From “places that don’t matter” to peripheralization: A geographical approach to understanding the spatialities of the far right

Abstract

Based on qualitative research in the district of Frankfurt-Riederwald, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been successful in recent years, this paper confronts the mostly quantitatively oriented studies on the spatialities of the far right. For this purpose, peripheralization is introduced as a concept that leads beyond the dominant notion of left-behind places. The concept of peripheralization allows for a relational integration of the economic, individual and emotional dimensions of social reality, rather than understanding them as separate or even competing aspects, and thus provides an understanding of complex, spatialized political formations. Moreover, the concept helps to understand that both the periphery and the center are products of power relations and that both are equally important for the articulation of far-right politics.

Introduction

“We feel left behind,” says Ms. Böhm (R06 8.5.2019), a resident of the peripheralized Frankfurt district of Riederwald, where the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) has been successful since 2016. To be clear, success in Germany’s financial center and global city of Frankfurt, where the party has scored 5–10% overall in recent years, means something different than in other places, especially in rural eastern Germany, where the AfD already has electoral majorities in some districts and, in the case of Thuringia, since the September 2024 elections, even in the state parliament. In relation to these developments, the city of Frankfurt itself is not fertile ground for the far right. Nevertheless, a close look at developments in the city is instructive for two reasons: First, since 2023, the AfD has made unprecedented gains across Germany, not just in left-behind regions but also in more affluent ones. Developments in Frankfurt can therefore provide insights into the mechanics of the rise of the far right in a place perceived as central. Second, research on the rise of the far right has not paid enough attention to developments in cities. Too often they have been portrayed as liberal and cosmopolitan places. Yet studies clearly show that the results within cities are very scattered and that there are significant differences between the urban periphery and the affluent center (Geilen and Mullis, 2021; Kurtenbach, 2019; for Italy, see Crulli and Pinto, 2023).

The center-periphery pattern is not unique to Germany, as it is at least implicitly addressed in international research on the spatialities of the far right. These studies, mostly based on socio-economic data and quantitative methods, indicate that the far right is increasingly, albeit not exclusively, emerging in “left-behind places”, in locations affected by economic, social, and/or cultural marginalization (Di Matteo and Mariotti, 2021; Gest, 2016; Greve et al., 2023; Kevický and Suchánek, 2024; Koeppen et al., 2021; Kübler and Harris, 2024; cf. MacKinno et al., 2022; Rodríguez-Pose, 2020). With this paper, I aim to contribute to the debates on the spatialities of the far right by reflecting on the notion of peripheralization (Fischer-Tahir and Naumann, 2013; Förtner et al., 2021; Kipfer and Dikeç, 2019; Kühn and Bernt, 2013; Kühn and Weck, 2013; Miggelbrink, 2020; Naumann, 2021). My argument is based on my own qualitative research on the rise of the far right, conducted in the Frankfurt district of Riederwald. I will discuss my findings explicitly below, but they have informed the entire process of thinking about peripheralization. The concept is fruitful for two reasons:

First, it can integrate the economic, individual, and emotional dimensions of the production of space. It also allows for the integration of subjective and emotional perceptions, which have been shown to play an important role for the rise of the far right (cf. Ahmed, 2004; Anderson and Secor, 2022; Dubiel, 1986; Hentschel, 2019, 2021; Militz and Schurr, 2016; Strick, 2021). What matters is the sense of peripheralization, which I understand as the interplay between the experience of one’s own position in relation to the alleged power of the center. In turning to the concept of peripheralization, I emphasize that there is no monocausal explanation for the regressive shift we are currently witnessing, and that the cause is always complex and multidimensional.

Second, peripheralization allows us to go beyond the notion of being left behind, as it enables a relational reflection of spatialized patterns of power, social structures, and orders. Focusing on peripheralization in all its facets makes it possible to see that the periphery can also be found in places marked as centers. This is true, for example when we zoom in on cities and do not treat them as a political entity and focus on spatial patterns on the scale of neighborhoods. It is also true, however, when members of the middle and upper classes living in gentrified neighborhoods experience, or even only fear being peripheralized in terms of their political power, identity, and economic status.

Taken together the core contribution of the concept of peripheralization to the debate is that it emphasizes relationality, linking the inside with the outside and the near with the distant, the left behind with the affluent. Focusing on peripheralization allows us to understand that the mode of production of peripheralized spaces is important for the articulation of political ideologies, but that the production of centrality as the dialectic other also matters. To make my case, I will introduce debates on the rise of the far right and discuss related research on its spatialities, which revolves around the notion of left-behind places. I will then turn to the concept of peripheralization, before discussing the experience of peripheralization on the ground in Riederwald. In the concluding section, I will give some indications of how the far right uses peripheralization for its mobilization.

