It was a hot sweltering Sunday afternoon in the bustling city of Karachi. I had come to the Bahar-e-Shariat mosque for ethnographic data collection for my research on Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan. Tehreek-e-Labbaik is an Islamist political party that has pursued an extremist, violent anti-blasphemy politics under the banner of “Sanctity of Prophethood.” It consolidated as a party in 2017 and participated in the 2018 elections in which it emerged as the 6th largest party and managed to win two provincial assembly seats. The party’s rapid emergence and success have come as a surprise to many in Pakistan.
Located in the upper middle-income neighbourhood, Bahar-e-Shariat mosque is the headquarter of TLP. It is a small mosque tightly nestled between tall housing buildings. Every Sunday after the midday prayer there is a ritual of Khatam-e-Qadria held in the mosque. Khatam-e-Qadria is a poetic compilation of the Prophet’s praise written in Baghdad by a disciple of the Sufi Saint Shaikh Abdul Qadir Jilani. Its collective recitation is understood as an act of devotion to the Prophet, one that brings blessings in this world and the hereafter. The environment of the Khatam is specifically intended to imbue a sense of collective devotion to the Prophet. As the attendees collectively chanted and moved to the rhythms of the Khatam, it created an atmosphere where deep emotions of love for the Prophet, reverence for his divine status, and aspirations of salvation reverberated as affective attachments. The affect was not only felt but also exuded by the attendees who shared this experience of divine love.
TLP is a far-right populist party that makes use of religious emotions for political gains. As a political party using Manichean and affective rhetoric, it retains similarities with far-right parties in the West. Indeed, it can well be seen as a reaction to the populist parties of Europe, such as the Dutch PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid), German AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), and French RN (Rassemblement National) which have used contentious, Islamophobic rhetoric and presented Muslims as a threat to European values.
As soon as the Khatam ritual was over, the pulpit of the mosque was taken over by a religious scholar/political activist of TLP. What was supposed to be a religious sermon actually turned out to be a fiery political speech, the speaker’s sole focus was on how a Muslim must act if he or she is confronted with a situation where someone insults the Prophet, his family, and his companions. The speech was less about Islam or piety and more about the dangers to Islam and how liberal forces are conspiring against Muslims. It cited concocted histories, fictional stories, and included false quotes attributed to some eminent Islamic scholars. The entire content of the speech was specifically aimed at arousing anxiety, fear, and anger among the audience and the target of these negative emotions was the liberal, secular elite of Pakistan, and the West.
TLP is a far-right populist party that makes use of religious emotions for political gains. As a political party using Manichean and affective rhetoric, it retains similarities with far-right parties in the West. Indeed, it can well be seen as a reaction to the populist parties of Europe, such as the Dutch PVV (Partij voor de Vrijheid), German AfD (Alternative für Deutschland), and French RN (Rassemblement National) which have used contentious, Islamophobic rhetoric and presented Muslims as a threat to European values. In addition to inciting hate for Muslims in their own countries they have used provocative imagery or inflammatory rhetoric related to Prophet Muhammad that has caused anger and resentment among Muslims both inside and outside of Europe. These feelings have been exploited and magnified by far-right, anti-West Islamist parties such as TLP in Muslim countries.
Conducting research on far-right politics in countries in the Global South comes with a unique set of challenges because the context of this politics is very different from that of the countries in the Global North. Most countries in the Global South are postcolonial democracies where colonial legacies continue to reinforce socio-economic hierarchies. As a result, the elite continue to retain strong control of the economy, politics and civil society forming what Pakistani sociologist Alavi (1973) famously called “the overdeveloped state.” Moreover, Global South countries are mostly poor due to the power asymmetries of global economy and governance. Economic inequality, political instability and resource deficiency remain particularly high in Global South countries. The collective memory of colonial exploitation, its continuation in the form of power and resource inequalities both at the global and national levels, combined with Islamophobic rhetoric, make it easy for far-right parties to construct a homogenous “other” as a threat to the civilizational status of Muslims and legitimize their contentious politics.
The challenge is then to situate the appeal of the far-right in a context where deep economic and political exploitation make this kind of politics viable if not justifiable. As a researcher when I approached my interlocutors who support far-right politics, I needed to remain cognizant of the precarity of their lives, the injustice inflicted upon them, and the anti-colonial sentiment that animated their contentious politics. This entailed an important ethical concern of “representation.” In discussions of research ethics around the politics of representation, it is often argued that despite the emphasis on it, objectivity is particularly difficult to achieve in social science research. This is mainly because both the “objects” and “objectives” of our research are never really isolated from the social world, and we are inevitably adopting a “position” – ontological, epistemological, or as I would argue in the next section “ethical” – when we choose to identify, classify, and describe the objects and objectives of our research (Montuschi 2004). Hence in social science research our quest for objectivity is informed by our social values, which we derive from our positions in the social world (Harding 1977).
