Anthropological Perspectives on the Global Rise of the Far Right

Anthropological Perspectives on the Global Rise of the Far Right offers an anthropological examination of far-right movements as they produce culture, redefine national belonging, and build transnational networks through vitriol, bigotry, threats, blame, and violence targeted at persons, groups and organizations.Moving beyond ideological labels and distant metrics, contributors engage directly with activists and their moral worlds through sustained ethnographic fieldwork. The chapters reveal far-right actors as strategically inventive: appropriating postcolonial theory through Great Replacement narratives, cultivating charismatic "madman" leadership styles, and constructing adversarial identities by continually designating new enemies. These practices rely on racialization, antagonism, and communicative disruption.The volume demonstrates that no stable boundary separates far-right from mainstream discourse. Crucially, it argues that the global rise of the far right is inseparable from an erosion of shared epistemic ground—a crisis of fact where ideology willfully ignores research-based knowledge, undermining effective countermeasures to extremism.Essential reading for anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, and anyone seeking to understand the cultural dynamics and transnational dimensions of contemporary far-right movements.