Understanding the rise of the far right

In the political and social sciences since the mid-2010s, and more recently also in human geography (cf. Agnew and Shin, 2020; Bürk, 2013; Centner and Nogueira, 2024; Domann, 2024; Ince, 2019; Koch, 2022; Lizotte and Kallio, 2023; Luger, 2022; Mullis and Miggelbrink, 2021, 2022; Naumann, 2021; Nettelbladt, 2023), there have been ongoing debates seeking to explain the current rise of the far right. The events that initially fueled the discussions in Western academia were the electoral success of Donald Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK (both 2016). In Germany, where my research is based, it was the formation of the AfD (2013) that sparked the debate. These events made it clear to a wide audience that the far right was on the rise and becoming mainstream, although the process had already begun in the early 2000s (Mudde, 2019). In this first section, I will outline the trajectory of these discussions. I will show that it is a complex story and that multiple layers, from objective marginalization to emotionally perceived patterns of social and democratic inequality, need to be considered.

Initially, debates focused on whether the dynamics were rooted in growing economic polarization or a cultural backlash along with regressive identity politics. Regarding the first point, growing economic inequality, processes of social polarization and economic downward mobility due to neoliberal globalization (cf. Artelaris and Mavrommatis, 2021; Eribon, 2013 [2009]; Fekete, 2018; Nachtwey, 2018) were highlighted as driving forces. This argument is directed in particular at the formerly well-integrated middle classes, but also at the institutionally organized working classes, which are experiencing a setback and political non-representation. For the French case, Didier Eribon (2013 [2009]: 132) has made this argument prominently. In later work, however, he insists that the situation is more complex and cannot be reduced to a question of class position. Nevertheless, in 2009 he did frame the rise of the Front National foremost as a “silent act in defense of what was left” of working-class identity. Arlie Hochschild (2016: 135–151) presents a similar analysis regarding the situation in the southern states of the US with her “deep story” behind the rise of Trumpism. It is a story of honest, hardworking people, largely white men, calmly standing in line and waiting for the American dream to be fulfilled, but this never happens, and the result is growing anger directed at those—mostly women, immigrants, and Black and People of color—who are accused of illegitimately cutting in line.

As for the second point, cultural backlash, Ronald Inglehart and Norris (2016: 29f.), for example, have argued that a cultural backlash is the dominant factor. In their study covering 31 European countries, they find that the unifying characteristics of far-right voters are a rejection of cosmopolitan, pluralistic, and postmaterialist lifestyles, as well as a fundamental skepticism towards migrants and the so-called political establishment. Gurminder Bhambra (2017: 217) presents a strong critique of the economic perspective that falsely rationalizes the resentment and racism of the white working class. She insists that cultural aspects, patterns of racist devaluation, and exclusion must be considered as principal driving forces. This is not least because “race has been fundamental to the configuration of the modern world and is integral to the very configuration of socio-economic inequalities in the present” (Bhambra, 2017: 227).

Qualitative (geographical) research, however, has shown that there is not one story that fits all cases. Indeed there are several paths to far-right attitudes and/or the decision to vote for a far-right party (cf. Domann, 2024; Luger, 2022; Miggelbrink and Mullis, 2022; Mullis, 2024; Nettelbladt, 2023; Shoshan, 2019). In a review of the literature on the far right (in Germany) Paul Zschocke and I have argued that at least four dimensions and the intersections between them must be considered when seeking to understand the rise of the far right. These are first, the experience of being left behind and downward mobility. Second, post-democratic tendencies and the loss of political self-efficacy. Third, (objective) class positions, as the less affluent strata of society are more affected by precarization and the withdrawal of the state from its social responsibility (cf. Hall, 2006). The fourth dimension is widespread racism and xenophobia (Mullis and Zschocke, 2019: 29). At the same time, it has become clear that the rise of the far right as we witness it today would not have been possible without the financial support and changes in the attitudes of social, political and economic elites (García et al., 2024), who finance far-right parties and support their discourses.

In addition, research has clearly shown that for the formation of political choices and beliefs, emotions and perceptions of social realities are of great importance (cf. Ahmed, 2004; Anderson and Secor, 2022; Centner and Nogueira, 2024; Hentschel, 2019; Militz and Schurr, 2016; Strick, 2021). Ben Anderson and Anna Secor (2022: 7) argue that the far right is built on a widespread “structure of feeling” that revolves around promises of an optimistic future in times of crises. To comprehend current far-right emotions, Simon Strick (2021: 115) turns to Beck and his notion of the emergence of “Risk society”. According to Strick (2021: 117), the experience of risk is closely linked to the rise of modern far right, which he argues is rooted in the affective management of emotions rather than a coherent ideology. Social policies aimed at economic transfer, diversity, and inclusion are framed by the far right as a threat to white people, supposedly putting them at risk of becoming the “new minority” (Gest, 2016). Therefore, far-right actors tie “local conditions and observations to a global situation of danger”. In this way, “fascism changes tactics” and moves from “protection to insecurity” (Strick, 2021: 120, own translation). Above all, this shift achieves connectivity to general social dynamics in times of crises. Some years already, Sara Ahmed (2004: 4) emphasized that “emotions are bound up with the securing of social hierarchy” and that the far right inverts the general understanding of exclusion and hatred. Hate groups would “claim they act out of love for their own kind, and for the nation as an inheritance of kind (‘our White Racial Family’), rather than out of hatred for strangers or others” (Ahmed, 2004: 122). This transformation of “hate into love” enables far-right actors to promote themselves as the good guys, and connect their actions with positive feelings.

