This chapter will reflect on my research experience and decisions about how to engage with the far right as part of a wider examination of the racial politics of research on the far right – most notably how research into the far right often: (1) underplays race and racism; (2) assumes the whiteness and white privilege of the researcher and relies on white ignorance, including when it comes to the challenges, risks, and harms to racialised and otherwise targeted researchers; and (3) underplays its politics and subjectivity while constructing anti-racist and antifascist work as biased, political, or non-objective. I will discuss these issues and their implications, as well as how addressing them can help us understand and oppose racism more effectively and promote a more reflexive and anti-racist approach to far right studies.
The re-ignition of the ‘culture war’ in Britain has thrust research on cultural heritage into the political and media spotlight. Research on the material traces of Britain’s imperial history, such as the National Trust’s report on its properties’ historical relationship to colonialism and slavery (Huxtable et al. 2020), has come under severe public scrutiny, with its authors accused of imposing a contemporary political agenda on the past. Similarly, academics who support the removal of statues that commemorate slavers and colonisers have been accused of ‘erasing history’. Government ministers have lent their support to these charges, introducing legislation that impedes changing the names of sites or removing statues from public spaces. Within this context, we reflect on the ethics of research on memory and cultural heritage. We draw data from interviews we conducted with forty anti-racist activists, heritage workers, and government officials, as well as from workshops conducted with young people and poets, under the auspices of the Centre on the Dynamics of Ethnicity’s ESRC-funded work package, ‘The Changing Shape of Cultural Activism’. We argue that amidst its newfound visibility, research on cultural heritage is inherently political – such that declining to call for change or promoting a ‘balanced’ view of history is an endorsement of imperial amnesia and nostalgia. Further, amidst the prevalence of media and government accusations of ‘erasing history’, we argue for the importance of providing a counter-narrative, grounded in histories of empire and slavery as well as the literature on power and public space.
In this chapter, I draw on insights from my many years conducting ethnographic research in France as a Black American and US citizen, and non-French person, to discuss the challenges of conducting research on race and racism in a seemingly colourblind society. I also reflect on my own social location and positionality, which inform both how I conduct my research and how it is received by others, in both France and elsewhere.
The far right has become a hugely popular area of research, yet there has been limited engagement with the specific ethical implications posed by studying these groups. With the way that academia can contribute to the political dynamics for which it offers interpretations, there is an urgent need to deal with these questions and reflect on our practices. Such considerations take on particular significance in the context of the mainstreaming of the far right that we see today. Not only have some far-right parties enjoyed greater electoral success, but there are many examples of far-right discourse becoming normalised in mainstream circles. It is not simply far-right groups that are responsible for such shifts but those at the heart of what is considered ‘mainstream’, whether that be prominent politicians, media outlets, or other popular figures such as authors, sportspeople, and celebrities defending exclusionary positions. Academia too is implicated in these processes, with different levels of consciousness and reflection in this regard. This chapter focuses on developing an ethics of talking ‘about’ the far right, whereby the way that we disseminate our findings forms a key area of reflection. The lens of mainstreaming offers a way for us to visualise the role that academia may play when talking ‘about’ the far right, using the case of the populist hype to evidence some potential pitfalls. By engaging with these questions, it is hoped that we can start to build towards a more comprehensive ethics of talking ‘about’ the far right within academia.
This chapter explores the tension between safety and good qualitative research practice in oral history interviews; interviews which seek to uncover far-right machinations in UK gaming spaces without talking to members of the far right, or far-right adjacent groups, themselves. Through a close examination of interview excerpts, in which four interview participants independently referred to a toxic, othered ‘vocal minority’ in gaming spaces, I will explore how the far right can linger in interview data without actually being present. This examination is reflexive, as I consider the specific implications of my own positionality and experiences of gaming space as a Jewish researcher. By scrutinising my own positionality, my paradoxical research practice (investigating a community without talking to them) and how far-right ideologies operate, I will unpack the ideological knots that my research has become tangled up within. Using an excerpt from a Louis Theroux documentary, in which he visits Nazis in America, I will demonstrate how the Jew’s negotiation of both literal and metaphorical boundaries allows her to exist between binaries and resist far-right ideological operations – or to find power in her failure when she cannot successfully subvert them.
