Abstract
This article reconstructs disengagement of women from extreme right groups not theoretically as individual decision-making process, but empirically as social identity work. A thorough analysis of qualitative interviews conducted with six female and six male former right-wing extremists demonstrates how extreme right membership identities of women are socially produced. In tension-laden interactions between women and men processes of “becoming and being an extreme right woman” unfold in the dimensions of caring feminity, masculinity, disciplined heterosexuality, and political subordination. All interviewed women contributed fundamentally to upholding and disseminating right-wing structures and ideologies. The analysis reveals that the women fashion a disengagement narrative in which they emphasize their true and good core self. The narratives focus on suffering, or demonstrate how the core self was deceived by circumstances into extremist activity. The results correspond with the narrative identity theory of desistance and offer initial starting points for a professional deradicalisation practice that is sensitive to positive self-illusion.
State of Research, Desiderata, Research Questions
International deradicalisation research has brought forth groundbreaking pioneering studies and a multitude of qualitative empirical investigations. As such it has contributed to theoretical reflection on individual deradicalisation processes (Köhler, 2016, p. 425). A distinction between disengagement and deradicalisation is fundamental in this context.
Both terms relate to processes of withdrawal, recantation, reversal and change, and cannot be conceived completely separately. While debate over definitions is still ongoing, with different conceptualisations and emphases found in the literature, the two terms nonetheless mark the essentialdifference between the ideological and psychological on the one side and specifically behavioural aspects on the other. Following Metzger, Koehler argues that deradicalisation can be understood as a cognitive process in which an extreme, radical, ideology-based self-understanding is renounced in favour of a more moderate legal identity. Disengagement by contrast brackets out aspects relating to ideology and to a cognitive transformation of identity, concentrating instead on modification of behaviour (Koehler, 2014, p. 420; Metzger, 2013).
While there is a consensus that psychological change demands a great deal more time and effort than behavioural change (Wagner, 2013, p. 19ff.; Horgan, Altier, Shortland, & Taylor, 2016, p. 1), disagreement arises in connection with sequencing and interactions between the two processes (Rabasa, Pettyjohn, Ghez, & Boucek, 2010).
The latest research discusses individual and voluntary disengagement from extreme right milieus as a process. A gradual process or a traumatic event creates a cognitive opening initiating a complex interplay of factors promoting and inhibiting disengagement. On the one side, normative/ideological, group-related and personal push/pull factors may make it appear untenable to remain within an extreme right group or organisation, increasing the attractiveness of other social forms and lifestyles. On the other, group-related, societal/normative and individual inhibiting factors counteract emerging ideas and intentions concerning disengagement (see Aho, 1988; Bjørgo, 2009, p. 36– 42; Dalgaard-Nielsen, 2013, p. 100; Gallant, 2014; Kimmel, 2007; Koehler, 2017, p. 20; Rabasa et al., 2010, p. 12). To put it in a nutshell: Individual disengagement occurs where a personal cost/benefit analysis of push and pull factors makes it appear a better option than continuing engagement in the extreme right group (Altier, Thoroughgood, & Horgan, 2014, p. 650).
This argument, based largely on the tenets of the investment model of commitment processes (Rusbult, 1983) is, however, associated with an analytical constraint. Even if disengagement research builds on the model of role exit (Ebaugh, 1988) shaped by symbolic interactionism, simultaneous recourse to the investment model distorts the analytical perspective on social practice. Where the discussion focuses on the actors’ attitudes and their own assessments of their resources, disengagement appears as intentional behaviour and chosen action (for example Horgan et al., 2016, p. 7). This conceptualisation precodes disengagement as a binary event and treats it as dependent on social conditions – but not per se as social practice at the level of the actors. Here it is dubious whether the described combination of models is able to grasp disengagement as a specific processual phenomenon at all.
In this connection it should also be mentioned that current model-driven actor-fixated research can do no other than bring forth membership typologies and associated engagement and disengagement paths originating within the individual’s attitudes and needs (Bjørgo, 2009, p. 31ff.; Bjørgo, 2016, p. 233; Willems, 1995, p. 169). Within this strand of research the discursive practice of social production and negotiation is marginalised, as is the personal acquisition and shaping of membership identities. Above all the processes and interactions occurring within and emanating from gendered relationships, in which extreme right social forms can constitute themselves, are touched upon only tangentially. This applies in particular to the practices through which the extreme right membership of women is formed, stabilised, altered and dissolved.