Isolde Charim (2018: 138, own translation) argues that it is “essential to understand that social homelessness also means emotional homelessness”, and I would add that this feeling of homelessness is not restricted to the working class but can also arise in the middle and upper classes. The current social processes that lead to a lack of democratic participation, downward mobility, and resentment intersect with emotional perceptions of the state of society. These perceptions in turn influence how inequalities are experienced on the ground and thus how they can be politically mobilized.

“Places that don’t matter”

Attempts to understand the rise of the far right in human geography and especially beyond have increasingly turned to spatial analyses, since it has become clear that spatialized patterns are of importance in both understanding and confronting the phenomenon. Kai Arzheimer and Theresa Bernemann (2024: 168), for example, count more than 300 research papers dealing with space and the far right in one way or another in the period between 2018 and 2022 alone. The mainly quantitative research designs used in these papers correlate socio-demographic data, as well as data on poverty, downward mobility, and democratic deprivation with the electoral geographies of the far right. The notion of “revenge of the places that don’t matter” or “left-behind regions” has become quite influential here (cf. Gordon, 2018; Huijsmans, 2023b; MacKinnon et al., 2022; McKay et al., 2024; Rodríguez-Pose, 2020).

Danny MacKinnon and colleagues summarize that the term left behind “has been used by various actors to denote the kinds of economically lagging and declining places, particularly former industrial and rural regions, which have expressed feelings of marginalization and abandonment through increased support for populist parties and movements” (MacKinnon et al., 2022: 40). Andrés Rodríguez-Pose (2020: 1) points out that it’s not just individual behavior that forms “places that don’t matter”, but “interpersonal and territorial inequalities and, more specifically, the decline of places that have seen better times”. He argues that we are now witnessing the political revenge of these regions in the form of support for right-wing populism. Similarly, Justin Gest (2016: 10) in his qualitative research analyzes the rise of the far right as a consequence of “post-traumatic” experiences in North American and British urban districts. As a result of declining industrial regions, he hints that cities would have experienced the “trauma of simultaneous economic, social and political collapse” and that exactly this would drive political regression. This perspective adds to a long-standing debate, also in Germany, which began in the 1980s in the course of West German de-industrialization, but was particularly intensified in the 1990s with the unification of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), leading to massive spatialized inequalities in the nation state. At the same time in east Germany, far-right parties such as the National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) gained ground, and right-wing violence was ubiquitous on the streets (cf. Bürk, 2013; Förtner et al., 2021; Naumann and Reichert-Schick, 2013: 160).

However, regarding the term left behind, MacKinnon and colleagues point out that it is often not clear “who, what or where” is being addressed, and that the geographical scales from which the analyses are made vary widely in the various articles. They further point to the fact that also the time periods analyzed range widely and that it is not entirely clear whether people or territories are understood as being left behind (MacKinnon et al., 2022: 41f.). Therefore, the findings presented from the cases, mostly from the US and Europe, are not conclusive. What does stand out is that the strongholds of the far right tend to be found, primarily, in economically marginalized regions (Di Matteo and Mariotti, 2021; Franz et al., 2018; Geilen and Mullis, 2021; Kevický and Suchánek, 2024; Plešivčák, 2023). It is argued that (socio-)economic and cultural grievances are of relevance, though analytically socio-economic questions are of greater importance (Artelaris and Mavrommatis, 2021; Gordon, 2018; Huijsmans, 2023b). The research shows that local far-right cultures can have long histories as well as spatial trajectories, and that far-right voting patterns reappear over time (Cantoni et al., 2019; Goerres et al., 2018; Greve et al., 2023; Richter et al., 2021). Moreover, immigration and the number of foreigners living in a region is not a reliable predictor of the strength of the local far right. The findings are inconsistent, some show that immigration does matter, while others support the contradicting argument (Crulli and Pinto, 2023; Geilen and Mullis, 2021; Huijsmans, 2023b). The predominant cleavages outlined in the studies are between urban and rural areas and, additionally in Germany, between the former East and West. A small number of studies have also looked at inner-city polarization and found that, in particular, wealthy centers are often less likely to vote for the far right than the less affluent periphery. This then directly undermines the urban-rural polarization by highlighting that the rise of the far right is also an urban phenomenon (Crulli and Pinto, 2023; Geilen and Mullis, 2021; Kurtenbach, 2019; Uitermark and Duyvendak, 2008; Van Gent et al., 2013).