In my research on far-right politics, I made an ethical commitment to “objectivity,” but one that was informed by my social and value commitments to the notions of justice and equality. I see objectivity not from the perspective of value-neutrality or subjective-apathy, but as an exercise of “ethical” responsibility, where my main concern is to approach both my interlocutors and my readers from the standpoint of my commitment to justice and equality. These are values informed by my positionality as a middle-class, Muslim, Pakistani, female, researcher. As someone who occupies an in-between space, familiar yet estranged from her field site, I used “feminist affective” methodology to ensure my commitment to ethics of representation. In the following sections I elaborate on how justice and equality as ethical commitments are informed by my positionality, which in turn enabled me to use “affect” as a method to maintain objectivity in my research.
Ethics, Positionality, and Field
Ethical considerations, particularly related to the representation in social research, are closely linked to issues of positionality. As researchers, we are not only accountable to academic communities but also our interlocutors. Both these relationships entail important ethical considerations which cannot be addressed without attention to power dynamics and the researchers’ position within those hierarchies. My position towards my interlocutors as well as the academic community was shaped by my status as what Abu-Lughod (1991) calls “halfie.” “Halfies” are researchers who have mixed identities by virtue of migration, overseas education, and parentage. On the one hand, we enjoy access to both worlds. On the other hand, we remain somewhat estranged to both. In this section, I will explain what kind of “halfie” I am by reflecting on my position in the field and the academic community.
As a middle-class, Pakistani woman conducting research on far-right politics in Pakistan, I share the geographical, historical, social, and political context of my interlocutors (Grimm, Koehler et al. 2020). My parentage, education, religious identity, and socialization experiences have been constituted by my research field itself. My upbringing in Pakistan, and engagement with Islamic organizations have moulded my habitus such that it aligns well with my interlocutors. Prior to starting the PhD I had been associated with Islamic organizations such as Al-Huda, Tablighi Jamat, and Dawat-e-Islami, not as a researcher but as a middle-class, Pakistani woman. That experience has given me a deep understanding of social, emotional, and symbolic meanings and value systems that exist in these organizations. It had also contributed to shaping my identity as a Muslim and a Pakistani woman and imbued within me values of justice and equality.
Despite strong alignment with their way of life, I had important differences with my interlocutors, which made me somewhat of an outsider to them. As a Muslim and a citizen of Pakistan, I have had strong concerns about the damaging outcomes of the affective and polarizing rhetoric of TLP’s populism. TLP’s celebration of an extra-judicial murder of a political leader under the pretext of “Love of the Prophet” was for me not just a violation of Pakistani law but also of Islamic values and ethics. I was also concerned about the broader social and political impacts of such politics. In Pakistan far-right populisms have been the military’s instruments to destabilize civilian governments. Political manipulation of religion has also contributed to sectarianism, militancy, and moral vigilantism. My motivation to study TLP was informed by my identities as a Muslim, and a citizen of Pakistan who approached the party from a position of critique which made me somewhat an ideological outsider to the group.
In addition to religious and political identities, my class and gender identities also positioned me as an outsider vis-à-vis my interlocutors. Although TLP is a religious party, its leadership and support base are largely lower middle and working class. There was therefore a class hierarchy between me and my interlocutors. I come from a middle-class background which had given me the opportunity to gain early education in English in Pakistan, which then enabled my access to Western academia. However, my class privilege was significantly undercut by my identity as a woman in a capitalist, patriarchal society. My education was interrupted at an early stage, for a period of twelve years, during which I performed the roles of a wife and a mother of four children. I started my PhD at a much later age and my decision to pursue higher education abroad was not acceptable within the patriarchal family structure, and resulted in divorce. Women like me derive their class privileges from men, and defiance to their control comes with the cost of losing financial security and emotional support. Nonetheless, I managed to gain support from the academic community not only in Pakistan, but also in the US, UK, and Germany, which enabled me to gain social mobility despite the motherhood penalty that I paid along that journey.