Even gender-aware researchers have to date neglected the subjectivisation practices associated with extreme right gender models. The latest publications discuss heterogeneous constructs of femininity and masculinity in extreme right discourses on a spectrum from modernisation to (re-)traditionalisation. The central interests here include the discursive strategies and political implications of extreme right gender models and their relationship to the gender aspects of migration and integration discourses, and to modernisation developments in gender culture (Erel, 2017; Geden, 2005). Additionally, the strand of research focussed on women demonstrates clear overlaps and similarities between the diverse forms and manifestations of extreme right femininity and the lived gender concepts prevalent within traditional main-stream society (Lang, 2015, p. 178). A stereotyped trivialisation of extreme right femininity is also noted across society as a whole. Empirical studies find that extreme right women strategically exploit this trivialisation effect in order to wield political influence outside their extremist contexts and to underline their “non-involvement” when charged and prosecuted (Bitzan, 2011, p. 117; Bitzan, Köttig, & Schröder, 2003; Birsl & Pallinger, 2015; Elverich & Köttig, 2009; Köttig, 2004; Lehnert & Radvan, 2016). This background of affinity and trivialisation underlines the necessity of gender-awareness in professional exit counselling, in order to avoid conscious and unconscious prejudices concerning ethnicity, gender, sexuality and body from continuing to shape everyday practice in the course of “returning to society” (Bitzan, 2006; Lehnert, 2010, p. 91; Lehnert, 2013; Rommelspacher,2006, p. 10).
While this line of argument is seductive in its plausibility, the significance of self-design and self-image of extreme right women for disengagement and individual deradicalisation processes remains a research desideratum (see also Koehler, 2017, p. 42). Studies that explicitly examine (non-)discursive everyday routines of extreme right parties, groups and subcultures (and their subjectivisation practices relating to femininity and masculinity) from an explicitly gendered perspective tend to remain largely the exception (Geden, 2005, p. 416).
In light of the state of research and the identified desiderata, the discussion below adopts aperspective that permits us to observe how identity-related extreme-right femininities are (can be) socially produced, and integrated and translated into everyday practice by the actors. In this article we seek to discover how the personal handling of gender-specific identity models creates tensions between the levels of the social order and the individual. How are discrepancies between the levels experienced and processed? As well as clarifying the relevance of practised ideas of femininity for disengagement, we are also interested in their (dis)continuity in the course of disengagement processes and their relationality to extreme-right and mainstream gender discourses. Finally, we consider what conclusions can be drawn for deradicalisation.
Theoretical Background and Research Strategy
In this contribution we confront the state of research described above with a detailed analysis of interviews with six female exiters, in which they relate their involvement in and disengagement from extreme right contexts. Our analysis of the involvement of the six women in their respective extreme right contexts is supplemented with material from interviews with six male exiters.
Cases were selected using a purposive sampling procedure (Patton, 1990), aiming to achieve adequate variance. Contact to subjects who had disengaged from extreme right contexts was arranged through official and civil society exit programmes operating in Germany. The interviews were conducted between spring 2015 and summer 2016. To minimize the risk of social sanctions, and to ensure anonymity for the interviewees talking about sensitive parts of their life, we agreed not to mention sociodemographic data like age, education, occupation (status) etc. inpublications.
Rather than adopting a cost/benefit perspective, the empirical material is analysed using a praxeological approach informed by biography theory (Dausien & Kelle, 2005). This locates the process of (re)producing a part of the interviewee’s biography in their narration. Using a narrative form with open-ended prompts and inquiries to elicit particular details permitted interviewees to revisit their prior involvement and disengagement, subsequent life course, and associated thoughts and feelings, thus portraying these from their present perspective (Fischer-Rosenthal, 1996, p. 151; Gurwitsch, 1975; Rosenthal, 2015, p. 167; Völter, 2006, p. 276).
The heart of the analysis is the question of how interviewees, in their accounts and arguments, portray their self-image in different social contexts and situations at different junctures (Bröckling, 2007, p. 20). The point of analytical interest here is the dynamic between the poles of autonomy and control. The study concentrates on the paradoxical process of subjectivation, in which the individual is prompted to create particular discourses aligning with predominant subject figures (Bröckling, 2012, p. 131). This also means subjectivising perceived and known subject figures in personal ways where individuals are able to recognise, form, stabilise and change themselves, and thus able to operate as autonomous selves (Alkemeyer, Budde & Freist 2013; Bosancic, 2013, p. 19; Bröckling, 2007; Hirschauer, 2004; Schmidt, 2012).
