Paper short abstract:

In this presentation I will argue that if we are to understand the current backlash against liberal and cosmopolitan ideas we need to pay attention to genealogies of exclusionary practices, or "cultures of unwelcome".

Paper long abstract:

In this paper I aim to engage with the panel's question of what role anthropologists might play in creating a more nuanced understanding of the contentious social and political mobilisations following the summer of displacements 2015 in Europe. I will suggest that due to its closeness to people's everyday processes of meaning-making, ethnographic research can play a crucial role in understanding the xenophobic, anti-cosmopolitan and illiberal sentiments that are currently sweeping through European societies. This, however, means that anthropologists need to overcome their traditional reluctance of studying groups they cannot sympathise with. By reflecting on my previous and on-going research I will show why, after a decade of studying refugees' struggles for emplacement in Western host societies, I decided to "change sides" and study the experiences of people who believe that the influx of refugees is a threat to their values and ways of life. I will argue that if we are to understand the current backlash against liberal and cosmopolitan ideas we need to pay attention to genealogies of exclusionary practices, or "cultures of unwelcome". For anthropologists this means that they can no longer ignore the potentially dark ideas of history and belonging to place circulating in European societies. While these ideas are often swept under the carpet or written off as "backward", it is crucial that we understand the social dynamics underlying their production, as they have the power to politically mobilise communities.