Methodological lessons from four decades of close-up research on racial extremism

Gang scholars for the last three decades have explicitly excluded youths who are active, overtly or implicitly, in white supremacy groups (e.g., neo-Nazis; racist skinheads; white separatists, nationalists, and identitists; the alternative right [referred to as “alt-right”]) from conventional street gang studies. More recently, gang scholars, however, have suggested that street gangs and white supremacy groups are more analogous to each other than originally thought. Inconsistently designating these white power groups and making ad hoc decisions to include or exclude them from a gang study has impaired researchers, law enforcement, and policymakers and left them not only ill-equipped for understanding the risk factors impacting white supremacists but also disadvantaged for determining which intervention strategy is best to employ. As of 2017, a new wave of culture wars and identity politics has taken hold in the United States and throughout Europe with a growing concern by scholars and policymakers with the radicalization of individuals into these violent groups. The rise of the “alt-right” (a term coined in 2008 by white supremacist Richard Spencer) came about when young, white identitists, a group of leaderless, loosely organized, tech-savvy millennials, began to use facetious Internet jargon to recast and mainstream their white supremacist beliefs. A more inclusive characterization acknowledging that a substantial amount of similarity exists between white power groups and street gangs is synthesized in the term “alt-right gangs.” Adapting the Eurogang definition, one of most widely adopted and utilized gang definitions, an alt-right gang is defined as a durable, public-oriented group (both digitally and physically) whose adoption of signs and symbols of white power movement and involvement in illegal activity is part of its group identity. This definition incorporates the description by political scientists of the alt-right as being a loosely structured, youth-oriented, right-wing political movement focused on white identity and nationalism with its core remaining a racist movement. Incorporating such a diverse set of literature into a singular definition provides a broad description that can be applied in a practical way. In the end, the risk factors driving marginalized youths, perceived or actual, to join a street gang or an alt-right gang are analogous. Just like any street gang, the alt-right is not a universal monolith, but rather is composed of various factions that regularly feud and have conflicts. Removing such restrictive categorizations allows for a broader understanding of youths involved in these racist groups and can provide scholars and policymakers with prevention, intervention, and suppression strategies that are not pigeonholed to only a subsample of alt-right gang members. This article addresses a collection of key characteristics that highlight the origins and subculture of white power youth groups to highlight the substantial overlap between conventional street gangs and alt-right gangs and exposes how well-situated gang scholars are to examine these white supremacist groups.

Editor's Note C. Damien Arthur It is nearly impossible to explain the depth and complexity of Robert C. Byrd in a journal volume, especially the vastness of his connections to policy, implemented power, and his involvement in sociohistorical events and ideologies. This scholarly, commemorative journal volume on the ten-year anniversary of his death could never fully address the aforementioned. Yet, even as Byrd said during his life, his involvement in racist groups, ideologies, and actions would follow him forever—even in death. As the guest editor of West Virginia: A Journal of Regional Studies, I offer this editor's note as a very brief summary of a larger, more nuanced history on Byrd and his involvement with the Ku Klux Klan and other racist rhetorics, which will be published by Oxford University Press in the definitive biography of Byrd and his life. Was Byrd a racist? This is the question that people, in all the conversations and interactions the author has had, with nearly every interested party, want answered definitively. In asking the question, most already have a preconceived answer they want confirmed by the explanations of my research. Most want to simply say that he moved beyond those early days of Klan behavior and rhetoric and fought for civil rights, which is both true and a completely naïve interpretation of Byrd's latter behavior and rhetoric—nonetheless. Many want to dismiss Byrd, both his legacy and good works, because of the racist ideas he espoused, which are venomous and legion. There is no debate—Byrd did and said racist things. He also did and said antiracist things. This tension is why many called him an enigma. Nevertheless, the public is interested, however, in historical figures of importance precisely because they are flawed, inspiring, and complicated, which challenges our perceptions of conventional archetypes. Byrd's story is a part of the United States' collective story, the American story—his life is paradigmatic of this long, legendary tale. This story is about a promise that all people are created equal and the profoundly real and consequential failure of America and its leaders to implement this for everyone—expressed in the racist, violent institutions that murdered and tortured black humans, or the capital and wealth accumulation from slavery that has not been truly shared with those that earned it, or the perpetuation of the new Jim Crow structures in mass incarceration and disenfranchisement. There is no doubt that it is a difficult story. It is a difficult realization and [End Page v] acknowledgement for anyone to process. Americans should weep each time they think of it. Many Americans are all part of it, participate in it, benefit from it, and, often, continue to perpetuate it. Nevertheless, it is a story that must be told; it must be acknowledged—it is a central part in the American story. Doing so is the only way to move forward. America, and many of those that love their country, did this to other human beings—murdering, torturing, and destroying people in the name of white supremacy, both overtly and inadvertently. In some ways, this is still happening to black Americans. America had, and continues to have, in some instances, political and economic systems that perpetuate white supremacy. By design, the system is difficult to change. So, for those at the helm of, and within, that system that have acknowledged their mistakes, made attempts to rectify the system, tried to close those stunning gaps, dismissing them outright without hearing their story undermines progress and disincentivizes others from acknowledging that more change is necessary for justice for all to be realized. Acknowledgement and change, however, small and incremental, are steps in the direction America must go to fulfill those promises in our founding epiphanies. Of course, Byrd was a leader in the Ku Klux Klan, and later in the immutable Southern Bloc's attempt to dismantle civil rights, and few people deny it—to do so irradicates any semblance of scholarly credibility. The controversy will be further complicated when the full story is told in the aforementioned book and it is known that his involvement was more vicious than previously acknowledged or known. Byrd should...