In this connection we attempt to tease out the relationship between identity-specific self-design and the regulating mechanisms of everyday practice. The praxeological perspective permits us to inquire whether disengagement processes are associated with transformations of the individual’s self-image and action-driving habitual orientations (Geimer, 2012, p. 236f.; Reckwitz, 2004, p. 41–44).
The process of methodical identification of the self-interpretation and habitual orientations focuses on the biographical accounts, detailed descriptions of everyday matters and dense narrative passages within the interview transcripts (Bohnsack, 2010; Nohl, 2006). The textual type of argumentation is also addressed. The listed communication schemes allow us to examine the argumentative and reflexive interpretations of self in relation to pre-reflexive and habitual everyday orientations.
The methodological backbone of the analysis is the constant comparative method of grounded theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1969, p. 10). Capturing the diversity of the events and processes to which individual subjectivations and disengagement processes are attributed demands a design that takes account of that span. In contrast to the biographical research paradigm, the comparative method engages the first steps of interpretation. The comparative methodology not only compresses, verifies and differentiates significant categories, features and relations, but in fact generates them in the first place (ibid., p. 36f).
The first stage of analysis was to ascertain how the six female exiters (were able to) live their womanhood within their extreme right contexts. In order to tease out the processes of social construction of womanhood in extreme right groups and organisations, supplementary interviews were also conducted with six male exiters. The second stage of analysis explicitly examines how the six women distance themselves from extreme right contexts become “female exiters”.
In both stages of analysis significant topics, events, self-attributions, external constructs, social relationship practices, and associated contexts and dynamics found in the interviewees’ descriptions and statements need to be categorised and generalised. The initial categories were systematically expanded and refined through comparisons between interviewees and their characteristics, the point being to break down differences between the cases into categorisable dimensions (Corbin & Strauss, 2008, p. 134). Minimal and maximal case contrasts permit us to transcend individual case analysis and thus ensure that case-unspecific and empirically founded statements can be made.
Results
The Extreme Right Woman as Caring Supporter
Susanne is a mother to three young children and participated in the struggle for “a free Germany” for almost ten years, in the structures of an extremist group. She underlines her prominent role by pointing out that she is not just the girlfriend of an important member. Susanne contributes herself, organising and planning independently in the male-dominated group. But at the same time the role of “active and political woman” must generally be kept hidden in the everyday life of the group:
And that was also a bone of contention with my then partner, because then I had an idea for a leaflet or something, right, wrote a speech for him or whatever but watch out if I just mention that in public, that I did it and it wasn’t his own. Like, that was male circumcision, out of the question, that a woman, well at home I said my piece, certainly, but he didn’t like that did he.
In addition to this, Susanne’s partner reduces her femininity to motherhood and defines the contours of this role by being largely absent from family life:
I must also say, now he was always out and about anyway. So it wasn’t like that anyway, the family sitting down to dinner together and putting the children to bed together.
Susanne explains that in terms of her “[…] let’s call it labour power, I actually felt, well, pretty much totally exploited”. Especially where “[…] others were adorning themselves with borrowed peacock feathers […]”.
Marie sees herself as the girlfriend of an influential group member, rather than a political activist. In the first place the group was just where she “belonged”, because during the week she was “[…] actually mother for herself […]”, while her partner did “his thing”. This arrangement permitted Marie to attend demonstrations, social evenings and concerts that promised “fun” “action”, and “party”. But she also points out:
[…] if he [her partner] had his way my daughter would be being raised as a radical Nazi.
Marie tolerates her child’s father’s expectations up to a point, but she wants her child to be able to “make completely normal social contacts in the neighbourhood” and increasingly opposes her partner’s parenting style. The incompatibility of parenting styles and goals creates significant tensions in their relationship.
The accounts supplied by Susanne and Marie reveal, first of all, a dissolution of the privacy of the family sphere through its interconnection with other (political) spheres of the right-wing group. The ideologisation of parenting is striking, especially in Marie’s case. In this case, the mother-child relationship appears to presuppose that the child must become part of the group. While Susanne’s childcare enables her partner to dedicate himself completely to the group’s political activities, the group also benefits from her planning work and her ability to compose political texts. Her dual role thus becomes a support resource for the male-dominated group.
Svenja’s narrative also reveals a dissolution of the boundaries of otherwise private relationship constellations. For her politically active extreme right boyfriend, the relationship serves as a vehicle to access Svenja’s computer, which he uses to disseminate extreme right ideologies via internet radio.
