Frédérick Nadeau
PhD student in Urban Studies
Institut national de la recherche scientifique
Award-winning publication: Political Voices and Everyday Choices: Aesthetic Modes of Political Engagement in Right-Wing Extremism
Published in: Anthropologica
Abstract
An ethnographic survey of far-right militants in Québec conducted by Frédérick Nadeau reveals actors driven by a deep sense of powerlessness who feel humiliated and distrustful toward democratic institutions. So, they turn away from government and adopt aesthetic modes of engagement rooted in everyday life. This engagement is less concerned with calling for better social conditions than creating them for and by themselves, since changing the world first requires changing oneself. Aesthetic engagement therefore arises as a mode of subjectivation that enables militants to regain some agency in a world that is out of their hands.