Paper short abstract:

This talk explores moral and ethical challenges of doing fieldwork among neo-fascists in Rome as politically highly contested field. It focusses especially on the necessity of building relationships of trust with the interlocutors questioning personal boundaries regarding moral standards.

Paper long abstract:

In the last years, there has been increasing attention in the social sciences on the phenomena of far-right and neo-fascist movements. Anthropologists, too, have been paying special attention to research on people "we don't necessarily like" (Bangstad 2017) and have been focusing on the moral and ethical implications related to this (see Bangstad et al. 2019, Pasieka 2017, Shoshan 2015, Teitelbaum 2019). Reflecting this development, the presentation examines moral and ethical challenges of anthropological research with neo-fascists in Italy.

Based on fieldwork in the neo-fascist scene in Rome, I consider Italian neo-fascism as a political subculture with complex structures. Besides being a politically highly contested and male-dominated field, it also proves to be a community based on family ties and social networks. First and foremost, the presentation will focus on the entanglements resulting from the necessity of building relationships of trust with the interlocutors and situations where personal boundaries regarding moral standards are at stake. Situations of moral and emotional dilemma can be highly challenging in such research settings and demand a permanent reflection of self-positioning in the field and the way of relating to the 'repugnant other'.