Paper short abstract:

This paper reflects on my ethical, emotional and epistemological dilemmas while ethnographically exploring the world of far-right Polish immigrants and activists in the UK.

Paper long abstract:

Using my work among Polish far-right activists-immigrants in the UK, I will share some ethnographic encounters from the field, and my emotional and intellectual reactions to things I never saw – for example a Nazi swastika on a Polish body. These self-reflections full of ethical dilemmas, helped me to see my interlocutors in broader context. It also provided a dialectical perspective on what it means to engage in a violent white supremacy movement, because among questions I asked myself, was: how come I am not one of them? In the course of the study I developed a deeper research and ethical relationship with Mirek, an ex-neo Nazi, now a born again Christian. The title of this paper refers to a tattoo on his arm. For reasons which are essential to my argument, he elects not to erase it. The swastika in my view and the entanglement of his story and mine becomes a metonymy of our shared history – grand and small. The paper argues for the inevitability of autoethnographic reflections which serve not just as methodological tool, but one that gives us much needed emotional respite, hope and ethical firm ground to ask difficult political questions of today.