From a human geography perspective, these analyses provide important insights into the spatialities of the far right, but they also have pitfalls. This is particularly the case when distinct spatial attributes for the rise of the far right are distinguished from social ones (cf. Arzheimer and Bernemann, 2024; Huijsmans, 2023). This likewise applies when the spatial orders of the far right are attached to concepts associated with strong “spatial imaginaries” (Kipfer and Dikeç, 2019: 37), such as the rural or the east, and these signifiers then become the explanatory dimension for the rise of the far right, rather than the social practices. In some ways what Doreen Massey (1994: 254) emphasized years ago regarding political and social science analyses of space here still holds true: “To caricature the debate, the spatial scientists had posited an autonomous sphere of the spatial in which ‘spatial relations’ and ‘spatial processes’ produced spatial distributions.” In contrast, Massey highlights that, on the one hand, space is always “constituted through social relations and material social practices” and therefore cannot be separated from them; and, on the other hand, “that the social is spatially constructed too”. Another problematic aspect of focusing on places that have been left behind is that it gives a clear idea of the areas where the far right is gaining strength. This tends to reduce the rise of the far right primarily to a matter of the less affluent, although research has shown that the far right is also gaining ground in more affluent parts of society. Focusing on left-behind places relieves, at least latently, the more affluent regions of the burden of political regression. At the same time, Felicitas Kübler and Jack Harris (2024) show that the solution to the problem of being left behind is mostly seen in regional growth and integration into economic cycles, although this logic of spatial competition is precisely the reason that created the problem of uneven development in the first place. It is therefore necessary, they argue, to broaden the debates on spatial marginalization to include progressive approaches that undermine the neoliberal, market-oriented paradigm. In conclusion, this means that a spatial analysis must always consider the complex, multi-layered and relational processes of the production of space. Turning towards peripheralization enables this.

Peripheralization: A key concept

In this section, I will contribute to the debate on the spatialities of the far right by going beyond the notion of left behind and introducing the concept of peripheralization. Initially, the term periphery derived from mathematics, defined as the perimeter of a circle. From the early 20^th century on it was then adopted as concept in geography, sociology, and the political sciences (Kühn and Bernt, 2013). Drawing on dependency theories as well as Wallerstein’s world systems theory developed in the 1970s, a global perspective was initially dominant: In (post)modern capitalism, power, and economic asymmetries between the centers (in the Global North) and the marginalized peripheries (in the Global South) were addressed from a relational perspective. This mainly meant examining the “unevenness of capitalist ‘development’” and highlighting “economic and political dependency of (especially) Latin American societies and economies and the consequences for the centers of capital accumulation in the north” (Fischer-Tahir and Naumann, 2013: 12f.). The acceleration of capitalist globalization from the 1980s on, as well as the collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1990s, led to increasingly uneven development, social friction, and new socio-spatial inequalities (cf. Harvey, 2005; Sassen, 2014).

In geography, the term periphery was coined mainly in the German-speaking community, which opened it up to international discussion with some English publications. The term was used to reflect on the economic and social upheavals that accompanied the unification of West and East Germany, as well as the long-standing rural-urban divide (Belina et al., 2022; Fischer-Tahir and Naumann, 2013: 18; Miggelbrink, 2020: 64). The issues discussed were by no means specific to Germany, but the task of integrating the GDR into the Federal Republic pointed very directly to questions of spatial inequalities, precarization, deindustrialization, and accessibility of infrastructure that needed to be addressed both analytically and politically (Ragnitz and Thum, 2019). I argue, therefore, that the notion of peripheralization can help to better understand the spatially and socially uneven rise of the far right.

Regarding the term periphery, Manfred Kühn and Matthias Bernt (2013: 312) point out that there is no comprehensive definition to date. The term is attributed to the spatial location of things or processes on the fringe. Distance to the alleged center is the defining parameter (Kühn and Bernt, 2013: 303), but the term is also linked to (under)development (Fischer-Tahir and Naumann, 2013) and shrinking spaces (Meyer and Miggelbrink, 2013). In general, it is attributed, similarly to the notion of left-behind places, to spaces lacking infrastructure, social services and integration in economic cycles. As a minimal consensus, Judith Miggelbrink (2020: 66, own translation) suggested defining periphery as “the marginal location in a territory or dominion”. Hence, the term is used to describe many different things, depending on the level at which the processes are focused (Smith, 1987: 64). It can illuminate relations between the Global North and the Global South; the urban and the rural; the nation-state and its borders; or the relationship between a city’s central business district and its outskirts; or even social relations concerning class, race, and gender.

