Inside, Outside, Upside Down: Power, Positionality, and Limits of Ethnic Identity in the Ethnographies of the Far-Right

Abstract

Methodological literature on ethnographies of the far-right has largely centered around the ethical and political implications of such studies. Discussions on researcher’s positionality with regard to his/her insider–outsider positioning, ethnic-racial characteristics and concomitant power relations in the field remain relatively undertheorized. What occurs, for example, when the researcher studying anti-minority, ethnic nationalist right-wing groups is from a minority ethnic community? To what extent s(he) can gain access and develop rapport with the respondents? In this article, I seek to answer these questions by providing insights from my fieldwork experiences. I reflect upon my own position as a non-White, minority ethnic, and female ethnographer who conducted extensive fieldwork among grassroot activists of “Alternative für Deutschland,” a German right-wing political party. The article demonstrates that even in face of an apparent noncongruence between an immigrant ethnographer and right-wing, pro-majority respondents, researcher’s position is not static but fluid, intersectional and deeply situational. Ethnographer’s long term sustained proximity to the respondents, exposure to the everyday contexts of their lives create zones of congruence for an apparent outsider and can at times undermine the dominant category of ethnicity as primary social signifier.

Introduction

“…Empathy has become particularly hard to procure and sustain in studies on groups and individuals whose cultural worlds are drastically different from the "native" world of the researcher. The task is demanding when meanings that are at play are different; it becomes much more difficult when values are in conflict (Pasieka 2019;Deodhar 2022). The situation of researchers coming from by-and-large liberal cultures who engage in the study of far right groups is exhaustively analysed by Kocyba, Muszel and Trogisch in the present issue.…”