Ethnography and Activism — A Problem in Methods
Emotions aren’t typically thought of as part of research. In fact, sometimes we think of them as antithetical to “real research.” But what if we’re writing ethnographies of emotion?
One of the struggles of doing research in social movement contexts is balancing the emotion of the crowd and my own analytical wits. Add to that my own trepidation about being ‘seen’ by the media, which stems from my life as an introvert and privilege as an upwardly mobile professor, PLUS my continual research emphasis on how the visualization of politics obscures our ability to listen politically, and all of a sudden the ethnography of social movements becomes a very complicated endeavor for me. As Jeffrey Juris writes in his article “Performing Politics,”
“As the ‘glue of solidarity’ emotions are particularly important within fluid, network-based movements that rely on non-traditional modes of identification and commitment… mass counter-summit protests produce evocative images for mass media consumption, while generating powerful emotions and political subjectivities,” (64).
He then goes on to document how the “electricity” of a movement is central to both its longevity and sustainability, but also part of what compromises its image in mass media.
How do I, participating as a non-participant in some instances, disrupt the “affect” of protest and social movement? Is that ok?
If we think about the foundations of ethnography, it involves understanding by doing. But ethnography also relies on asking questions both in the moment and reflectively after the fact. As I’ve learned over time, it’s almost pointless to ask a black bloc anarchist a question while she is smashing a window. And likewise, asking questions while chanting in a crowd is a no-go. Unless you like getting dirty and confused looks from activists.
Complicating that is the fact that my experiences (chanting, shouting, singing, etc.) are not universal. There is, in fact, a long history of white male academics assuming the way in which they experience the world is THE way EVERYONE experiences EVERYTHING. I do not wish to reproduce that history.
So I find myself stuck between a rock and a hard place doing research in the moment of social movements.
That rock becomes rigid and that hard place unbearably hot when the context changes, and I’m doing research with white nationalists protesting everything from the “expansion of the welfare state” to “allowing immigrants to use our tax dollars” — both things that I believe in. If I want to ask questions in the midst of chants during anti-Globalization or anti-Presidential protests, in the midst of white nationalist rallies I want to remain silent, ask questions, engage in consciousness raising, confront racism, understand feelings, reject feelings, and know what’s going on. All of those things are hard to do at once.
Pete Simi writes about a similar contradiction in his book American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate. He writes in the appendix on methods that
“Participant Observations and interviews with Aryans were emotionally exhausting. Watching television with Aryans meant listening to constant banter about the inferiority of nonwhites and talk about how to control or kill their racial enemies. Trips to the grocery store meant the prospect of verbal harangues directed toward minority drivers or pedestrians.” (135)
How, he asks, do we do this work in ways that are politically righteous and yet open to the facts and lives of the people with whom we politically oppose — and who, on occasion, disgust us. As Simi writes, “I felt a tremendous amount of internal guilt and discomfort. The perversity and illogic of their world astounded me.” (136)
These are especially spaces where I want to avoid being captured, photographically and videographically, by mass media outlets. In the age of viral media, the last thing I want and/or need is to have my face plastered as a participant in white nationalism. Photos like the one below, without context, can create in themselves enough problems.
This is the contradiction that I want to think about for the next couple of weeks, as I continue to work on my ethnography of a transnational white nationalist movement in the US, UK, and EU.
