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Abstract
The paper addresses two interrelated questions: how can researchers conceptualize positionality when they are directly targeted by far-right and anti-gender actors, and how can methodological rigor be maintained when research, activism, and personal vulnerability intersect? Building on feminist epistemology and scholarship on epistemic injustice, the paper conceptualizes researcher positionality along two interrelated dimensions: as 'outsiders within' social and academic contexts, and as epistemic agents operating at the intersection of research and activism. This positionality is not treated as a bias to be neutralized but as a condition that shapes access to data, interpretation, and ethical responsibility.
Methodologically, the paper argues for the value of feminist (co-)autoethnography as a complementary approach to critical discourse analysis in the study of far-right mobilization. Autoethnography enables the systematic integration of researchers’ lived experiences—such as exposure to online harassment, threats, and institutional marginalization—into the analytical process, without collapsing analysis into testimony. The paper discusses the ethical implications of working with violent and hateful discourses, including the risks of recirculating harm, the boundaries between public and private digital spaces, and the need to foreground researchers’ emotional safety as an ethical concern rather than a personal weakness. By foregrounding epistemic injustice, the paper highlights how far-right and anti-gender attacks function not only to delegitimize specific fields of knowledge, but also to discipline researchers through fear, dehumanization, and isolation. These dynamics have concrete methodological consequences, including self-censorship, avoidance of certain research topics, and unequal epistemic burdens placed on marginalized scholars. The paper contributes to research on anti-gender and far-right mobilization by showing that methodological reflexivity, attention to emotions, and feminist ethics of care are essential for analysing authoritarian projects that combine knowledge control with targeted violence against scholars. It concludes by outlining ethically grounded research strategies for conducting critical inquiry under conditions of democratic backsliding.
