From Ritualized Demonstrations to Virtual Marches: A “Patchwork Ethnography” of Populist Far-right Protest in Pandemic Times

Digital activism had been an important dimension of protest and mobilisation already before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, however, it became a crucial tool for social movement organizations around the globe when national governments imposed stay-at-home measures in early 2020, which often included a ban on mass gatherings in public. Based on a case study of the German populist far-right protest movement PEGIDA, this article makes a proposal of how to study such virtual forms of protest. Drawing from interpretive approaches in anthropology and social movement studies as well as literature on digital activism, it explores the processes of ritualization in virtual protest events. Conceptually, the analysis demonstrates that virtual protest rituals may have group-integrative functions similar to ritualized street demonstrations, and thus offer an opportunity for the constitution of protest groups as such. Methodologically, the analysis reveals the strengths of ethnographies of protest: Adopting the lens of “patchwork ethnography”, this flexible approach allows for innovative insights in times when other methods yield zero data. This article is based on an extended ethnographic experience within PEGIDA’s populist far-right protest events in 2019-21, including both “physical” and “virtual” fieldwork.