Paper short abstract:

This paper argues that radical disagreement and an open acknowledgement of conflicting political and moral commitments in the field can serve as a basis for a productive researcher-informant relationships in the context of studying right-wing groups.

Paper long abstract:

In this paper, I draw on my experiences of ethnographic research with nationalist actors in Russia and Cyprus to reflect on the methodological challenges of anthropological engagement with right-wing groups. The resurging anthropology of the far-right has been dominated by ethical debates that mostly revolve around the dangers of inadvertently amplifying ‘hateful voices’ as well as the problem of researcher-informant solidarity in the context of studying ‘people we do not like.’ What is often missing from these discussions is the acknowledgement that the discomfort, if not the dislike is mutual. I suggest that reversing the question and asking about the implications of doing research with people who do not like us, can open promising avenues for rethinking the ethical dilemmas involved in studying ‘politically problematic’ communities. Given that most conservative actors have their own strong assumptions about the political values that motivate researchers affiliated with Western universities, ‘solidarity’ is hardly expected by either side. While this circumstance makes accessing the field more troublesome, it also creates possibilities for a more honest relationship with informants for those researchers who rise to the challenge—one in which ‘the ethical-moral mismatch’ (Tietlebaum 2019) is openly acknowledged and taken as a starting point for conversation.