Cardiff Interdisciplinary Research on Antifascism and the Far right

We carry out research and public activities on antifascism and the far right across a range of different disciplines.

Cardiff Interdisciplinary Research on Antifascism and the Far right (CIRAF) is an interdisciplinary research network that brings together the expertise of members who work on theoretical and empirical, historical and topical aspects of the far right in physical and digital spaces. We also study, and where possible aim to generate meaningful evidence and understandings for, those who challenge the far right in diverse ways.

The network currently spans several schools in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences and nurtures projects and collaborations across and beyond Cardiff University. We also host associate members working at other institutions and those working outside the university system. Our members conduct their research at the frontiers of such diverse subjects as history, linguistics, sociology, media studies, geography, political science, urban studies and philosophy.

CIRAF was founded in late 2021 as an internal network within Cardiff University. Since 2023 the network has engaged in a range of public activities, including online seminars, two in-person interdisciplinary events, and social media engagement. Together, our members are building an interdisciplinary research culture at Cardiff University in this timely and important research area.

We welcome media enquiries for comment on current affairs and historical topics related to the far right and anti-fascism. Email CIRAF@cardiff.ac.uk.

Aims

to understand the nature and impacts of the far right and the diverse ways and groups that challenge them
to provide a platform for interdisciplinary research on antifascism and the far right
to build capacity within Cardiff University across a range of disciplines and create opportunities for collaborations and knowledge exchange
to engage in public activities within and outside of Cardiff University

Events

What is an ‘anti-racist university’? Academia, activism, and community in times of polarisation and conflict

3 June 2025

This one-day participatory event explores what an ‘anti-racist university’ is or could be from an interdisciplinary, anti-fascist and community-oriented perspective. Universities such as Cardiff University are increasingly declaring their commitment to challenging racism, with recognition sought for institutional anti-racist credentials and commendations such as the Race Equality Charter Award. This is commendable, but what does it mean in practice, and how does it relate and respond to the ongoing mainstreaming of the far right and their attacks on university autonomy around the world? Meanwhile, research on anti-fascism and the far-right has typically been isolated from scholarship on anti-racism, and rarely is the university’s role in the community considered in this work. In this event, participants are invited to consider the relationship between anti-fascism, anti-racism, and the civic role of universities, identifying opportunities and challenges in these turbulent political times.

The 2024 Riots, the Far Right, and Racism

19 March 2025

This online seminar considers the nature and legacy of the disturbances of August 2024, where around 40 protests, riots and (arguably) pogroms took place across the UK in response to misinformation about a knife attacker in Southport. After an overview and introduction from Natalie-Ann Hall (Cardiff University), Aaron Winter (University of Bath) presents his reflections on the origins, meanings and implications of these disturbances. In this talk, Winter discusses two distinct narratives of the riots – both as outbursts of ‘legitimate grievances’ and as an ‘extreme fringe’ – and argues how they both play a role in the mainstreaming and emboldening of the far right.

Queer Antifascism

12 February 2025

Ivana Marjanović (art historian and curator) talks about her book QueerBeograd Cabaret, in which she explores the festival’s transnational activist cabaret between 2006 and 2008. She demonstrates how the process of staging QueerBeograd Cabaret created a shared space between queer, anti-fascism and No Borders politics, contributing to the advancement of the intersectionality perspective beyond identity.

Sébastien Tremblay (historian and researcher) discusses how memories of national socialism and antifascist memory practices influenced queer politics in the second part of the twentieth century in West and then unified Germany. He then opens up to how this focus on memory created and propagated new exclusions in the present inside the queer community.

Exploring the Networked Far-Right

17 April 2024

In the second event of the 2024 CIRAF research seminars, we host two scholars conducting research into the complex and ever-changing far-right online ‘ecosystem’.

Their work provides insights and vital understanding into the use of online channels, platforms and networks by far-right communities; how these communities are connected; and what drives participants to these online spaces. Stephane Baele (UC Louvain) explores what studying extremist digital ‘ecosystems’ means and what this approach offers that alternative perspectives don’t.

Jonathan Collins (Charles & Leiden University) explores what happens when the far-right creates a breakaway virtual community and content milieu away from mainstream social media platforms.

Antifascist Politics in Brazil

6 March 2024

In the first event of the 2024 CIRAF research seminar series, two scholars of Brazilian politics join us to speak about two distinctive articulations of antifascism in the shadow of Bolsonaro’s far-right government.

Susana Durão (UNICAMP) discusses her ethnography of antifascist currents within the Brazilian police force, and Cara Snyder (University of Louisville) explores trans feminist expressions of antifascism through Brazil’s love of football.

Symposium: Relational Imaginaries of Antifascism and the Far-right

23 June 2023

By bringing together research on antifascism and the far-right, this symposium explores the social imaginaries of these groups, their values and belief systems, and the role of the ‘opponent’ within them.

We engage theoretically, critically, historically, methodologically and empirically with imaginaries and their multiple expressions, for example in texts, images and everyday practices. Including urban imaginaries, ecological imaginaries, utopian and dystopian imaginaries, (anti)colonial imaginaries, (anti)feminist imaginaries, and the ways imaginaries influence political action and vice versa, we discuss the interdisciplinarity of approaches that cut across the arts, humanities, and social sciences.

Repertoires of antifascist action

25 April 2023

Ana Santamarina Guerrero (University of Glasgow) and Ali Jones (Coventry University) present two studies of antifascism in action that highlight the different repertoires and rationalities of antifascist activism in specific places and times.

How do antifascist strategies and tactics develop in relation to their social and political context? When and why do they change, and what are the implications? And what can stories from certain places and times teach us about antifascism elsewhere, both now and in the future?

Ecofascism

14 March 2023

Aidan Tynan (Cardiff University) discusses “Ecofascist aesthetics”, using ecofascism as a way of understanding how fascism intersects with climate politics, to explore how we should respond to and critique far right politics that provide aesthetic visions, which often resemble those of mainstream liberal environmentalism.

Matthew Varco (University of Manchester) explores the interweaving of nature and race in the context of an ‘aryan experimental community’ founded outside Berlin in 1909 by the antisemite Theodor Fritsch in “Heimland: Race, renewal and organic utopia in völkisch settlement”.

Anti-feminist rhetoric and the far right

9 May 2022

Kate Barber (Cardiff University) examines anti-feminist rhetoric, particularly regarding the reframing of rape and sexual assault, in Alt-Right News Narratives and Manosphere News Narratives.

Writing and the far right

9 March 2022

Jason Roberts (Cardiff University) discusses how right-wing media recontextualise material from oppositional sources as a means of advancing their own agenda.

Günter Gassner (Cardiff University) explores writing as a movement that is organised around a shared commitment to an anti-oppressive, non-hierarchical world in “Spiral movement: Writing with fascism and urban violence”.

Methods and the far right

1 December 2021

Kat Williams (Cardiff University) explores “Interviewing the ‘unlovable’: On the challenges of conducting feminist research with the far right”. Ant Ince (Cardiff University) speaks about “Deception and semi-covert methods in fieldwork: Ethical challenges and tentative opportunities for far right research practice”.