Svenja’s partner tells her to “[…] come here and just have a listen to the station […]”. The line between romantic relationship and support for the public dissemination of extreme right views becomes blurred when Svenja participates “[…] simply out of love […]” in presenting and broadcasting the radio programme “[…] maybe once or twice […]”.
The dissolution of privacy in intimate and family relationships permits women’s work to be utilised in extreme right activism without the women themselves necessarily having to be regarded as politically active. Svenja’s support appears less political, manifesting instead as aspects of a love relationship. Marie’s childcare releases time and resources for her partner’s political activities. She herself participates in more recreational group events. Susanne, on the other hand, is active in political planning. But her contribution is – following McRobbie (2010, p. 88) – rendered invisible in the political sphere, and this goes hand in hand with the reduction of her femininity to motherhood.
Paula, by contrast, succeeds in converting her work within the group into recognition and social status. Paula describes herself as very actively involved, calling herself a “central activist”. Her responsibilities included communication with other extreme right groups and organising demonstrations. Describing her activities, she remarks:
[…] Of course you got confirmation from leaders, and from the ones in charge, like. Like, you did that well […] Sure, I got a lot out of that, of course it gave me a boost and was good for my ego.
In this connection Paula also mentions that she never found it problematic as a woman to gain recognition within the largely male group “[b]ecause structures really aren’t there in [state]. […] So they are [.] glad of anyone who can make an active contribution”. Women are not usually active contributors: her position represents a pragmatic solution for a lack of active support – more a kind of “loan”. Even if Paula’s womanhood is manifested primarily in the interactive tasks of preparing and organising events and activities, her work is framed as supporting the male political arena, a sphere that she herself does not actually belong to.
All four women discussed thus far describe themselves and their relationship to an extreme right male partner in the context of their own active support of extreme right structures and dissemination of the associated ideologies. Nevertheless, in the social reality of intimate, family and organisational relationships, the principal characteristics and abilities their partners and other male authority figures attribute to Susanne, Marie, Svenja, and Paula can be subsumed under the concept of caring. Caring transcends the bounds of family and intimate relationships; it is not fixated exclusively on motherhood and childcare, but encompasses all activities that benefit the (public) political context in which the men operate. The woman is not constructed as a political subject and her work in the male sphere is either rendered invisible or understood as a necessary but self-evident supplement to male political activity. The femininity of the extreme right woman derives from this attributed caring nature, meaning that it is tied to a maternal identity. An imagined maternal woman is required if the extreme right man is to see and present himself as a political subject and act accordingly.
Taking into account other narratives of interaction in extreme right social milieus, there is reason to believe that the caring attribution is only one dimension in which the extreme right woman can create her social identity. In the following we turn to other dimensions of the production of womanhood in extreme right groups and organisations, and seek to identify the relationships between them.
Heterosexual Discipline, Masculine Display, and Political Subordination
Female identity within extreme right contexts is vulnerable if the ideal of active caring is not discernible in the presentation of femininity. Accordingly, Paula differentiates herself from other women who “do nothing but join in demonstrations”, presenting herself instead as an active, contributing woman. Susanne also underlines the value of her engagement for the group, setting herself apart from other women she regards as insignificant. This distinction is important to her because:
[…] as a woman you don’t really have a lot of say about anything, like. Most of the girls are, like, somebody’s girlfriend for a little while, and then they often disappear again. But there are also some women who were very active and still are.
Group leader Bernhard argues similarly: childless women who do not work actively but “[…] at most occasionally join their boyfriend on a demonstration or maybe hold a banner […]”, “are stupid sheep”. Bernhard’s descriptions of women point to an intimate bond between sexuality and male and female subjectivation. For Bernhard “[…] a woman [.] […] must be loyal, honest, upright and [.] not simply make trouble”.
Extreme right social groups that are not exclusively male and integrate women into their activities inevitably find themselves confronted with a situation where sexuality is lived out more within their structures than outside them. Extreme right groups and organisations therefore desexualise themselves by locating physicality, emotionality and heterosexuality in intimate and family relationships (Rastetter 1999; Claus & Virchow, 2017). Ensuring a smooth-functioning male public/political sphere requires that sexuality be largely excluded. But Bernhard also reports that neither men nor women necessarily consistently live their sexuality in monogamous relationships. However, blame for destabilisation of the preferred sexual order and subversion of the imagined, reciprocal and harmonious complementarity of the sexes is attributed primarily tothe women.