Using an in-depth case study, we examine the origins and development of the Southern California–based racist skinhead gang known as Public Enemy Number One (PENI). Unlike many racist skinheads who view themselves as part of a political movement, members of PENI view themselves as part of a racist street gang with relatively little interest in traditional forms of political activism. Instead and contrary to the focus of most scholarly research on racist groups, PENI is involved in profit-oriented criminal activity such as the distribution of methamphetamine, identity theft, and counterfeiting. We examine how members of PENI attempt to balance a white supremacist and street gang identity.

Scholars of white supremacism adopted the framework of social movement research later and less completely than did scholars of progressive movements. Although the shift to considering racist groups as a social movement had many analytic benefits, it also nudged analysis away from some of the most central aspects of white supremacism. This article suggests how social movement research and scholarship on organized racism can benefit from a more reflective engagement with each other.

Participatory visioning in transport backcasting studies: Methodological lessons from Andalusia (Spain)

The South African disaster management legislation advocates the importance of implementing pro-active disaster risk reduction strategies that will ensure a safe and sustainable society. One key strategic activity identified is the use of simulation exercises to improve overall societal readiness and inter-agency coordination in case of major incidents or disasters. However, very little is currently understood or planned especially at South African local government level, on what simulation exercises entail and the methodology behind their implementation. This paper aims at conveying some crucial methodological inputs that disaster risk managers or emergency response agencies should consider when planning, designing and implementing simulation exercises by analysing a hazardous chemical spillage simulation in the Tlokwe Local Municipality, North-West Province, South Africa. The research found that in the South African context attention needs to be paid to methodological issues such as scenario development, role-player selection, fidelity during simulation delivery, data collection and participant (de)briefing.

There are profound methodological challenges facing microdosing research. One way we can address some of these methodological issues is by understanding how psilocybin microdosing fits in the broader existential context of people’s lives. We recruited participants who underwent psilocybin microdosing on their own and consented to being monitored for harm mitigation purposes. We combined momentary ecological assessment and detailed retrospective interviews. Participants reported loosening of mental structures (i.e., less intense strength of thoughts, tangential stream of consciousness), increased salience of external stimuli (varyingly associated with greater interest in otherwise mundane activities, as well as sensory overload), an increase in flexible cognition, a decrease in stable cognition, and various ego-dystonic contents. Highly structured environments were conducive to positive appraisal of experiences and vice versa. Momentary ecological assessment and retrospective interviews yielded differing accounts of microdosing experience. We relate our findings to stable and flexible cognition, as well as the notion of salience. We point out the necessity for systematic mixed methods studies to better characterize the lived experience of taking low doses of psilocybin.

