Methodology for the disliked: a call for situated ethics in close-up research with anti-gender groups

Abstract

The close-up study of far-right groups often involves an intense emotional burden for researchers working with participants they dislike or even feel threatened by. This article proposes to think of the ‘disliked’ as a category of participants whom the researcher finds ideologically or morally objectionable due to their exclusionary attitudes. It calls for an approach of situated ethics to account for the particularities and complexities of disliked groups that can remain uncharted if studied from a distance. Furthermore, the article addresses the need to understand ethics and safety as entangled when researching disliked groups, since researchers must cautiously examine and handle the overlap between them. To explore this topic, the article draws on in-depth fieldwork with anti-gender groups in Spain and engages with the experience of empathising with people whose discourse and beliefs challenge the researcher's own well-being.