So when Erwin learns that his girlfriend is having an affair with another group member, he blames her because “[…] she came on to him […]” and seduced him. The accounts of Marie, Paula, and Susanne also indicate that women who are not in steady relationships risk being stigmatised – especially by other women – as disreputable and lascivious: “slut” and “mattress”. Men cannot be blamed because it is their nature to grasp any offering of “fresh meat” and sexual intercourse. This masculinity construction is also reproduced in Sven’s account of events when his group was opened to women. In order to avoid a public reputation as “random militant men” they placed recruiting videos on YouTube showing “sensible women” participating actively in group activities. In reality women “[…] did not have much to say. […] but at parties they got screwed in the broom cupboard […]”.
This stigmatisation transports a heterosexual presentation of masculinity, while responsibility for disciplining sexuality is assigned to the women. This in turn separates, delineates and makes visible female and male spheres.
Women are not entirely excluded from extreme right (public) political activities. Although in much smaller numbers than men, women are a familiar sight at extreme right rallies. But the interactions and gender presentations are largely orientated on the propagated gender models and characterise political space as naturally male-dominated. The latter does not, however, exclude (violent) political activities where women are actively involved in planning and execution.
Paula, for example, participated in violent attacks on male migrants, alongside male group members. Kathrin also joined the men of her group in public (and potentially violent) actions. Describing her involvement in extreme right activities, she said:
[…]you weren’t seen as a woman then. Well you had to pull your weight just like a man and there [in that situation] you don’t have less influence or whatever.
Kathrin presents herself as a woman who can hold her own with the men and who does not cause problems. Participation in action presupposes that Kathrin steps outside the “natural” female role automatically assigned to her, and behaves like a man. Despite the provocative female presence, with its presentation of suppressed femininity and prominent male-coded behaviour, the fundamental masculinity of the public/political domain is maintained. This presents no break with the biologistic, polarised extreme right gender order. The vulnerability attributed to the physical female body functions here as a boundary object, signifying female difference in the social; the contrasting male presents as physically superior and at the same time protective. As Kathrin puts it:
[…] as a woman on demonstrations you were more, if things got out of hand maybe, if stones were thrown, then, well, the men also sometimes took you to the side and protected you and stuff like that […].
Thorsten’s naturalistic accounts also demonstrate how violence – like rationality, steadfastness, reliability, and autonomy – are seen to belong in the male sphere, while women are not really made for the struggle with the adversities of life. He sees his own “reliability” as the basis for his leadership of a subcultural extreme right clique. When describing women he associated with, Thorsten refers to one “girl” that sticked to him. She was, in contrary to the actual nature of women, “able to seriously whack something off”. At the same time Thorsten uses his account to present a scenario of male physical superiority: even women who are “able to fight” can only win against other “girls” who “[…] cause a fuss in the pub […]”, but are physically powerless against male strength. Thorsten goes on to attribute women a position largely derived from their male partner, constructing them as supporters of the physical force of the men. While men do “[…] the hard and difficult dirty work […]”, they receive moral support from the women, who shout encouragement when their men are fighting: […] Hey! Give him one, the cunt!.
The limits of female presentations of masculinity are found not only in the construction of the superior male body. They are also salient where women attempt to position themselves as leaders in an extreme right social framework, as such challenging male superiority. Group leader Bernhard describes several scenarios where women “[…] made themselves absolutely unpopular with the men […]”, by “[…] getting too mouthy […]”.
To tie the above observations together, the subjectivisation options of extreme right woman demand both performance and flexibility. In the male-connotated public/political sphere, depending on place and situation, women are required to conform to the caring female model – or to orientate their actions on extreme right ideals of masculinity. This dual attribution is also reproduced in Bernhard’s account of what an extreme right woman should be:
[…] housewife and mother, she should raise the offspring and to put it bluntly, as soon as the political activity is over that is what she should be doing.
Thus far no independent female positioning in the respective extreme right social framework has been identified in the interviewees’ accounts. Nevertheless, a self-image of extreme right women carrying their own perspectives and concerns into the public political sphere is a central strand of extreme right discourses. This line is prominent in the self-image presented by the women’s organisation of the German National Democratic Party (NPD) – the Ring Nationaler Frauen – and as a political position in debates within the party. However, the accounts of Siegmund and Mark – who had been publicly active in the NPD in various German states – also reflect resistance to granting women a voice of their own in the public/political arena.
