Challenges in studying right-wing populism: a global perspective

Description

Convenors

• Ayala Panievsky (University of Cambridge)
• Yong-June Park (University of Cambridge)

Speakers

• Kathleen Blee (Collaboratory Against Hate Research & Action Center, University of Pittsburgh)
• Nicole Curato (Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra)

Summary

Twenty-first-century global politics have seen the entrenchment of political movements inspired by populist right-wing values. The flourishing of populist politics worldwide has led to proliferating scholarship on the causes, characteristics and implications of right-wing populism for democratic societies. The burgeoning research on right-wing populism has given rise to new ethical dilemmas and emotional challenges for researchers, which – despite the increasing interest in populism studies – have been largely overlooked. We seek to address this timely blind spot by bringing together researchers of right-wing populism, and particularly those using qualitative and ethnographic methods, to share their experiences and explore the tensions in studying what Susan Harding has famously termed ‘repugnant others’.

This conference is aimed at advancing a more nuanced and sincere understanding of ethnographic methodologies when studying the populist right, by initiating an open conversation between academics and practitioners (i.e. journalists and documentarists) who are facing similar challenges. We believe that such a conversation, apart from creating a supportive emotional space, could inspire more innovative and creative methods and approaches to tackle right-wing populism. Importantly, this reflexive, global, and diverse CRASSH conference also highlights academic work that has been sidelined by the dominant Eurocentric scholarship on populism over the years.

The conference’s confirmed participants come from the Philippines, the Middle East, South Korea and beyond. We hope to inspire sociologists, anthropologists, digital ethnographers, journalists and culture producers from around the world to share their experiences from fieldwork in hostile environments, to reflect on them and on their meaning to knowledge production, and to learn from each other’s successes and failures.

For more information about this event, visit the conference website.

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