I did the data collection for this study as a PhD student when I was in the process of qualifying myself as an academic. I was looking up to my seniors not just for intellectual insights but also for guidance on research ethics. Thankfully the German academia did not reduce the question of ethics to forms and REC committees, which although have an important function in terms of setting out some basic ethical criteria, offer a one-size-fits-all protocol mainly aimed at exonerating the institution from any liability (Halkias 2024). Instead, I was introduced to the works of scholars such as Hirschkind (2006) and Mahmood (2005) who have masterfully reflected on their positionalities, unease, and ethical dilemmas while researching Islamist movements. Although my unease was different from theirs – I did not seek to understand or explain my interlocutors’ politics from the standpoint of liberal, secular, intellectual traditions but from the perspectives of justice and equality as enshrined in the social contract between Pakistani state and its citizens – I did share the ethical dilemmas they faced as a consequence of ideological differences from their interlocutors. The decision to approach my interlocutors from the value positions of justice and equality was informed by my intimate connections with my field site (Sehlikoglu and Zengin 2015). An intimacy that has also guided my engagement in the field.
The intellectual exchanges, ethical commitments, and my positionality as a specific kind of Halfie ultimately prompted me to engage in emotional labour in my pursuit to understand and explain my interlocutors and their contentious politics. In the next section I reflect on this emotional labour which entailed both attachment and detachment from the field.
Affective Attachment and Detachment
That Sunday, I sat in the mosque. I listened to the hate-filled speech, scanned the room which not only included women but also children, and I grew more and more uncomfortable. My unease was perhaps too strong as the woman sitting next to me looked at me and asked if I was okay and needed more space. I used this as a chance to strike up a conversation and asked in return: do you think whatever he is saying is right? Instead of answering my question she asked; “why are you asking that?” to which I blurted “because I know he is not right!” At this point she calmly replied: “Sister, you are lucky that Allah guided you to this mosque and this gathering of blessings. You have begun your journey to the path of righteousness. Just keep coming and you will know what is right and what is wrong”. The sheer calm and peace with which this woman replied to my agitated remark, despite the fiery hateful speech in the background, was enough to put me in deep confusion. I decided to solemnly observe the adab (respect) of that gathering and continued to listen to the speech despite the sheer discomfort I felt. In the evening, as I recollected my thoughts and reflected on them, I could not stop thinking about the woman.
Since my aim was to understand the appeal of TLP’s contentious politics, I needed to engage with my interlocutors in a manner that could uncover the real drivers of their support for TLP. This demanded developing a relationship of trust, empathy, and respect. This task of relationship building required doing the emotional work of not just knowing who they are but also sharing their feelings. On the one hand, the social and cultural proximity allowed me to share the feelings of disappointment towards the state, discontent with socioeconomic hierarchies, and a sense of moral injury caused by the cartoon sketches of the Prophet. On the other, I could not fully empathize with the “righteous anger” these emotions prompted. Instead, it caused a deep sense of unease with the ways in which this anger was channelled through politics of hate.
(…) do you think whatever he is saying is right? Instead of answering my question she asked; “why are you asking that?” to which I blurted “because I know he is not right!”
In my attempt to remain “objective,” in this emotionally charged field site, I took inspiration from what Åhäll (2018) explains as “feminist affective” methodology. Referring to affective registers that are often taken for granted and rarely challenged, she notes “Depending on our own cultural baggage, we will encounter and feel those structures differently” and that this difference “opens up a space for thinking, acting, and knowing about those structures differently”. My educational differences from my interlocutor had positioned me such that I felt differently about TLP’s politics, which indeed ultimately led to my apprehensions and critique of this politics.
However, in order to bridge this difference of “feeling” I engaged in what I call “affective attachment” which is the task of immersive involvement in the emotional registers of my interlocutors. My immersive involvement in rituals and empathetic conversations became affective encounters in the field where I deliberately tuned in to the emotions of my interlocutors (I elaborate on this phase in a review essay Kalia 2022). Over the course of my fieldwork, I went to the Khatam several times and also managed to develop a connection with the woman I met there. A young mother of three children, she works as a domestic helper in that neighbourhood. Despite her difficult life conditions, she tried to appear content and thankful. During one interview when I asked her why she supported TLP despite its hate-filled politics, she retorted; “how can one not be offended and angry when somebody insults the Prophet? All we ask is a little respect”. She then continued with complaints about the government for electricity failures, the police who kept harassing her husband and her employer who did not pay her well. It was clear that she felt angry and unheard.
Indeed, many sympathizers and supporters of TLP are angry people. My continued ethnographic engagement with them, which lasted over five years revealed patterns that complicated the picture much further. Many of my interlocutors who supported TLP came from disadvantaged backgrounds and were located in socio-spatial spaces which can be considered “frontier sites.” People occupying these spaces effectively lie at the margins and have limited access to the state apparatus and public services. As a consequence, the legitimacy of the state is in question in these spaces and the people who inhabit them can be exploited for political purposes. As discontent grows, the anger and dismay of people are echoed from the frontier to mainstream politics albeit in the language of morality.
