Potential violence,trauma and all the feels: Towards collaborative,reflexive and self-aware methodologies for researching the far right

Abstract

Researching the far right entails navigating complex relations of violence – symbolic, emotional and at times physical. While geographic scholarship has increasingly engaged with far-right mobilisations and imaginaries, little attention has been paid to the emotional challenges researchers face when studying these violent geographies. Drawing on individual and collective empirical work, this paper addresses the emotional labour involved in researching the far right, and it reflects on the personal impact and the methodological and institutional implications of such work. We combine personal fieldwork reflections with survey data to explore how violence is experienced and internalised throughout the research process. Our findings highlight the ways positionality, biography, structural constraints and institutional support shape researcher vulnerability, coping strategies and methodological decisions. We argue that research of the far right and on topics it takes aim at demands collaborative and caring structures, and institutional frameworks that acknowledge the risks and emotional burdens of this field. This paper contributes to a growing body of work that understands emotion not merely as disruptive but also epistemologically relevant and productive, calling for a more situated, institutionally backed and self-aware geographical research of the far right.