Bookstore

Researching the Far Right brings together researchers from across the humanities and social sciences to provide much needed discussion about the methodological, ethical, political, personal, practical and professional issues and challenges that arise when researching far right parties, their electoral support, and far right protest movements.

Drawing on original research focussing mainly on Europe and North America over the last 30 years, this volume explores in detail the opportunities and challenges associated with using ethnographic, interview-based, quantitative and online research methods to study the far right. These reflections are set within a wider discussion of the evolution of far right studies from a variety of disciplinary viewpoints within the humanities or the social sciences, tracing the key developments and debates that shape the field today.

This volume will be essential reading for students and scholars with an interest in understanding the many manifestations of the far right and cognate movements today. It also offers insight and reflection that is likely to be valuable for a wider range of students and scholars across the humanities and social sciences who are carrying out work of an ethically, politically, personally, practically and professionally challenging nature.

Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method and Practice

Part I: Disciplinary overviews























Political science approaches to the far right

Nonna Mayer



Historians and the contemporary far right: To bring (or not to bring) the past into the present?

Nigel Copsey



A Sociological survey of the far right

Kathleen Blee and Mehr Letif



Right thinking: Criminologists on right wing extremism

Barbara Perry And Ryan Scrivens



Getting inside 'the head' of the far right: Psychological responses to the socio-political context

Pasko Kisic Merino, Tereza Capelos and Catarina Kinnvall



Neo-nationalism and far right studies: Anthropological perspectives

Peter Hervik



Part II: Quantitative and online research



Estimating the far right vote with aggregate data

Vasiliki Georgiadou, Lamprini Rori and Costas Roumanias



Methods for mapping far right violence

Jacob Aasland Ravndal and Anders Ravik Jupskas



Challenges and opportunities of social media research: Using Twitter and Facebook to investigate far right discourses

Jasper Muis, Ofra Klein and Guido Dijkstra



Big data and the resurgence of the far right within the United States of America

Peita l. Richards



Researching far-right hypermedia environments: a case-study of the German online platform einprozent.de

Andreas OEnnerfors

Part III: Interviewing the far right







Methodology matters: researching the far right

Amy Fisher Smith, Charles R. Sullivan, John D. Macready and Geoffrey Manzi



Interviewing members of the White Power Movement in the United States: Reflections on research strategies and challenges of right-wing extremists

Betty A Dobratz and Lisa K. Waldner



Life-history interviews with right-wing extremists

Bert Klandermans







Part IV: Ethnographic studies of the far right







An observational study of the Norwegian far right: some reflections

Katrine Fangen



Overcoming racialization in the field: Practicing ethnography on the far right as a researcher of color

Vidhya Ramalingam



Negotiating ethical dilemmas during an ethnographic study of anti-minority activism: A personal reflection on the adoption of a 'non-dehumanization' principle

Joel Busher



Whiteness, class and the 'communicative community': A doctoral researcher's journey to a local political ethnography

Stephen D. Ashe

Part V: The significance of place, culture and performance when researching the far right







Studying local context to fathom far right success

John W. P. Veugelers



Studying the peripheries: Iconography and embodiment in far right youth subcultures

Cynthia Miller-Idriss and Annett Graefe-Geusch



Normalization to the right: Analyzing the micro-politics of the far right

Ruth Wodak







Part VI: The intersection of academic and activist positionalities and disseminating far right research







Getting insights and inside far right groups

Chip Berlet



From demonization to normalization: Reflecting on far right research

Aurelien Mondon and Aaron Winter