Understanding Racist Activism Theory, Methods, and Research Routledge Studies in Fascism and the Far Right Series

White supremacist groups are highly secretive, so their public propaganda tells us little about their operations or the people they attract. To understand the world of organized racism it is necessary to study it from the inside by talking to their members and observing their groups. Doing so reveals a disturbing picture of how fairly ordinary white people learn to embrace the vicious ideas and dangerous agendas of white supremacism.

This book takes the reader inside organized racism, revealing the kind of women and men who join groups, such as the Ku Klux Klan or neo-Nazi skinheads, and what they do in those groups. The volume collects significant published works from renowned scholar Kathleen M. Blee's work on racist activism, alongside new essays on the theories, methods, and approaches of studying racist activism. Discussing topics such as emotional issues in research, the place of violence and hate in white supremacism, and how women are involved in racial terrorism, Blee makes use of a range of sources, including oral histories, ethnographic observations, and interviews, to shape her findings.

Written by the pioneer and leading scholar of women in racist activism, this volume is essential reading for students, scholars, and general readers interested in the areas of social movements, politics, race studies, and American history.

Studying racist activism: methods and lessons

Section I Fear, stigma, and other consequences of studying racists

Preface to Section I

1 Studying the enemy

2 Why I returned to studying the far-right

3 White-knuckle research: emotional dynamics in fieldwork with racist activists

Section II Methods of studying racist activism

Preface to Section II

4 White on white: interviewing women in United States white supremacist groups

5 The banality of violence

Section III Theoretical lens and templates

Preface to Section III

6 Positioning hate

7 Does gender matter in the United States far-right?

8 Methods, interpretation, and ethics in the study of white supremacist perpetrators

Section IV Entering and leaving white supremacism

Preface to Section IV

9 Women in the 1920s Ku Klux Klan movement

10 Becoming a racist: women in contemporary Ku Klux Klan and neo-Nazi groups

11 Personal effects from far-right activism

Section V Directions for future research

Preface to Section V

12 Women and organized racial terrorism in the United States

13 Women in extreme right parties and movements: a comparison of the Netherlands and the United States (co-authored with Annette Linden)

14 The duality of spectacle and secrecy: a case study of fraternalism in the 1920s US Ku Klux Klan (co-authored with Amy McDowell)