The Right to (Not) Appear: A Conversation on Institutional Obligations and Ethics of Care in Researching Illiberalism

Abstract

As other papers in this special issue highlight, researchers of far-right movements have always been faced with the need to carefully balance visibility and invisibility to protect both their academic and personal selves. In this conversation, we share our experiences of what happens when preoccupations with dissemination and impact occlude the need for the right of research and researchers not to appear. This right touches upon a series of ethical questions and obligations that extend beyond simply our formal legal obligations to funding agencies and employers. As scholars arguing for a situated and participatory ethics have argued, ethical obligations must always be attuned to the affective entanglements that impact (in every sense of the word) both research subjects and researchers themselves, and that unfold often in unexpected fashion. How, then, can we reconcile such situated ethics and an ethic and culture of care with institutional obligations, and the requisites of an academic career? The conversation forum presented here draws on multiple exchanges the four authors had over the course of 2023 to 2024, edited for continuity and clarity.