It remains a prevailing public sentiment that individuals who participate in reactionary right-wing activism are unlike the rest of us; reactionary actors are perceived, reassuringly, as abnormal. Given the labels bestowed upon activists – racist, fascist, Nazi – and the appreciable destructive impact this stigmatised form of political activism can have on one’s life – ostracisation from family and friends, loss of livelihood – alongside the fact that reactionary causes achieve little in the way of tangible success, it appears evident that participating individuals must be acting irrationally. While there have been recent efforts within social movement studies to counter this misunderstanding, the reasons why reactionary activists act out of rational and, importantly, emotional self-interest remain underexplored. As a work of ethnography, this thesis provides necessary further elucidation into this timely issue.
The thesis draws upon fieldwork data – both physical and digital – collected between November 2019 and March 2022 from members of a small, short-lived group, composed of individuals who were first introduced to this form of activism through the radical reactionary influencer Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – referred to throughout the thesis as Tommy Robinson. Applying a microsociological lens, specifically Randall Collins’ (1981; 2004) interaction ritual chains theory, the thesis demonstrates how engaging in this form of exclusionary activism is a pleasurable and rewarding experience for participants. It is a collective activity that transforms negative emotions – such as the anger that reactionaries feel towards groups and individuals they have constructed as Other – into longer-term positive emotional states. The thesis accepts Collins’ theory that emotional energy is the precipitate cause of social action, demonstrating how activists consistently derive this sought-after emotional resource from participation. Beyond the observation of activist events, the thesis takes a person-centric case study approach, exploring the everyday lifeworlds of reactionary activists, detailing their relationships with family members and fellow activists, the depth of their ideological commitments and the role of reactionary activism in their broader lives.
By closely observing co-present interactions, the thesis employs a microlevel situational focus on the emotions of reactionary actors as they both engage in activism and move through their daily lives, an area that has also remained underexplored within social movement studies.
