‘One Big Family’: Emotion, Affect and Solidarity in Young People’s Activism in Radical Right and Patriotic Movements

  • Hilary Pilkington
  • Elena Omelchenko
  • Benjamin Perasović
Chapter
First Online:

Abstract

This chapter brings new insight to the study of young people’s activism in extreme right groups by considering their activism from a social movement theory perspective. It draws on the meta-ethnographic synthesis of findings of a cluster of ethnographic studies of radical right and patriotic movements conducted for the MYPLACE project, focusing on the emotional and affective dimensions of activism and on three case studies: the English Defence League (UK), Russian Run (Russia) and Torcida (Croatia). It considers the emotional pleasure derived from activism often expressed as going ‘wild’, feeling euphoric, or being overtaken by a physical ‘buzz’, as well as the reciprocal emotions that bind activists through feelings of solidarity and mutual support, expressed as feeling part of ‘one big family’.

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Copyright information

© The Author(s) 2018

Authors and Affiliations

  • Hilary Pilkington
    • 1
  • Elena Omelchenko
    • 2
  • Benjamin Perasović
    • 3
  1. 1.School of Social Sciences (Sociology)University of ManchesterManchesterUK
  2. 2.Centre for Youth StudiesNational Research University Higher School of EconomicsSt. PetersburgRussia
  3. 3.Ivo Pilar Institute of Social SciencesZagrebCroatia

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