Influenced by the theoretical work on “uneven development” (Smith, 2010 [1984]) and “glocalisation” (Swyngedouw, 1997), the “rigid dichotomization of center and periphery” (Kühn and Weck, 2013: 26, own translation) was questioned. Instead of focusing on the periphery (stasis), attention was shifted toward peripheralization (movement), which comprises relational and dynamic processes of production of space (Miggelbrink, 2020: 67). One reason was that even on a small scale, in an increasingly fragmented world (Förtner et al., 2021: 583), spatial distance lost its explanatory power altogether—if it ever had any. During this analytical shift, peripheralization proved to be more than just a spatial attribution, now comprising social and political processes as well. Kühn and Bernt (2013: 312) identify three dimensions of peripheralization: An economic one, consisting of “structural weaknesses, high unemployment and selective outmigration”; a social one, in which “impoverishment, exclusion and discrimination of parts of the population” occur; and a political one, with which they refer to “powerlessness, exclusion from networks and disadvantage in decision-making processes”. Meyer and Miggelbrink (2013), furthermore argue, in line with the literature on emotions and the far right, that it is important not only to focus on statistically measurable aspects of peripheralization, but also to consider processes of subjectivation, related interpretations, and (self-)attributions, as well as feelings about the social orders in question (see also the quantitative studies by Huijsmans, 2023b; McKay, 2019).

What all this means has become clear to me during my own research on urban political conflicts: Sometimes the place that is called the periphery, or where people feel peripheralized, is just across the street from the places that are framed as the center. This highlights that the scale and perspective of the analyses are fundamental to what can and cannot be seen. My own research on the rise of the far right in Germany also made me realize that is important to recognize that processes of social or political peripheralization, especially when the affective and emotional level is included, can take place in central places and, as such, become politically effective.

It is the idea of relationality which is inherent in the concept of peripheralization that opens up the opportunity to use the term effectively for understanding far-right spatialities. The core assumption is that there is no periphery without a center. In the words of Miggelbrink (2020: 67, own translation): “[The] peripheral is something around a center. Thus, it is not about an absolute space, but about a social relationship in which there is a center and a periphery that is dependent on, controlled by, and oriented toward that center.” Focusing on relationality and understanding the peripheral as inherent to the totality of society allows us to see that a marginalized position only exists in relation to its social other, the affluent, the easy-to-reach, and the well-connected. There is, however, a strong power relationship at play here, as the center is produced as the norm, from which the periphery deviates and is regarded as the deficient (Bürk, 2013). Specifically, the notion of peripheralization shows that one cannot discuss the spatialities of the rise of the far right without addressing centrality, without asking how political power is exercised, how places are produced, and what cultural identities are historically normalized. In short: The center matters.

Rosie Carter made this point explicit during the session entitled “Urban dimensions of far-right mobilisations” at the RGS-IBG Annual International Conference in 2021. Based on her experience in the “National Conversation on Immigration Project” that Carter conducted with Jill Rutter, she describes a “doughnut effect” (Rutter and Carter, 2018). Carter argues that far-right parties in England are most prevalent in regions around larger city centers, forming what looks like a “doughnut”. In searching for the reasons for this, she finds that subjective comparison with the city center matters in the stories told. On the one hand, for the inhabitants of the outskirts, the center feels distant and unreachable, but on the other, it is close enough to be accessed and for its prosperity and plurality to be evident in individuals’ own everyday lives, which generates envy and fear at the same time. Carter’s example shows that instead of blaming a defined space for promoting the far right, we need to ask why and how places deviate from the center in question, and how the dominant modes of production of society may be rather part of the problem than the solution. Maximilian Förtner et al. (2021) have made an important contribution in this direction, while empirically showing that peripheralization is not a spatially equal process, that peripheralization can be something very different from place to place, and that defined as such, the concept can be productive for understanding far-right spatialities.

In conclusion, I would like to emphasize that the concept of peripheralization can make the spatialities of the far right more comprehensible, precisely by integrating social, political and economic dimensions that sometimes lead us away from the focus on space. The notion of peripheralization does not end with space as a fixed totality, or with the even more problematic framing of spatial patterns as an answer to the question of why the far right emerges, but instead offers a perspective that asks how space is socially produced and how power and exclusion, as well as center and periphery are linked or even overlap. Such a perspective also takes up the important dimensions of perceptions and feelings and questions how they become political. This will be discussed in more detail in the following section.

Perception matters: Notes from Frankfurt

In this section we will visit the neighborhood of Riederwald, where the AfD has been relatively successful in recent years. The purpose of the discussion of my own empirical findings here is to highlight the ways in which local perceptions of peripheralization are important. The focus on the case discussed, a neighborhood in the west German metropolis of Frankfurt, may seem counterintuitive, but it helps to illustrate that the perception of peripheralization, of social and political neglect, is also at work in a city that is considered central from a national point of view. Further, as argued above, to understand peripheralization, it is significant to also focus on centrality, and in Frankfurt, the contradictions between an economically prosperous centrality and periphery are profound and can be analyzed on a local level. In addition, as noted in the introduction, the processes described for Riederwald illustrate developments that have occurred in many places in recent years in the wake of multiple experiences of crisis and the growing appeal of the far right (Mullis, 2024).

