White nationalism has been subject to considerable debate by academic and online communities alike. We contribute to this body of scholarship by investigating constructions of white nationalism by (presumably) white nationalists online. To accomplish this, we extract and examine 92,000 posts on the topic between 2013-2024 from 4chan’s well-known /pol/ board. Using a mixed methods approach, we combine soft clustering of large language modelling embeddings with qualitative thematic analysis. Our results identify discursive constructions of an ethnic, gendered, and religious identity on 4chan, supposedly denied self-determination. By synthesising scholarly definitions with 4chan expressions of white nationalism, we also aim to detangle these constructions from white supremacy to advance an academic definition. We suggest white nationalism broadly describes the belief that humanity is naturally divided into nations, with a white nation that possesses distinct ethnic, political, territorial, and sovereign claims. Specifically, white nationalism as expressed on /pol/ is a form of ethnonationalism which champions an imagined (white) political and territorial community, whose idea of meaningful sovereignty is contingent upon the free exercise of white political will to shape their collective destiny.
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