Siegmund distinguishes between women as “mother/childbearer” and those who – beyond motherhood – “struggle for the better Germany”. Later in his account he advances a political position that attributes the female perspective significant weight in the public/political sphere. In the guise of gender complementarity, Siegmund argues:
we also need to have women on our [electoral] lists, we also have to put women at the front, ’cos that is also a part of it.
Practical implementation of this ideological position encounters gendered limits, however. In relation to the public presence of politically active women, Mark argues:
You know, so to speak, that you have to bite your lip and take it, but it’s hard to bear because it goes against your own ideasdoesn’t it.
While public political activity by women brings political benefits, their presence also blurs existing gender boundaries that separate and make visible gendered realms, identities, representations and performances. Mark underlines the difference between men and women, stating that “[…] I really only use [women] for external representation, ultimately to overturn stereotypes, or because women are good for certain very specific purposes”. The extreme right woman possesses no political voice of her own in Mark’s account. Her political relevance derives solely and exclusively from male strategic/functional and political cost/benefit calculations. The scenario constructed by Mark – of women operating in public/political space that is fundamentally dominated by male gender concepts and intentions – recurs in Petra’s account.
Petra was asked by male fellow party members to stand as a candidate for the NPD and performs as a singer at political events (“to fill the tills”); her repertoire embodies the Nazi perspective and lifestyle as a “blond mother figure in a dirndl”. But at the same time Petra describes how she is dominated by the men around her, and how her husband was advised to ensure that – as a political figure at meetings – she “[…] doesn’t get her hands on a microphone”. Here again we see the identified tensions between public political woman and male gender identity preferences.
Disengagement and Becoming an Exiter
So how did Susanne, Marie, Petra, Kathrin, Paula, and Svenja cease to be extreme right women, how did they disengage from their respective extreme right milieus? This question can only be answered in connection with the accounts in which they relate and interpret their pasts. The analysis here focuses on the communicative practices with which they retrospectively polish their exit story, through which they explain it to themselves and their world. As such, their accounts are not falsified truths, but should be understood as meaningful (re-)interpretations.
1. The Good and True Self
In the interview, Petra introduces herself as a singer. Although she performed at NPD meetings and social evenings, and sang party and Nazi songs where her audience “chanted Sieg Heil”, she said she has “[…] no hate in her heart”. Instead, she is a rebellious woman motivated by “[…] justice and injustice […]”. As a strong and loving woman, Petra’s employment enables her partner to stay in education, while as a caring “mother” she lovingly educates her audience, feeling responsibility towards the men and “sons” in the hall. Specifically, she arranges her choice of songs so that the audience ends the concert emotionally touched and “moved to tears” in order to avoid people leaving in an aggressive mood and getting into trouble (with the law).
Just like Petra, Susanne’s exit narration also creates a self-image in which her intentions and deeds – taken as a whole – are good and positive. In Susanne’s case this self-construction is based primarily on motherhood, and remains consistent, coherent and positively connotated throughout the interview. Her “rethinking” begins with her first child, she said, when she observes that “[…] other mothers and parents teach their children old marching songs and find it funny if their two-year-old gives a Hitler salute […]”. It is not the ideological acts themselves that Susanne finds problematic; her worry is that the non-extremists around them will use these to stigmatise and exclude her family, and harm her children:
[…] ’Cos well the whole neighbourhood knew who we are and so on and when my eldest was not invited to a birthday party one time, because we’re Nazis aren’t we …then explain that to your child.
Even when she discusses her family life, neither her own extreme right activities nor those of her partner are presented as problematic. Instead it is the threat of imprisonment of her partner and the negative consequences for her children that cause her concern as a mother:
[…] it’s clear that sooner or later he’d have been inside [in prison] again. He had been before yeah and […], because how do you explain that to a child?
Like Susanne, Marie also places her child’s well-being at the heart of her exit narrative and presents herself as a concerned and caring mother. But unlike Susanne, stigmatisation of the child is not Marie’s central issue. Instead she opposes the restrictions on her child’s “free development” through her partner’s parenting practice, which is steeped in violence and ideology.
Marie separates from her partner and builds herself a “comfy boring life”; she presents herself as a determined, independent, single parent and working mother, protecting her child from harmful influences. This self-image is maintained even if she continues to attend extreme right events at the weekend. It is the “others” who persuade her and she only goes along “because I was still in there” and “we knew each other”. Marie describes this as a “double life”, underlining the responsible line she draws between the security in which her child is growing up and the activities she pursues – out of friendship and loyalty – at the weekends.