Approximately 5,000 people live in Riederwald. It is a former working-class district in the east of the city with historical ties to social democracy, yet the far-right AfD has been on the rise in the last decade. More in terms of social data than location, the district is on the periphery of the city. People already living in the neighborhood in 2018 earned, on average, less than 80% of the citywide median (Stadt Frankfurt, 2018) and, since then, the gap between the affluent center of Frankfurt and the periphery has grown even more. The proportion of employees paying mandatory social insurance is also rather low compared to other districts. Over 7% of those living in the district are unemployed and more than 13% rely on long-term social benefits—rates that are among the highest in the city (Stein, 2021). Consequently, poverty and especially child poverty is an issue. The proportion of non-German citizens is almost 30%, which is slightly less than average for Frankfurt, but significantly more than the 15-percent German average. In recent years, a process of urban renewal has been initiated and gentrification has become a fact (Mullis, 2021). Since 2015, the European Central Bank (ECB) has been based nearby, placing further pressure on the housing market. Ongoing displacement in the city center is even pushing those with higher incomes to the margins, with a growing number of people relocating to, for example, Riederwald, as it is still relatively near to the center and offers affordable housing. The neighborhood is therefore in transition and is in some ways centralizing. This process of centralization is leading to conflicts by tending to exclude the former residents, increasing rents, and changing the local culture as well as streetscapes.

Election results of the far-right AfD in Frankfurt have ranged from a minimum of 4.5% in the 2021 municipal elections to a maximum of 10.3% in the 2023 election for the state of Hesse. The latter occurred in the context of a general steep rise in the popularity of the far-right party—federal polls showed the AfD at up to 23% in October 2023—amid escalating disputes over ecological transformation, the war in Ukraine, migration, and rising living costs due to inflation in Germany (Mullis, 2024). Focusing on Riederwald, the picture is more pronounced with the party already having received 13.1% in the 2017 federal election (12.6% Germany wide/8.6% in Frankfurt), then 4 years later plummeting to 8.5% in the federal election (10.4% Germany wide/5.1% in Frankfurt) only to go on to achieve its best result to date with 17.4% in the 2023 Hesse elections (18.4% Hesse wide/10.3% in Frankfurt). What was noticeable in all these elections was the low turnout of around 60%. Despite its historical affinity to the left, right-wing successes in the neighborhood are nothing new. In the 1989 local elections, for example, the far-right NPD won 9.3% in the district (6.6% in Frankfurt), followed in 1993 by The Republicans (REP) with 13.1% (9.3% in Frankfurt). Neither the NPD nor the REP have ever been able to achieve nationwide significance. Interestingly, today there is no organized far-right presence in the Riederwald: There is no local club, no locally known politician, and no aggressive election campaign. In Riederwald, the success of the far right, as indicated by my own research, comes foremost from the mobilization of local sentiment in neighborhood debates, media coverage, and social media campaigns.

The basis of my argument is formed by 16 qualitative semi-structured interviews with residents of the neighborhood, mostly conducted in 2019. As the following years were so exceptional, driven as they were by the experience of crises, especially the pandemic, I returned in 2022 and re-interviewed three interlocutors. ¹ German citizens from across the entire political spectrum were interviewed to explore the social dynamics, conflicts, and expectations of happiness against which the rise of the far right took place and continues to take place. The sample was controlled for age, party affiliation, gender, and people with or without children, to give as broad a picture as possible. The aim was to meet people in their social and political worlds, to listen to them, to leave space for what they wanted to talk about and how, but to still follow a series of questions. In addition to these interviews with residents, another seven interviews with local experts, such as social workers, teachers, or politicians, were conducted already in 2017. The objective was to get a feel for the neighborhood and gain knowledge in order to be able to talk to local people in a meaningful way (Mullis, 2021). The interviews with the residents of the neighborhood from 2019 to 2022 were analyzed in a multistage process. First, all interviews were transcribed. In a second step, 11 core categories were identified in a workshop based on an initial review of the material. ² Third, the audio data was listened to several times and structured according to the categories using the transcripts. For each category, a memo was written for each individual and key quotes were selected.

In the following, taking up the debate on peripheralization and its different political, social and economic dimensions, I will develop my argument around three topics: I will first discuss the spatial imaginaries, then turn to the social question and its connection to racism, and finally highlight the crucial dimension of democracy. The narratives show that relational arguments are always at the heart of people’s accounts. They understand their position in relation to the center of the city, to the politically powerful, to those who supposedly get more than they do. It is this interaction of an individual’s experience of their position in relation to the supposed weight of the center that is called here the experience of peripheralization.

Spatial imaginaries

Although this may seem obvious, it is nevertheless important to stress that peripheralization is experienced spatially. As shown above, theoretical debates have been heavily focused on globalization as a driving force for the local experience. The empirical research on the far right, however, shows that there is more to spatial relations and that experiences may differ. The meaning of this comes to light when analyzing my interviewees’ accounts, which address different scales.

