What does ‘community’ mean to activists in this moment of right-wing backlash? Extant literature demonstrates how the concept and lived experience of “community” can be a vehicle for organising resistance against existing systems of oppression and as a space for respite and care to sustain activists through the exhaustion of their work (Emejulu and Bassel 2023). Community can serve as a bulwark against backlash but it is also a contested space riven with contradictions because of the power imbalances between different kinds of activists. This article explores the varied ways in which community is experienced and understood by feminist antiracist activists in the UK, including the tensions and contradictions that arise when thinking and organising within their networks and groups. Based on fieldwork conducted in England and Scotland, we suggest that the term “community” is invoked differently depending on different aspects of organising based on whether activists are addressing ‘outsiders’ or ‘insiders’. Activists label their groups as seemingly uncontroversial “community groups” rather than potentially radical political ones to outsiders (e.g. state actors or potential members) to legitimise their presence and actions as individuals in a local area coming together to advocate for a particular issue or address a grievance. However, when interacting with fellow members in a political organisation, conversations around community arise in other ways. Activists invoke “community” as a means to create environments that encourage active participation from members who have been historically marginalised due to their race, gender, sexuality, and class. Others challenge mainstream understandings of community in political organising by disavowing the importance of friendship between members, centring shared but temporary political strategies and actions over maintaining ‘harmonious’ relationships with others in their ostensible community (Schulman 2025).
