Paper short abstract:

The paper presents a research project investigating the socio-cultural conditions of the current surge of the political right in Europe. We investigate 'cultures of rejection' - processes of social polarization, radicalization and transformation of everyday life in Germany and Austria.

Paper long abstract:

Recent successes of right-wing political parties and nationalist mobilizations across Europe call for a deeper understanding of the social and cultural dynamics in which such political projects are able to thrive. They cannot be adequately grasped as either 'protest votes', nor as 'reactions' to migration and refugee movements. We suggest that this emerges from experiences of change and crisis articulated as 'cultures of rejection'. They are based on values, norms and affects which reject immigration, domestic political elites, institutions of civil society and the media, shifting gender relations, and European integration. We focus on the challenges of an ethnographic investigation in a highly contested field, its conceptual framework and analytical strategies. The goal is to carefully reconstruct the systems of knowledge, perception and affect which constitute and reproduce cultures of rejection, along with the conditions under which they develop into a "system of acceptability" (Foucault 1992, 34). Therefore we have to think about theoretical concepts to analyze the current conjuncture; about ethical and moral questions in research practice with people we "don't necessarily like" (Bangstad 2017); about reflective methodologies; about paradigmatic fields where we can examine cultures of rejection on the ground and in their daily articulation in living environments without focussing only on right-wing extremism, political parties or ideological groups; and about possibilities of transnational comparability under specific local conditions.