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Taking Far-Right Claims Seriously and Literally: Anthropology and the Study of Right-Wing Radicalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 August 2017

Agnieszka Pasieka
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Abstract

Departing from an overview of current mass media discourse on the far right, this article suggests why and how social scientists could contribute to a better understanding of current socio-political changes. In presenting an anthropological perspective, it discusses methodological, conceptual, and ethical challenges to conducting research on and with radical right-wing activists and supporters.

Type
Critical Forum: Global Populisms
Information
Slavic Review , Volume 76 , Supplement S1 , August 2017 , pp. S19 - S29
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 2017 

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References

1. “League of Nationalists,” The Economist, November 19, 2016, at www.economist.com/news/international/21710276-all-around-world-nationalists-are-gaining-ground-why-league-nationalists (last accessed May 2, 2017).

2. Ishaan Tharoor, “The West’s Major Cities Are a Bulwark Against the Tide of Right-wing Nationalism,” The Washington Post, November 22, 2016, at www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/11/22/the-wests-major-cities-are-the-best-defense-against-the-tide-of-right-wing-nationalism/?utm_term=.9c3c3853c3ef (last accessed May 2, 2017).

3. Joerg Schulze, “The Far Right: A Nationalist International?,” BBC, at www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/theneweurope/wk19.htm (last accessed May 2, 2017).

4. Andrea Bonanni, “La Valanga Populista Minaccia la Vecchia Europa,” La Repubblica, September 5, 2016, at www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/09/05/news/la_valanga_populista_minaccia_la_vecchia_europa-147203010/ (last accessed May 2, 2017).

5. Paul Mason, “The Far Right is Weaselling into the Mainstream, Dressed up in Suits,” The Guardian, May 2, 2016 at www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/may/02/far-right-europe-austria-democratic-right-elect-cleaned-up-fascist-president-suspend-country-from-eu (last accessed May 2, 2017). My emphasis.

6. It might be worth adding that the borderline between academic/non-academic discussions is increasingly blurred, given the growing amount of scholarly exposure in non-academic journals and other media.

7. However, it should be noted that in certain disciplinary contexts, such as history, the emphasis on the transnational actually preceded the recent interest in transnationalism.

8. E.g. Appadurai, Arjun, Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization (Minneapolis, 1996)Google Scholar; Hannerz, Ulf, Transnational Connections: Culture, People, Places (London, 1996)Google Scholar; Trouillot, Michel-Rolph, Global Transformations: Anthropology and the Modern World (New York, 2003)Google Scholar; Randeria, Shalini, “Entangled Histories of Uneven Modernities: Civil Society, Case Councils, and Legal Pluralism in Postcolonial India,” in Haupt, Heinz-Gerhard and Kocka, Jürgen, eds., Comparative and Transnational History: Central European Approaches and New Perspectives, (New York, 2009), 77–104 Google Scholar; Levitt, Peggy and Schiller, Nina Glick, “Conceptualizing simultaneity: A Transnational Social Field Perspective on Society,” International Migration Review 38, no. 3, (Fall 2004): 1002–39Google Scholar.

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11. Such an approach is common in most edited collections on far right. See, e.g.: Mammone, Andrea, Godin, Emmanuel and Jenkins, Brian eds., Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational (London, 2012)Google Scholar; Mering, Sabine von and McCarty, Timothy, eds., Right-wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US (London, 2013)Google Scholar; Wodak, Ruth, Khosravinik, Majid and Mral, Brigitte eds., Right-Wing Populism in Europe: Politics and Discourse (London, 2013)Google Scholar.

12. For analyses of internet, see Caiani, Manuela and Kröll, Patricia, “The Transnationalization of the Extreme Right and the Use of the Internet,” International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice 39, no. 4 (October 2015): 331–51Google Scholar. For a very interesting example on symbolic and discursive borrowing, see Doerr, Nicole, “Bridging Language Barriers, Bonding against Immigrants: A Visual Case Study of Transnational Network Publics Created by Far-right Activists in Europe,” Discourse and Society 28, no. 1 (January 2017): 3–23 Google Scholar.

13. Clavin, “Defining transnationalism,” 422.

14. Bauernkämper, Arnd, “Interwar Fascism in Europe and Beyond: Toward a Transnational Radical Right,” in Durham, Martin and Power, Margaret, eds., New Perspectives on the Transnational Right, (New York, 2010)Google Scholar, 40. See also: Reinisch, Jessica, “Introduction: Agents of Internationalism,” Contemporary European History 25, no. 2 (May 2016): 195–205 Google Scholar.

15. Such an argument is put forward for example by Grumke, Thomas, “Globalized anti-globalists: The Ideological Basis of the Internationalization of Right-wing Extremism,” in Von Mering, Sabine and McCarty, Timothy, eds., Right-Wing Radicalism Today: Perspectives from Europe and the US, (Abingdon, Oxon, 2013), 13–21 Google Scholar. What is also problematic about such approaches is a simplifying view of globalization as “frightening” and its enemies (far-right supporters) as emotionally responding to the threat of losing identity and traditions.

16. On Ukrainian-Croatian cooperation, see: Motyka, Grzegorz, Wołyń ’43: Ludobójcza czystka - fakty, analogie, polityka historyczna (Krakow, 2016)Google Scholar; on Italian-Croatian cooperation, see Yeomans, Rory, “The Adventures of an Ustasha Youth Leader in the Adriatic: Transnational Fascism and the Travel Polemics of Dragutin Gjurić,” Journal of Tourism History 6, no. 2/3 (August–November 2015): 158–173 Google Scholar; on Moldavian-Croatian, see: Schmitt, Oliver, “‘Balkan-Wien’—Versuch einer Verflechtungsgeschichte der politischen Emigration aus den Balkanländern im Wien der Zwischenkriegszeit (1918–1934),” Südost-Forschungen 73, no. 1 (2016): 268–305 Google Scholar.