The University as an institution is a central actor of the knowledge economies. It has now become, in most developed societies, an actor entitled with a large autonomy within the national higher education and research system, in the context of national policies and public management rules. In this sense, the University is a strategic actor, i.e. in a position to develop a vision of its future, based on its missions and taking into account its strengths and weaknesses as well as the threats and opportunities of its environment. From there establishing short and medium terms operational objectives, making organisational choices and allocation of resources - in short, developing a strategy. It is the role of the governance1 of a University to elaborate such a strategy and to implement it through a variety of managerial processes and instruments. Among them the evaluation function is of major importance, since it is fundamentally the feed-back loop linking the governance to the real world. But if evaluation is a key-function for strategic actors, it makes it an issue for all the strategic actors of the Higher Education and Research (HER) system, beyond the universities - in particular the ministry in charge of Higher Education and Research (MHER) and the Departments in a University2. Those three levels - National, University, Departmental - are admittedly highly interconnected and having asymmetrical (hierarchical) relationships, yet their strategic capability must be recognised - hence their legitimate involvement in - and use of - evaluation activities. The objective of this paper is - focussing on the University as an evaluation actor - to identify and discuss the question of its relationships, in terms of evaluation activities, with University Departments on one side and with the MHER on the other - which are both evaluation actors as well. Our standpoint is to refer to evaluation methodologies and our examples will mostly be based on the evaluation activities of the UNIMIL, as well as those taking place in France, at various levels. We also make some references to the evaluation implications of the Bologna process. In a first paragraph, we give an overview of the relationships among the evaluation actors of the different levels; in a second and third paragraph, we focus on the relationships of a university with the departmental and national level, respectively, discussing some methodological issues, concluding then on the stakes which a university faces as an evaluation actor.

This paper argues that if education practitioners, policy‐makers and researchers are to gain insights from new forms of online self‐representations, there is a need to take stock of research involving homepages in order to identify important methodological issues and lessons that need to be addressed in future research. Home page authorship research is characterized as being associated either with production or classification, very much as other areas of research in literacy such as new literacy studies and multimodality have identified process and product. In this paper, key aspects of research into homepage authorship are reviewed and tensions and contradictions identified. From this review four key implications for methodology are discussed: the varying degree to which content or context are defined in research; the interaction between researcher and researched, within learning disability contexts and more widely; a consideration of the sometimes blurred distinction between public and private online spaces and a wider discussion of the ethical issues facing researchers.

Agroecological transition requires that innovative and diversified cropping systems be developed. Conducting system experiments is an approach well-suited to the analysis of performance of cropping systems when subjected to soil, weather and biotic stresses. Conducting system experiments nevertheless gives rise to methodological challenges. Using the Syppre network of experiments, consisting of five sites in France, we present an original case study that provides valuable methodological and agronomic lessons on system experiments. The innovative cropping systems tested there are based on crop diversification (including oilseeds and protein crops), as well as flexible tillage, technical innovations and optimized crop management. From a methodological standpoint, we show that (i) mixed models are adapted to a range of experimental questions and constraints; (ii) multifactorial analysis enables the characterization of relationships between performance indicators; (iii) a multisite experimental network is an efficient approach not only for answering agronomic questions, but also for addressing methodological issues. From an agronomic standpoint, we showed that reconciling multiple indicators of performance is still challenging. Overall, innovative and diversified systems improved the performance of input utilization and environmental impacts, but with lower productivity and profitability. Introducing legume crops is a promising strategy because this contributes significantly to reductions in mineral N fertilizer use, energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions, without major trade-offs against other performance indicators. Finally, we showed that the nature of the production situation had a major influence on the performance profile. This led us to be cautious in making overall analyses especially with regard to general conclusions.

BackgroundThe Stanley Foundation Bipolar Treatment Outcome Network (SFBN) recruited more than 900 outpatients from 1995 to 2002 from 4 sites in the United States (US) and 3 in the Netherlands and Germany (abbreviated as Europe). When funding was discontinued, the international group of investigators continued to work together as the Bipolar Collaborative Network (BCN), publishing so far 87 peer-reviewed manuscripts. On the 25th year anniversary of its founding, publication of a brief summary of some of the major findings appeared appropriate. Important insights into the course and treatment of adult outpatients with bipolar disorder were revealed and some methodological issues and lessons learned will be discussed.ResultsThe illness is recurrent and pernicious and difficult to bring to a long-term remission. Virtually all aspects of the illness were more prevalent in the US compared to Europe. This included vastly more patients with early onset illness and those with more psychosocial adversity in childhood; more genetic vulnerability; more anxiety and substance abuse comorbidity; more episodes and rapid cycling; and more treatment non-responsiveness.ConclusionsThe findings provide a road map for a new round of much needed clinical treatment research studies. They also emphasize the need for the formation of a new network focusing on child and youth onset of mood disorders with a goal to achieve early precision diagnostics for intervention and prevention in attempting to make the course of bipolar illness more benign.

