The Ethics of Researching the Far Right: An Overview of the Field
with Audrey Gagnon, Aurelien Mondon, Antonia Vaughan and Aaron Winter

Time and place: Sep. 19, 2024 3:00 PM – 4:30 PM, Online
The first webinar of the series on the methods and ethics of researching the far right this autumn will provide an overview of the challenges the field and researchers have faced in recent years as far right politics has not only been on the rise but has become increasingly mainstream. The speakers will engage not only with their research practice and experiences, but also the state of the field and our role as academics in the current predicament.

Bios:

Audrey Gagnon is a postdoctoral researcher at the Centre de recherche interdisciplinaire sur la diversité et la démocratie (University of Ottawa) and affiliated with the Center for Research on Extremism (University of Oslo). Her current research explores conspiracy theories, far-right movements, and the methods and ethics of researching the far right. She is a co-editor of the e-Extreme, the newsletter of the ECPR Extremism & Democracy Standing Group.

Aurelien Mondon is a Senior Lecturer in politics at the University of Bath and co-convenor of the Reactionary Politics Research Network. His research focuses predominantly on the mainstreaming of reactionary politics, focusing in particular on the role of elite discourse. His latest book Reactionary democracy: How racism and the populist far right became mainstream, co-written with Aaron Winter, was published in 2020 with Verso. In 2024, he co-edited The Ethics of Researching the Far Right with Antonia Vaughan, Joan Braune and Meghan Tinsley.

Antonia Vaughan is a PhD student in Politics, Languages & International Studies at the University of Bath. She is interested in the mainstreaming of the far right online and the ethics of researching the far right. She co-edited The Ethics of Researching the Far Right with Joan Braune, Meghan Tinsley and Aurelien Mondon.

Aaron Winter is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Director of the Centre for Alternatives to Social and Economic Inequalities (CASEI) at Lancaster University. His research is on the far right focusing on racism, terrorism and mainstreaming. He is co-editor of Historical Perspectives on Organized Crime and Terrorism (Routledge 2018), Researching the Far Right: Theory, Method and Practice (Routledge 2020), and co-author, with Aurelien Mondon, of Reactionary Democracy: How Racism and the Populist Far Right Became Mainstream (Verso 2020). He is co-editor of the journal Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power and the MUP series Racism, Resistance and Social Change. He is also on the editorial board of Ethnic and Racial Studies and the organising committee of the Reactionary Politics Research Network.