Paper short abstract:

This intervention reflects on the epistemological implications of a feminist ethnographic methodology in the analysis of contemporary fascist practices. The paper interrogates the diffusion of fascism on the ground level, paying attention to its relationship with the process of knowledge production.

Paper long abstract:

As part of the ERC project F-WORD, this intervention reflects on a new paradigm in the anthropological exploration of contemporary fascism. Framed by the methodology of feminist ethnography, the paper interrogates how specific methodological choices are involved in the process of knowledge-production and their epistemological consequences.

F-WORD addresses the question of fascism continuities in Europe through comparative ethnographic research among youth in Belgium, Italy and Poland, with the objective of mapping where youth encounter political discourses in non-political spaces such as combat sport’s sites.

Previous fieldwork on the topic has revealed the need to interrogate not only methodological research practices (Avanza 2008, Bellé 2016, Blee 1998), but also the epistemological dimension of the production of knowledge. Based on those premises, this project proposes to use feminist ethnography (Davis Craven 2016) together with the tool of intersectionality (Crenshaw 1989) to research fascist practices and meanings in the everyday lives of European youth.

This approach aims to engage with the relational dimension of ethnographic research (Dechezelles Traïni 2018; Stathern 2020). Therefore, feminist ethnography informs and guides the process of research giving attention to the way memory politics dialogue with the personal geography of the research team and proposing a critical reflection on power differentials in the research context. Moreover, intersectionality helps to focus on how different gender and past-colonial identities or migration processes inform the relationship and patterns of encounter with fascism. Overall, the intervention interrogates which theoretical contribution feminist theory could provide in fostering our understanding of an anthropology of fascism.