The Role of Research in Fighting the Far Right

The third speaker in this AoIR 2023 session is Jessie Daniels, who begins by suggestion that we are in a genocidal moment in the United States and around the world. There is a need to combat the rise of the far right – yet much of the research that engages with the far right still merely studies it, rather than developing approaches to fighting it.

One of the transitions that need to happen here is to develop a greater focus on far-right governments: the far-right is no longer simply opposed to the state, but in a number of cases – in the US and elsewhere – has become the state. Civil society organisations are also compromised by this, if some of their agendas become entwined with far-right agendas.

It is also important not to view far-right activities solely through the lens of hate; this is too narrow a slice of the affect that is evident in far-right groups. Simplistic divisions between ‘bad’ and ‘good’ white people also cannot suffice here. We must instead build a global coalition of groups standing against the far right.

(OK, this was more a call to arms than a paper, and I probably didn’t fully do it justice.)