanson's radical right and populist ideologies that informed the stunt. As such, this paper bridges the ideational and performative approaches to populism. Secondly, the stunt was the product of the mediatisation of politics and the logics that govern contemporary media in Australia. The aim of Hanson's stunt was clear: to generate controversy and media attention. In this, the “burqa stunt” was incredibly successful and was extensively covered both nationally and internationally. The stunt was the most overt expression of the anti-Muslim racism that has defined Hanson's contemporary political resurgence. This paper furthers our growing understanding of how far-right populist actors strategically employ performance strategies designed to generate controversy and media attention. It also highlights how racist far-right actors are able to articulate Islamophobia in novel ways that exploit the logics of the contemporary media environment.