The EASA Anthropology of Fascisms (AnthroFa) Network and the ERC project “The world behind a word. An anthropological exploration of fascist practices and meanings among European youth” (F-WORD) are delighted to invite contributions for their joint workshop on “Theorizing Fascism through Ethnography: Anthropological Insights for Today’s Political Landscape”.
The workshop will focus on the intertwinement of ethnography and fascism as a theoretical category, without getting into an endless discussion about the “right” use of fascism as a concept, and keeping in mind the dynamic nature of its manifestations as a social phenomenon. We invite researchers and network members to share about their ethnographic experiences and how they have shaped and reflected their field of inquiry.
On the grounds of recent events and state-of-the-art research on fascism undertaken all over the world, we want to mobilize anthropological insights in order to offer a space of discussion on the multiple complexities of contemporary scenarios. We are surrounded by growing militarisation, wars, the political re-elaboration of history and of memory politics, criminalisation of migrations, the backlash against feminists and gender struggles, ecological crisis and exploitation of resources. Moreover, we are increasingly faced with urgent calls for analysis as we are witnessing a live-streamed genocide in Gaza and Palestine, which makes visible the Zionist colonial-imperial project, and – at the same time – the instrumentalization of, and simultaneous growth of, multiple expressions of antisemitism. Fascism as a category can function as a heuristic device for the analysis of these themes and of the continuities between soil exploitation, colonialism, racism, and multiple forms of nationalism that have been taking place across times and spaces.
The workshop offers a space to discuss the intertwinement between theory, fieldwork, empirical acknowledgement and reckoning of fascist practices as anthropological conundrum, moving from contributors’ ethnographic experiences.
We invite contributions that engage with, but are not limited to, the following macro-themes:
1) Praxes of “othering”: mobilisations of “anti”-migration, “anti”-gender, “anti”-feminist, “anti”-Islam, “anti”-gypsyism, “anti”-institutional… discourses;
2) Capitalist accumulation: exploitation of natural resources and living beings through technology, labour, ecology and digitisation;
3) The diachronic and ethnographic theorisation of multiple forms and materialisations of racism, colonialism, nationalism, white supremacy;
4) The political use and circulation of memories, future imaginaries, identity, social reproduction and historical transition.
We encourage generative exchanges, providing a platform for collective dialogue and reflection. There is no set format for presentations; instead, we encourage the sharing of work-in-progress, questions, reflections, as well as creative approaches to exploring the workshop’s themes. We thus welcome written/spoken work, as well as films, creative work, visual illustrations, research agendas, and other exploratory works. This is not intended to be an exhaustive list, and participants are encouraged to explore formats that extend beyond these suggestions.
The workshop will take place on February 2nd and 3rd 2026, at the University of Turin (Italy). Funding from both EASA and ERC F-WORD project will be dedicated to facilitating early-career or precarious scholars’ expenses related to travel and accommodation.
We ask interested authors to send us their subsmissions by September 14th, sharing with us a title, an abstract of 250 words and a short biography. Please, include a note to let us know if you need funding to attend the workshop.
Please send your proposals to:
Maddalena Gretel Cammelli (maddalenagretel.cammelli@unito.it),
Elena Miltiadis (miltiadiselena@gmail.com),
and Nicolas Petel-Rochette (nicolaspetelrochette@protonmail.com).
The organizing committee (EASA AnthroFa Network convenors and F-WORD team):
Maddalena Gretel Cammelli (University of Turin), Elena Miltiadis (Durham University), Nicolas Petel-Rochette (Université du Québec à Montréal), Marco Bernardi (University of Turin), Chiara Calzana (University of Turin), Chiara Magliacane (University of Turin), Marta Panighel (University of Turin), Gabriele Vitale (University of Turin).