‘Right’ Futures: the Liminal Political Timespace of the ‘Real Right’ in Chile and Italy

Project Information

RightFutures

Grant agreement ID: 101065806

DOI

10.3030/101065806

Project closed

EC signature date 27 September 2022

Start date 15 May 2023

End date 14 May 2025

Funded under

• Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)

Total cost

No data

EU contribution

€ 230 774,40

Coordinated by

ROSKILDE UNIVERSITET
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - RightFutures (‘Right’ Futures: the Liminal Political Timespace of the ‘Real Right’ in Chile and Italy)

Reporting period: 2023-05-15 to 2025-05-14

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The project proposed an innovative future-oriented analytical perspective on youth participation in right-wing and far-right parties and groups in Italy and Chile. It thus investigated how and why young people who identify with the self-defined ‘Real Right’ in Italy and Chile engage with multiple futural orientations through political performances, events, activities, and materialities. The research was developed at the intersection of three areas of inquiry – the future, youth, and the (far)right – and three specific objectives: security and defence, the nation, the past. The first objective sought to consider the collective practices and feelings of security and defence initiatives, investigating how these initiatives shape young people’s political experiences and what futures of democracy are imagined or contested through them. The second asked how contested pasts are re-elaborated from the future within Italian and Chilean democracies. While the third objective explored how the futures of democracy and the nation are collectively imagined, acted upon, and contested by young people who sympathise for or participate in right-wing and far-right groups and parties, examining how visions of the nation are re-elaborated through imaginaries of the future nation and of democracy.
The project aimed to produce novel understandings of young people’s political experience in the (far)right, through their future-oriented visions, practices, emotions, and materialities. Moreover, through a comparative approach, the project aimed to examine the global relevance of inquiring into the far-right from a futural temporal perspective, to move beyond solely Euro/US-centric perspectives.

The project was developed within a broader context marked by the sharp global rise of far-right politics and the increasing participation of far-right groups and parties in democratic institutions. With its innovative future-oriented analytical perspective, the project brings to the fore the analysis of political temporalities in contexts where the (dictatorial) past remains contested and continues to shape contemporary political discourses. Moreover, since youth is often associated with the future, the project aimed to shed light on the way young people themselves engage with the future through and/or in contrast with their political activism. An ethnographic approach, still not widely used in research on the far-right due to the ethical and methodological complexities it presents, was central to this inquiry as it enabled the in-depth exploration of young people’s political experiences.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

RightFutures employed an ethnographic approach to collect data, including participant observation and informal and semi-structured interviews, to investigate the intersections between the research question and the project’s three specific objectives (security and defence, the past, the nation). Ethnographic data were collected over a period of 10 months, split between Chile and Italy. Additional secondary data and insights were gathered through prolonged stays in each country, as well as from social media, the local press, and other sources. Ethnographic data offer a unique contribution to existing research based on non-immersive methodologies. In particular, participant observation enabled Dr. Miltiadis to engage daily with young people and their political activism, while extended interviews allowed her to explore more deeply the motivations and experiences of her interlocutors. This has produced novel insights into right-wing and far-right politics from a future-oriented analytical perspective, as well as original contributions emerging from the ethnographic comparison between Latin America and Europe.

Given the fellowship’s focus on career development, Dr. Miltiadis also dedicated time to gaining new skills and experience, fostering international interdisciplinary networks across Chile, Denmark, the UK, Italy, and Cyprus, and participating in a wide range of activities and training. She organised an international interdisciplinary workshop on ‘The Future as Praxis’, aimed at inquiring, from an interdisciplinary perspective, into the relationship between the ‘doing’ and the ‘theorising’ of futures, with scholars from Denmark, the UK, Germany, and Italy. She is currently the co-convenor of the European Association of Social Anthropology (EASA) ‘Anthropology of Fascisms’ (AnthroFA) Network. These activities have laid the foundation for future collaborations and joint research initiatives. In parallel, Dr. Miltiadis has acquired and strengthened key technical and transferable skills. These include independent project management, as well as core research skills through training-through-research. The fellowship has contributed to Dr. Miltiadis’ expertise in conducting research in politically sensitive environments and with groups typically wary of academic inquiry. Dr. Miltiadis has attended and was invited to several conferences and events during the fellowship.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has created new knowledge in the field of youth participation in right-wing and far-right parties in Italy and Chile. In particular, it has produced the following insights:
- the data collected show that political experience among young people who sympathise for or participate in right-wing and far-right parties and groups is heterogeneous. Young people’s reasons for joining these parties and groups, their level and type of engagement, and their narratives and understandings of their participation vary greatly both within and between groups. Moreover, the data indicate that young people join such parties and groups through different routes, and that there is a degree of fluidity through which they move between groups. Multiple expressions, materialisations, and practices of political activism have thus emerged throughout the study.
- through its analytical focus on the future, the research highlights that young people who participate in or sympathise for right-wing and far-right parties and groups engage with multiple futures. These include personal and biographical futures, political futures, national futures, democracy’s futures, and others, across different temporal scales (e.g. long-term or short-term). Multiple futures, thus, both shape and are shaped by young people’s political activism. Political activism, in this project, emerges as a multitemporal experience, where the future plays a significant role. Moreover, the project explored how young people articulate the commonly held association between youth and the future (or youth as the future), in relation to their political experiences.
- More broadly, the insights developed contribute to reflections on the use of ethnography in researching the far-right, as a unique perspective that sheds light on the everyday experience of political activism

The empty pedestal of the statue of General Baquedano with electoral posters on the side (Chile)