Join us for the next Research Tuesday lecture and discussion – online at https://www.facebook.com/ARCHIP.eu .

March 3 at 18h30

Resisting the Hydra : Ethnographic Perspectives

In an era marked by many-headed hydras such as rising authoritarianism, far-right politics, the mobilisation of anti-gender politics and political corruption, how can qualitative and ethnographic research help us understand political resistance and collective resilience? This talk explores this question through ethnographic research with feminist diaspora activists from Poland and Turkey who migrated or went into exile in response to increasing political repression in their home countries. Focusing on in-depth interviews and focus groups, the talk traces how activism, solidarity and resistance are reimagined transnationally. It examines how political engagement continues in exile, how new solidarities are formed in host countries and how transnational solidarities enable alternative modes of organising and resisting right-wing populism. Rather than viewing migration as a rupture or loss, the talk approaches exile as a generative space of resistance and prefiguration where political identities, practices and imaginaries are reshaped. The talk also reflects on the conditions of knowledge production itself. Drawing on feminist and decolonial approaches, it considers ethnography as a relational practice shaped by positionality, emotional labour and power relations. In doing so, it frames ethnographic research not only as a means of analysing social movements, but as a situated and ethical process with lived experience in times of multi-headed hydras of political crises.