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the methodology for research examining depression severity, depression sigma, and attitudes toward seeking professional help for depression among Jordanian adolescents aged 12 to 17 years. Because this was a novel area of research in the Arab countries generally, and Jordan specifically, we aimed to (a) assess the feasibility of collaboration with recruitment sites, (b) evaluate the sampling method and recruitment strategies, and (c) confirm the utility of the measures translated from English to Arabic, namely, the Depression Stigma Scale (DSS; Griffiths, Christensen, & Jorm, 2008) and the Attitudes Toward Seeking Professional Psychological Help Scale (ASPPH; Fischer & Farina, 1995). Cross-sectional data were collected using self-report questionnaires from 88 adolescents attending public schools in Jordan. Active parental consents and adolescent assents were obtained as required by an American institutional review board (IRB), which was 1 of 2 entities providing approval for the study protocol. Depression was evaluated using a validated Arabic version of the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II; Beck, Steer, & Brown, 1996). A systematic translation procedure was utilized for the DSS and ASPPH scales. Feasibility of collaboration with recruitment sites was established. However, the active consent procedure reduced the response rate and influenced sample characteristics. Both the BDI-II and the DSS showed adequate reliability. Reliability of the ASPPH scale was questionable. Conducting cross-cultural research requires careful considerations of all ethical, methodological, cultural, linguistic, and logistical issues that might potentially affect the validity and reliability of collected data. This study taps a significant gap in the literature, and provides important recommendations on how to address the potential impacts of the consent process on subjects’ decision to participate or opt out of studies addressing stigmatizing issues, such as mental illness.

In this paper, we present our collective reflections on the methodological and collaborative experiences embedded within a cross-disciplinary study of student online learning experiences. The paper will present the theoretical underpinnings for the research design, describe the chosen framework and methods, and identify methodological issues and lessons arising from the implementation of this research. In addition, we will show how the workings of the multi-disciplinary, distributed research team and collaborative methods contributed to the project and to building research capacity in subject communities.

This chapter focuses on the police research in the country Northern Ireland. It also examines the issue of accessing the police, researcher conduct and ethics, along with controversies and wider applicability of undertaking police research in a post-conflict landscape. The chapter outlines the key methodological issues and lessons of conducting police research in an environment where knowledge about policing can become as contested as the activities of the police themselves. One of the key lessons for the prospective police researcher in the country is the acute need to grasp that social science research methodologies, need to be carefully tailored to the social, political and security climate in which policing is delivered. McLoughlin and Miller have argued that because Northern Ireland remains intensely politicised and especially policing and security, the neutrality of the external researcher whether in police or community contexts, is infinitely more difficult than would normally be associated with qualitative research approaches.

This paper discusses some of the methodological issues one encounters when creating and using ontologies in the rapidly expanding Linked Open Data (LOD) landscape. Over the years the notion of applied ontologies has transitioned from that of a logically formalized knowledge system with varying degrees of inferencing power to that of a lightweight knowledge representation tool. This shift is reflected in the current lexicon where different actors in the LOD community use the term ontology interchangeably with more generic terms like vocabulary or even namespace or data schema. Applied ontologies have been a key area of research in the context of Semantic Web initiative since the late 1990s. The Semantic Web has recently found a new stream of development in the Linked Data initiative, which is considered its natural evolution (Allemang and Hendler, 2011). While a good deal of literature has been devoted to investigating ontology engineering for the Semantic Web, not enough attention has yet been paid to understanding the nature and role that ontologies play in the linked data context, especially from the lens of knowledge organization research. Based on our ongoing work creating Linked Open Data applications and services for digital resources in the domain of the performing arts, we describe methodological steps and lessons learned in line with the spirit of the linked data initiative, where an agile and pragmatic approach to development is combined with the practice of learning from one another.