The Violence of Others, Deception, Manipulation, and Exploitation
In contrast to Susanne and Marie, Paula presents herself as a victim, in order to uphold her self-image as an essentially good person. It was the experience of harm that prevented her true and good self from emerging. Paula describes how she sought protection in the extreme right scene after experiencing violence from men she was emotionally close to. Although she was involved in fighting with political adversaries, Paula sees herself as a fundamentally peaceful person. It is the violence of foreign men that forces her – as a peaceful person – to protect herself and her group using violence posing as self-defence:
It happened, maybe we were attacked by twenty Turks and then there was a fight and so on […] But I’ve never hit someone just ’cos I felt like it. Couldn’t imagine doing that. I’m not that kind of person.
Paula also describes her break with the extreme right group in a context where she is a victim of violence and aggression. After being exposed by anti-fascist activists in her “multicultural” neighbourhood she finds herself confronted with a situation where she “[…] left the house and somehow they came at me with a knife and said I should clear off otherwise they’ll kill me right there on the street […]”. Additionally, Paula says, she was “hassled” by text messages from members of her group after she failed to appear at a demonstration.
In her disengagement narrative Petra also employs accounts in which she focuses on innocently endured life phases. She associates the beginning of her break with the extreme right scene with her husband becoming seriously ill. She nurses and cares for him, while her long-standing political associates are interested only in exploiting her financial and emotional troubles and profiting from her musical abilities and work:
Your honour comes, is taken away, everything that was important to you, whether it was [my husband], or yours, everything that was important to you sucked out and where you couldn’t be important any more, because [my husband] couldn’t do anything any more, left lying.
Unlike Paula’s case, Petra’s accounts do not serve to legitimise specific behaviour but to present her as an independent-minded woman who is able to draw the right conclusions from what she experiences. Petra does not exit, but draws “a logical conclusion”. As a well-known singer, however, she cannot just get out like you do “at a railway station”. If she leaves a room, she’ll do it so that “everybody hears”. But finding she does not know how best to do this she seeks contact to an exit organisation.
Svenja’s account focuses on a deception that misled her true and good self. She finds herself facing prosecution on account of her involvement in an extreme right internet radio station. In her account she relativises her own responsibility for her actions. She had fallen for “a pretence of great love”. Blinded by love she had not known “[…] what I was doing, I just did it didn’t I”. She had had nothing to do with the activities, does not actually hold those opinions, but “just went along with it […] out of love”. As the loving mother of her child she now has to deal with the consequences. In this connection, Svenja mentions long-running and psychologically burdensome court cases, trials still to come, threats and hostility from the right-wing scene, associated fears for herself and her child, panic attacks and phases of depression, all of which severely affect her own life and that of her child.
Threats made by her extreme right ex-boyfriend occupy a prominent place in Marie’s exit narration. As a good, independent-minded mother she wishes to protect her child from the father’s extreme right influences. When she prevents the father seeing the child, he attacks her “with his fists”. She says the authorities “[…] offered help but none came […]”. In the end she finds her way to an exit organisation.
In explaining her disengagement from the extreme right group in which she was active for many years, Kathrin employs a narrative figure that exhibits certain analogies to Svenja’s. During a spell in prison she gets to a point where she actually wants out “[…] of the whole business” […], because she is truly convinced that “[…] it’s all bad”. After her release she returns to her extreme right boyfriend. It is not her, but the “brainwashing” he gives her that persuades Kathrin to participate in “big stuff” that is “[…] worse than […] beating somebody up”.
The Catalytic and Verifying Other
In the exit narratives of Paula, Kathrin, and Susanne, significant persons appear in the passages addressing the phase shortly before disengagement from the respective extreme right milieu. In the narrative these figures fulfil a verifying and catalytic function.
When Paula describes how she escapes aggressive threats from former associates and neighbours, she also mentions her new boyfriend. In her account her new boyfriend serves as evidence that she is a loveable woman. He sees her worth, believes in her, and sticks with her despite her past and the possibility of retribution from the extreme right scene. He urges her to contact a professional exit organisation. Paula hesitantly agrees, and presents herself as a woman who insightfully and actively organises her own exit.
In Kathrin’s account, too, a new boyfriend serves a verifying and catalytic function. At a time when she faces sanctions for a probation violation because of her latest activities she begins a relationship with Karl, who is involved in the same group as she is. Kathrin relates how they share their doubts about what they are doing. She realises that “[…] what’s going on there is absolute madness […]”. Her new boyfriend serves as proof of something she has always suspected, but only realises through his influence. When she says, “[…] that’s just not me […]”, she is emphasising her true and good self, which has been misled into participating in extreme right activities by the madness occurring around her.
