Undergraduate Course: Anthropology of the Far-Right (SCAN10100)
Course Outline
| School | School of Social and Political Science |
College | College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 10 (Year 3 Undergraduate) |
Availability | Available to all students |
| SCQF Credits | 20 |
ECTS Credits | 10 |
| Summary | This course provides UG students with an introduction to the anthropological study of the far-right. The course explores how social anthropology can contribute to a critical understanding of the causes, characteristics, and effects of far-right politics and movements as features of everyday life across the global North and South. The course focuses on the forms of media, politics, and culture that embed far-right activists and movements, their relationship with colonial and postcolonial histories of violence and democracy rather than on official ideology, elite discourse, and normative frameworks. |
| Course description |
This course examines anthropological approaches to the study of far-right politics. We examine right-wing activism and radical right movements in terms of its relationship with wider social phenomenon such as gender, religion, class, and democracy. This involves examining the ethical, political, and historical uniqueness of right-wing politics, with its own distinct forms of anxiety, affect and violence. We will also look at comparative efforts by state and nonstate actors to combat the far-right, particularly at the everyday level of the street, the neighbourhood, and media, but also examine the limits and failures of such efforts.
Indicative questions posed by this course may include: How does far-right politics become mainstream? How are societies changed, in the short and long term, by far-right social movements? What repressed histories and communities are alluded by the radical right? Who is most likely to join such movements and what makes certain others immune to its allure? What distinguishes the ¿far-right¿ from other forms of extremist politics including far-left movements and terrorism? What are the ethical and methodological challenges posed by studying violent and hateful groups? What can we learn about the current upsurge of the far-right through a comparative perspective across the global north and south?
Indicative topics to be covered include: vigilantism and militarism; nation and nationalism; populism and democracy; gender and sexuality; fascism and authoritarianism; majorities and minorities; Islamophobia and secularism.
This course will be delivered through a 2 hour seminar that will combine lecture and student discussion. Seminar and lecture will centre on set readings. The course will expose students to multiple ethnographic accounts of far-right movements. It will also draw upon literature from related disciplines, including history, politics, sociology, feminist studies, and literature. Case studies will be drawn from different parts of the world, especially Turkey, India, Italy, Germany, and Israel. Films, visual art, and music will be used to complement the readings. Students will be asked to approach these latter materials with an "ethnographic eye" to practice their ethnographic argumentation. Students will engage with these different sources in a critical, rigorous and comparative manner, developing their understanding of the potentials and limits of anthropological forms of analysis and evidence in relation to questions of far-right politics.
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Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | Visiting students should have at least 3 university/college level Social Anthropology courses at grade B or above (or be predicted to obtain this). |
| High Demand Course? |
Yes |
Course Delivery Information
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| Academic year 2025/26, Available to all students (SV1)
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Quota: 30 |
| Course Start |
Semester 1 |
Timetable |
Timetable |
| Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Lecture Hours 20,
Seminar/Tutorial Hours 10,
Summative Assessment Hours 10,
Programme Level Learning and Teaching Hours 4,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
156 )
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| Assessment (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| Additional Information (Assessment) |
30% The short essay (1500)
70%The final essay (3000 words) |
| Feedback |
Feedback on all assessed work shall normally be returned within three weeks of submission. Where this is not possible, students shall be given clear expectations regarding the timing and methods of feedback. Students will be given opportunity to ask clarificatory questions on their first assessment feedback in class as well as will be offered additional help by the course organiser in office hours. |
| No Exam Information |
Learning Outcomes
On completion of this course, the student will be able to:
- Understand how and why past and present societies are gravitating towards far-right politics.
- Demonstrate familiarity with a variety of theoretical approaches to right-wing politics in the social sciences, including but not limited to how far-right politics intersects with anthropological theories of religion, ritual, gender, and politics.
- Reflect comparatively on how everyday life including cultural forms, political institutions, and social practices respond, collaborate, and resist extreme politics.
- Recognize the ways in which contemporary conflicts related to religion, caste, race, and ethnicity are related to longer trajectories of empire, nationalism, and state-formation.
- Demonstrate the ability to summarize and analyze the features of far-right politics from specific case studies and use such evidence to build coherent arguments in essay writing and seminar presentations.
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Reading List
Shoshan, Nitzan. The management of hate: Nation, affect, and the governance of right-wing extremism in Germany. Princeton University Press, 2016.
Blee, Kathleen M.Inside organized racism: Women in the hate movement. Univ of California Press, 2003.
Bowen, John.Why the French Don't Like Headscarves: Islam, the State, and Public Space. Princeton University Press, 2007.
Pasieka, Agnieszka.Living Right: Far-Right Youth Activists in Contemporary Europe. Princeton University Press, 2024. |
Additional Information
| Graduate Attributes and Skills |
Research and enquiry
Cognitive skills - evaluation and critical analysis
Creative problem solving and question posing
Personal and intellectual autonomy
Self motivation and organizational skills
Communication skills
Accountability and working with others |
| Keywords | Not entered |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Moyukh Chatterjee
Tel:
Email: mchatte2@exseed.ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | |
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