In the interviews, there are two dominant patterns. First, there are accounts concerning the relationship with the city center which reflect what Carter describes as “doughnut effect”. Many interlocutors refer positively to their neighborhood as being like a small village within the city—they prefer being peripheral to living in the chaotic, cramped, built-up center. The neighborhood is described as well connected to the center and it is stated that people can benefit from the job opportunities it creates. Interlocutors, however, also raised the issue of their neighborhood being downgraded in recent years, with streets falling into disrepair and flats covered in mold, while gleaming skyscrapers continue to be built in the center. People in Riederwald feel that they are not as important as those living in more affluent neighborhoods. It is Ms. Böhm (R06 8.5.2019) who pointedly expresses the shared perception: “I don’t think that the city council and the political parties really pay attention to what’s going on here, so we feel left behind.” The relationship to the city center and the spatial positionality “out here” on the periphery is clearly important for people’s experience of social positionality.

A second spatial pattern that emerges in the interviews concerns Germany’s role in the international order. Many interviewees describe a shift in international relations. On the one hand, the loss of jobs to industries in China or elsewhere is viewed critically: “People need work here, don’t they? […] You can’t always get everything from somewhere else just because it’s cheaper, can you?” Mr. Ludwig (R09 3.6.2019) stresses. Others see economic prosperity in general at risk, as Germany is disconnected from important developments in the green and digital economy. Ms. Hagen (R03 3.5.2019), a Social Democrat who moved to Riederwald quite recently and is herself an agent of gentrification in her neighborhood, declares that “with its economic model, Germany is in decline and this will have consequences for all of us”. Globalization itself is not raised as a problem leading to the peripheralization of the interlocutor’s individual position, as many, even Mr. Ludwig, accept that Germany’s prosperity is based on exports. It is in fact the rise of China and Russia that is creating a sense of Germany, and consequently its inhabitants, being peripheralized at the global level.

Peripheralization is understood here as a process that is simultaneously connected to different scales in space and that for understanding the own positionality, the understanding of the other matters. In the spatial descriptions, it becomes clear that peripheralization is a collective experience. It is not something that only happens to individuals—it happens to a community, to a nation, to a group. It is a process that affects the subject in many ways and has a collective and totalizing dimension. What makes it such an explosive political force, and what makes it exploitable by the far right, is that even though peripheralization is experienced by others, people bear it individually.

Social peripheralization

What is clear from the accounts of the interlocutors is that experiences of social downward mobility (Nachtwey, 2018) and peripheralization intersect with resentment towards those of a different class or race. In terms of class, it is evident that those who have lived in the neighborhood for years are experiencing loss of buying power and they highlight increasing difficulty in paying bills, while others who have been gentrified in the city center arrive in Riederwald as gentrifiers themselves and are financially better off. This new dimension of local conflict is something which the long-established residents of Riederwald regard with some skepticism and it leads to them having a sense of losing ground and being peripheralized in their very own home—something they feel without necessarily being hostile toward the newcomers.

However, peripheralization is also manifested as a process over the course of a lifetime. Older citizens, in particular, remember growing up in poverty—which would not have been perceived as such, because everybody was poor—then going on to work hard, earn good money, and thereby reach the center of society. They could afford a car, go on holidays, and have a decent home. Many of the people I talked with are afraid of finding themselves in less affluent conditions again tomorrow. This fear is articulated as concern about pensions, or in the longer run, as concern that their children or grandchildren will not be able to live the lives they themselves have had. Ms. Jäger (R08 3.6.2019), a married pensioner I spoke with, used to run a business with her husband in Riederwald but had to give it up. She described what it was like just before they closed the company: “We worked day and night, but it was no longer profitable.” A common theme presented in this interview with Ms. Jäger and the others was a sense of betrayal. My interviewees articulate the hopes they used to have that their hard work would guarantee them wealth and security, and the disappointment that this was no longer the case. In the interview mentioned above, Mr. Jäger reasons that he would have thought that “if a person has worked all their life, then it must be possible for society to provide them with a decent living in old age”. The fact that this is not the case is referred to as “fraud” by Mr. Böhm (R06 8.5.2019). Comparing the interviews from 2019 with those I conducted in 2022, it is evident that after the pandemic and in the face of the war in Ukraine and the growing climate crisis there is a clear sense that the prosperous times are over for good. At the same time, there is no coherent idea of what is to come next. The experiences expressed can undeniably be understood as part of a process of social peripheralization.

When focusing on peripheralization to understand the rise of the far right, race also plays a role. Put bluntly, it is the experience of white supremacy—or in other words the centrality of white people—that is deemed to be at risk due to immigration and the presence of Black and People of color. In my sample in Riederwald, racism was rarely openly expressed, but it is nonetheless present, and by no means only among voters of the far right. Frankfurt has a long history of immigration, which has become an integral part of the city’s self-image. The people I interviewed also largely accept the presence of migrants, however, there is a silent but established resentment of migrants and especially refugees, based on the belief that these individuals are treated with more care and generosity by the welfare state than the people who grew up in Riederwald. This can be seen, for example, in the argument of Ms. Schuster (R05 6.5.2019). She claims that the Germans have worked hard for everything, while the newcomers just get whatever they need from the state, and even then they are not satisfied with what they get. Mr. Ludwig (R09 3.6.2019) adds that the new residents from abroad “think they have to set the tone now […] but that’s not acceptable; there are certain rules that we must follow and abide by”. Migrants are accused of claiming social positions to which they are perceived as not being entitled to. Thus, racism operates through the allocation of social positions, and the upward mobility of migrants is experienced as a violation of the (racist) order that is perceived as just. This conversely contributes to the experience of the old-established population’s own peripheralization. What becomes evident is that social positionality, be it in terms of class or race, is also relational. It is measured in comparison to the more affluent, but even more so in comparison to the past and the racialized other.