This finding brought me to the second task of emotional labour which I call “affective detachment,” and which unfolded during the analysis. My affective engagement with interlocutors did help explicate the “feelings” that fuelled the appeal of such far-right politics. However, despite appearing “right” to my interlocutors – it was a very “wrong” kind of politics. I had the task of explaining to my interlocutors and readers how politics based on the manipulation of emotions such as religion, nationalism, and gender was detrimental to the very lives of the people who were being targeted by such politics. For me the question of ethics wasn’t just about an honest representation of the opinions of TLP supporters but mainly about showing how they were being manipulated through the trope of morality and religion. And I needed to honour this ethics without dismissing the vulnerabilities of my interlocutors.
In my attempt to navigate this conundrum, I found it useful to distance myself physically and then emotionally during the data analysis and writing phases of my research. My continued presence in the field often compounded the analytical task. Distancing enabled me to look at my field from the outside, similar to gazing at the maze from above and seeing the intersecting pathways that complicated the lives of my interlocutors.
The whole process of emotional labour involved an interplay of affective attachments and then detachments. It not only helped me ensure my commitment to objectivity in research and representation but also upheld values such as justice and equality which I had acquired in my upbringing as a Muslim and a Pakistani.
Conclusion
Research on far-right politics particularly in the context of extreme inequalities and injustice comes with a unique set of ethical dilemmas. In such contexts populism often does not emerge organically from below but is engineered by the ruling class which manipulates emotions to retain its hold on power. Over the course of my research on TLP, it became clear that not only were the followers but also the leaders and activists of the party being used as tools by the military to destabilize Pakistan’s transition towards democracy. The party’s use of religious emotions, particularly related to the figure of the Prophet, and its reach into mosque and madrassa networks enabled it to appeal to a significant number of people who were angry with the elite both in Pakistan and the West. This gave significant muscle to its leaders, who began to defy the military. The military responded with force, seeking to dismantle it. Many of the party’s leaders and activists were harassed, jailed, or even killed. By the 2024 elections, the military’s calculus had shifted, affording the TLP a greater political opening. The party improved its standing in the 2024 elections, surpassing all established Islamist parties. It also expanded its reach capitalizing on the residues of its contention and the discontent that it captured remain as strong potential catalysts for future mobilization and manipulation.
In this piece I have reflected on my positionality and the ethical commitments that motivated my research, directed my interactions in the field, and are guiding the process of writing. A first lesson I draw from this exercise is that ethics in research, particularly ethnographic, is not merely a matter of ticking boxes and filling out forms. While it is important to maintain certain institutional criteria for ethical protocol, I believe it is more important to reflect on the value commitments that shape our ethics. Secondly, researching the far-right often compels researchers to engage in the task of emotional labour not only because their views are antithetical to our own and hence violate our value systems, but also because the only way to neutralize this politics is through cultivating positive feelings that can bridge differences (us and them) that this type of politics thrives on.
This publication is part of the ERC StG 2019 TAKHAYYUL Project (853230).
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (2008). Writing against culture. The cultural geography reader, Routledge: 62-71.
Åhäll, L. (2018). “Affect as methodology: Feminism and the politics of emotion.” International Political Sociology 12(1): 36-52.
Alavi, H. (1973). “The state in post-colonial societies: Pakistan and Bangladesh.” New Left Review 74.
Grimm, J., et al. (2020). Safer field research in the social sciences: a guide to human and digital security in hostile environments. Thousand Oaks, SAGE Publishing.
Halkias, A. (2024). “Far from neutral: Research ethics committees, interdisciplinarity and fieldwork.” Anthropology Today 40(2): 21-24.
Harding, S. G. (1977). “Does objectivity in social science require value-neutrality?” Soundings: 351-366.
Hirschkind, C. (2006). The ethical soundscape: Cassette sermons and Islamic counterpublics, Columbia University Press.
Kalia, S. (2021). “Magnifying dissent: Researching Religious Outrage amidst the Pandemic.” South Asian Chronicle 11: 469 – 492.
Mahmood, S. (2005). Politics of piety: The Islamic revival and the feminist subject, Princeton University Press.
Montuschi, E. (2004). “Rethinking objectivity in social science.” Social epistemology 18(2-3): 109-122.
Sehlikoglu, S., & Aslı Z. (2015}. “Introduction: Why revisit intimacy?” The Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 33 (2): 20–25..
