Success and Harm When Researching the Far Right: Researcher Safety as Epistemic Exclusion

Harm experienced while researching the far right can be encountered through, or sparked by, core academic activities which reduce the distance between the researcher and potentially hostile actors. Currently, advice to manage such risks is directed towards the individual, made responsible by a neoliberal industry and lack of institutional knowledge. However, the ability of researchers to implement such advice is stymied by success metrics that reward visibility and productivity, producing a contradiction between success and safety—satisfying one risks jeopardizing the other. The contradiction is not evenly experienced, with those at the sharp end of the far right disproportionately vulnerable to such harm and thus subject to such “choices.”