Contemporary researchers of the far right face a range of ethical challenges, including navigating institutional ethics. I argue in this chapter that Human Research Ethics Committees (HRECs) stifle innovative research when it is perceived as ‘risky’, which has the effect of reproducing harmful discourses about the far right. I draw upon my own experience, where my doctoral research methods were labelled the “modus operandi of fictional political thrillers”. My methods involved covert participant observation of far-right digital spaces, which posed an undue risk for the HREC for two overlapping reasons. First, covert research challenges notions of informed consent, which is typically presumed to be a baseline requirement for ethical research. Second, the HREC drew on popular, media-driven stereotypes of the far right, which had the effect of constructing my field site as a metaphorical digital ‘red zone’. In turn, the HREC was discursively positioned to consider my research as prima facie risky. Overall, I argue that institutional ethics would benefit from drawing on the rationalities of situated ethics and cultures of care, which treat ethics as an ongoing social practice rather than a one-off process.
The matter of establishing rapport with research subjects involved in far-right movements presents a significant challenge to researchers, as they grapple with the conflicting demands of cultivating close proximity to their subjects while navigating stark ideological disparities, all while maintaining integrity. Some researchers have recognised shared experiences with far-right subjects, which are not unrelated to their ideologies, have enabled them to gather valuable data. The present study aims to contribute to the ongoing discussion regarding the establishment of rapport with far-right subjects, as well as explore the potential for humanising these subjects. By reflecting on my own interaction with a Japanese far-right activist and drawing upon a psychosocial perspective, this chapter elucidates how the interplay between commonalities and disparities, and the resulting tension between us, generate data that effectively captures the intricate nuances of the activist’s experiences. It argues that humanising the subject involves more than simply emphasising shared aspects between researchers and subjects; it necessitates an acknowledgement of the ambivalent nature of the researcher’s interaction with far-right activists. This ambivalence arises not only from the disparity in political standpoints but also from different trajectories of our respective lives. The nuanced recognition offers a more comprehensive understanding of the subjectivities of these individuals.
This chapter aims to delineate some borders of what the far right is – and isn’t – to consolidate existing critique of far right studies, focusing in particular on four potential misconceptions: (1) Far-right politics is not just party politics – often taken as pars pro toto, far-right parties are in fact only part of the picture. They operate alongside far-right writers, academics, think tanks, and non-parliamentary organisations; (2) There is no essential good/bad, far right/non-far right dichotomy – the contemporary far right is not necessarily the single biggest or a uniquely dangerous threat to democracy. Furthermore, the borders between the far right and non-far right are highly permeable; (3) The ‘us’ and ‘them’ of the far right are contingent – far-right forces may look to defend ‘the nation’, but some depict whole continents or ‘civilisations’ as ‘us’. Similarly, demonised ‘others’ may become sought-after constituents as the far right turns its gaze elsewhere; (4) The far right is not uniform – far right parties and organisations differ in significant ways, both within and across countries, with some more or less extreme, racist, (neo)liberal, or protectionist. In essence, this chapter argues that reflective and critical research on the far right needs to highlight what is unique and particular about the far right without overlooking similarities with other actors across the political spectrum. Furthermore, researchers should be attentive that history will not always repeat itself identically and that far-right actors may represent or work for seemingly ‘non-far right’ parties and organisations.
A pressing ethical issue for the study of the far and extreme right is the need to move away from paradigms and approaches which euphemise racist ideology. Key to addressing this is a greater engagement on behalf of political science scholars with racism as an analytical concept. In this chapter, I draw on my experience researching the Italian populist far right Lega (Nord) and reflect on why racism has been largely absent in political science analyses of this party. These reflections highlight three issues which have impeded a consistent engagement with racism as an analytical concept; namely, a lack of reflexivity in terms of positionality and whiteness in political science; an over-emphasis on ‘right-wing’ turns which overlook connections between regionalism and nationalism, and how these can inform far-right ideology; and, finally, a tendency to (over/mis) use populism and nativism as analytical concepts while decentring more stigmatising and precise terms, such as racism. Far from being specific to the study of the Lega, however, I argue that these issues are a symptom of a wider malaise represented by political science’s neglect of racism as an analytical tool. Accordingly, I offer three tentative, non-prescriptive guidelines to encourage reflexivity and a less euphemising way of referring to the far and extreme right. These aim to encourage dialogue between scholars and students alike, and the pursuit of anti-racist paradigms to examine far- and extreme-right actors.
Our ethical duty to ‘do no harm’ to our informants in ethnographic work is complicated by the ever-shifting nature of violence in our societies. In this contribution, I reflect on the definitions of far-right violence thus offered by scholarship before arguing for a more expansive definition. This expansion can open more opportunities for understanding more pernicious forms of racial violence. But it also draws our attention to narratives of violent victimisation consistently offered by far-right activists. Understanding the spectrum of far-right violence means (1) prioritising the study of the violence in stigmatisation and reverse victimisation at the individual level while (2) handling these ideas with care in order to avoid uncritically reproducing them.