The figure of the verifying and catalytic other also makes a decisive appearance in Susanne’s account. Susanne creates a scenario where she comes to have strong doubts that she will be able to actually realise her ideas about a family life with her partner:
[…] well there was always something. Like either the police were there all the time or looking for someone else, always some kind of circus.
She places the disengagement decision within a series of events that starts with “extreme house searches” connected with her partner’s activities. Members of the group also threaten her with undefined consequences if she continues to speak to the police. This is when a police officer, who Susanne has known for some time, makes an appearance. His advice confirms what Susanne always knew: “Think about whether it isn’t time to take a step forward […]”; she needs no time to think it over, and contacts the exit programme he recommends.
Conclusions and Recommendations for Deradicalisation Work
The analyses presented above demonstrate that women in extreme right contexts possess a significant role and function in the maintenance of extreme right structures and the dissemination of extreme right ideologies. In the spectrum between self-image and male external attribution, they strive for independent (political) articulation and positioning. They find themselves regarded as a natural support resource by men, and subject to male (political) interests and ideas of superiority, where the man becomes the woman’s “work”.
In the individual narratives created by the interviewees to explain their exit, we find recurring communicative practices that present – as far as possible – a good, true self that has always been there. These accounts focus on suffering and victimisation, or demonstrate how the good and true self was deceived by circumstances and environments into extremist activity. Persons who verify the goodness of the subject are woven into the accounts, and also function as catalysts for the exit decision; as such they evidence the subject’s agency and again confirm her good and true self.
The narratives created by the female exiters are all characterised by a principal motive of a good self that enters into – or has always been in – contradiction with the extreme right environment. In this sense disengagement from the extreme right group or organisation does not mean a break with established forms of self-interpretation and identity creation. Nor can any trace be found in the interviewees’ accounts of a critical reflection of action-driving patterns of interpretation and meaning. The social figure of the exiter is appropriated without a transformation of the identity-specific individual self-understanding, but with continuity of action-driving habitualorientation.
The findings exhibit clear parallels to the redemption narratives of desistance research (Maruna, 2001, p. 85). They offer substantial starting points not only for developing heuristics for empirical reconstruction of exiter narratives, but above all for the formulation of concrete proposals for professional deradicalisation work (Stone, 2015, p. 957).
The findings underline the necessity of the practical support firmly anchored in German deradicalisation programmes and the relevance of protective measures against threats and violence from the extreme right scene. They also demonstrate the necessity for deradicalisation initiatives to address the transformation-preventing positive illusions (Taylor, 1989) displayed by the female exiters in their narratives. While self-illusions protect exiters against collapse of self, affect overload and paralysis, they also consolidate self-image and experience (Chen, English, & Peng, 2006, p. 939; Swann, 1990; Swann, Rentfrow, & Guinn, 2003). Positive illusions have life-determining effect and create restrictions on consciousness – the latter in the sense that that which is excluded through self-illusion is not available to the individual for understanding themselves orthe world.
An understanding of the process of self-deception can be gained if deradicalisation work reconstructs self-illusion as an active process driven by the exiter subject. From this perspective deradicalisation means exploring the gaps in the self-descriptions, identifying the traces of the excluded, understanding the distortions of the experienced, and developing an impression of the significance of the unsaid. It is about finding ways of addressing (traumatic) experiences and experienced disappointments, in the past and in inter-subjective relationships. The objective – in discussion with the exiter – is to develop the capability to remake past experiences, transparently re-evaluate habitual orientation patterns, and critically question and flexibilise the possibilities of understanding self and world. Exiting an extreme right group or organisation becomes a deradicalisation process if the disengagement initiates reflexive transformation processes of self-interpretation and habitual mechanisms for regulating action (Swann & Hill, 1982, p. 66; Vaughan, 2007).
Footnotes
Bio Sketches
Denis van de Wetering is a researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict & Violence (IKG) at Bielefeld University. His research focuses on right-wing populism and extremism, (de)-radicalisation, youth violence and violence in urban spaces.
Andreas Zick is the Director of the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict & Violence (IKG) and Professor for Socialization and Conflict Research at the Faculty of Educational Science at Bielefeld University.
Hannah Mietke is a researcher at the Institute for Interdisciplinary Research on Conflict & Violence (IKG) at Bielefeld University. Her key subjects of research are right-wing extremism and radicalisation.