17. Quote from the speech by Hungarian fascist Gyula Julius Gömbös (1919), in Nagy-Talavera, Nicholas M., The Green Shirts and the Others: A History of Fascism in Hungary and Romania (Iasi, Romania, 2001)Google Scholar. “Moscow” in this quote stands for bolshevism, and as such it resembles anti-communist stands of present-day far right, who, while opposing communist, are not necessarily anti-Russian even as some of them actively cooperate with Russian far right.

18. Such pictures were exposed, for instance, during anti-refugee demonstrations. See Fergal Keane, “Migrant Crisis: Is Germany Far Right Rise Echo of the Past,” BBC, December 19, 2015, at www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35124118 (last accessed May 2, 2017).

19. Such articles began appearing long before he was elected (See Bret Stephens, “The Return of the 1930s,” The Wall Street Journal, March 7, 2016, at www.wsj.com/articles/the-return-of-the-1930s-1457396236 (last accessed May 2, 2017); Paul Mason, “Are We Living through Another 1930s?,” The Guardian, August 1, 2016, at www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/01/are-we-living-through-another-1930s-paul-mason (last accessed May 2, 2017).

20. It is sometimes observed that anti-Islamism replaced anti-Semitism, but I would argue that it rather supplemented anti-Semitic discourses, contributing to a discussion about the enemies of Christianity.

21. See Robert Kagan, “This is How Fascism Comes to America,” The Washington Post, May 18, 2016, at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/this-is-how-fascism-comes-to-america/2016/05/17/c4e32c58-1c47-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?utm_term=.d0c30f228288 (last accessed May 2, 2017); Owen Jones, “Hungary’s Chilling Plight Could Foreshadow Europe’s Future,” The Guardian, October 13, 2016, at www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/13/hungary-future-europe-far-right-viktor-orban (last accessed May 2, 2017); John Lichfield, “Why We Should Be Scared of Marine Le Pen’s Front National,” The Independent, December 8, 2015, at www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/why-we-should-be-scared-of-marine-le-pens-front-national-a6765751.html (last accessed May 2, 2017). For a critical take on such comparisons, see: Dirk Kurbjuweit, “How Much Mussolini Is There in Donald Trump?,” Spiegel Online, November 24, 2016 at www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/can-donald-trump-be-called-a-fascist-a-1122035.html (last accessed May 2, 2017).

22. Gregor, A. James, The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science (Cambridge, Eng., 2006), 15–16 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

23. Müller, Jan-Werner, What is Populism? (Philadelphia, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

24. Which does not mean that their discourses and practices do not bear resemblances to some fascist ideas.

25. For a discussion on terminology and classifications, see: Blee, Kathleen and Creasap, Kimberly, “Conservative and Right-Wing Movements,” Annual Review of Sociology 36 (2010): 269–86Google Scholar; Caiani, Manuela and Porta, Donatella Della, “The elitist populism of the extreme right: A frame Analysis of Extreme Right-wing Discourses in Italy and Germany,” Acta Politica 46, no. 2 (April 2011): 180–202 Google Scholar; Minkenberg, Michael, “The Renewal of the Radical Right: Between Modernity and Anti-modernity,” Government and Opposition 35, no. 2 (Spring 2000): 170–88Google Scholar; Ghodsee, Kristen, “Left Wing, Right Wing, Everything: Xenophobia, Neo-totalitarianism and Populist Politics in Bulgaria,” Problems of Post-Communism, 55, no. 3 (May/June 2008): 26–39 Google Scholar.

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27. On far-right supporters as emotional, see Müller, What is Populism?, 16; on far-right activists as delinquents, see Shoshan, Nitzan, The Management of Hate: Nation, Affect, and the Governance of Right-wing Extremism in Germany (Princeton, 2016)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28. Eriksen, Thomas H., “Overheating: The World Since 1991,” History and Anthropology 27, no. 5 (December 2016): 469–87CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

29. For example, in Eriksen, “Overheating,” 479–80, Eriksen suggests: “. . . cultural relativism can no longer be an excuse for not engaging existentially with the victims of patriarchal violence in India, human right lawyers in African prisons, minorities demanding not just cultural survival but fair representation in their governments.”

30. See: Harding, “Representing Fundamentalism”; Giordano, Christian, “I Can Describe Those I Don’t Like Better than Those I Do: ‘Verstehen’ as a Methodological Principle in Anthropology,” Anthropological Journal on European Cultures 7, no. 1 (1998): 27–41 Google Scholar. According to Giordano, the “populist syndrome” manifests in the studies of discriminated groups with whom anthropologists empathize and (over)identify.

31. See, for example, Blee, Kathleen, “Evidence, Empathy and Ethics: Lessons from Oral Histories of the Klan,” Journal of American History, 80, no. 2 (September 1993): 596–606 CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Blee engages with oral history’s method of “romantic assumptions” about the subjects of history from the bottom and, drawing on her own research experiences, discusses certain unexpected dilemmas of research on racism.

32. Hann, Chris, “The Fragility of Europe’s Willkommenskultur,” Anthropology Today 31, no. 6 (December 2015): 1–2 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

33. Hochschild, Arlie R., Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right (New York, 2016)Google Scholar.

A correction has been issued for this article:

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