Distant democracy

One of the most important issues raised in all the interviews was the question of democracy and its inability to include people from the periphery in the decision-making at the center. Interlocutors articulated a widespread feeling of not being heard and that the opinions of people “out here” did not matter. The statement of Ms. Adler (R07 14.5.2019) is a good example of this. She emphasizes: “Nobody listens. There’s a round table, a square table, and a ‘thingamabob’ table for everything, and it’s all a waste of time. Nothing comes of it”. Similarly, Ms. Köhler (R01 10.4.2019) says: “You can’t achieve much even if you fight”. She is active in the neighborhood and her account expresses a clear sense of social responsibility. Despite this, she voted for the AfD in 2017, not least because she feels let down by politicians. Later in the interview, she becomes radical: “People say it’s democracy. For me it’s not democracy, it’s a kind of dictocracy. Here, if you speak your mind or try to change something, you’re put in a box, you’re silenced, you’re demotivated because you think you won’t achieve anything.” In the second interview with Ms. Köhler in the summer of 2022, she reports that after the experience of the pandemic and the way she had been abandoned, she had lost all faith in politics, “even the last sparkle has gone”, and would no longer go out to vote (R01 10.6.2022).

More moderate voices were also heard in the interviews, but in general, interlocutors mostly felt rather politically powerless and marginalized in decision-making processes, even those still associated with democratic parties. These feelings stem from everyday life in the neighborhood. Despite the people’s engagement and resistance to political decisions, in recent years there have been conflicts over the closure of the local library, rent increases, and most recently, the construction of a new highway tunnel nearby that required the clearing of a wooded area. Riederwald is portrayed as a neglected peripheral neighborhood, overly dependent on the political center where policy decisions are made. The center and political power are assumed to be in the hands of national politicians. In general, people understand that political power is associated with centrality and that them not being heard means their concerns and positionality are located at a peripheral point in society. They are aware that winning political power implies reclaiming centrality, and the centrality they long for is one that gives them back power and a privileged position. This effectively opens a wide field for right-wing discourse, which alongside racist exclusionary perspectives, is founded on the division between us down here and them up there.

Conclusion

The aim of this paper was to outline peripheralization as a geographical concept for discussing far-right spatialities. Therefore, two main arguments were presented. First, I argue that peripheralization is an instructive term for unpacking far-right spatialities because of its relational dimension, linking the near with the far as well as the left behind with the affluent. It allows for a relational integration of the economic, individual and emotional dimensions of social reality and thus provides an understanding of complex, spatialized political orders. The analytical lens provided by the concept of peripheralization has the advantage of not only focusing on places and attributing political characteristics to them, but rather interpreting political dynamics along with the social production of space. This also means that the scale of observation matters, and that centrality can compose periphery, which becomes visible either by analyzing the situation from a ‘lower’ scale, or by differentiating the different dimensions of peripheralization. Second, based on my own qualitative research in which I address the process of peripheralization in the global city of Frankfurt, highlighting the local spatial differentiation, I argue that local perceptions of peripheralization matter for the way they are politicized. In conclusion, peripheralization is important for right-wing political articulation, but so too is the production of centrality. The analysis of the far right through the lens of peripheralization offers a diverse perspective on the produced spaces, social realities and subjectivities in which the far right often, but not always, flourishes.

Finally, one last missing piece needs to be addressed: How does the far right mobilize peripheralization? Research shows that the far right gains considerable support in regions where processes of peripheralization are acute. This applies to regions that are perceived as being left behind, where there is downward mobility, where industrial production is undergoing fundamental changes, and where there is a sense of cultural setback. But it can also apply to more affluent regions, where people in better situations are simply afraid of losing ground, of not being able to take a vacation abroad twice a year, or of not being able to buy a new car. It can also apply to wealthy regions with a long history of conservatism, where people are hostile to migrants because they are seen as a threat. The contemporary far right mobilizes less through a coherent ideology or by uniting in a mass organization than by bringing together dispersed and disparate subjects through an emotional appeal to insecurities and fears. The far right offers a specific regressive, homogeneous, and exclusionary re-appropriation of centrality. The centrality they offer is one that creates familiarity and security in turbulent times. One in which white individuals and the own nation take back power. Politics and further research aimed at countering the rise of the far right should therefore offer more inclusive forms of social and spatial futures in which the center no longer dominates the periphery. This means transforming the very idea of centrality, since the promise of reclaiming the old capitalist centrality always implies economic injustice as well as racial and political exclusion for others. What is at stake is a centrality that is open, pluralistic and democratic.