An investigative journalist drew on anthropological training to infiltrate extremist groups. Dr Julia Ebner is now concerned that extremist tactics have become mainstream in international politics.

Dr Julia Ebner is an Austrian anthropologist and journalist living in London. She leads the Violent Extremism Lab, at the Oxford University Centre for the Study of Social Cohesion. In 2020, she published an investigative journalism exposé on extremist groups. Her book, Going Dark: The Secret Social Lives of Extremists, included undercover work on jihadist groups, neo-Nazis and white supremacists, as well as misogynist and conspiracy theory movements.

On the Social Science Bites podcast, Dr Ebner reflects on her experience. She says her book was not scholarly research, but she drew on her academic training.

‘It did help also my academic research, I would say, in the sense that it shaped some of the questions, the research questions that I would then follow up more closely on with more analytical work. It helped me to understand also some of the human layers in the radicalisation process that I would have probably otherwise only perceived as something very abstract, and in that sense, it was definitely helpful.’

She set up fake identities and profiles and attended meetings under a fake persona (by pretending to be ‘a naive newcomer’).

She found that all groups, regardless of political ideology, tapped into ‘similar audiences or ‘similar vulnerabilities’:

‘There is no real profile in terms of demographic background. People come from all types of age groups, from different socioeconomic or educational backgrounds. But what we do see is that most of them face some type of identity crisis that extremists can very skilfully tap into, and where they can exploit these difficult moments in an individual’s time to radicalise them to fit the personal grievance to their collective narrative. And that often provides a cognitive opening where people then are very susceptible to radicalisation.’

Recruitment tactics focus on providing ‘an exclusive subculture’ and social cohesion. Groups emulate kinship bonds, of being like a family. The groups also used gamification, a social science construct:

‘Gamification means just adopting a very playful way of communication, recruitment, propaganda, to some degree now we even see forms of gamified violence, gamified terrorism… So for example, the British white nationalist movement, Patriotic Alternative, has used, for example, video game tournaments to learn in very young people, including school-age children who write into the chat groups, “I have to go to school tomorrow,” but also use an avatar that is named after Adolf Hitler, or that uses symbols referring to the Nazis. So this is often used as an entry gate because it offers a social dynamic, that you are exclusive subculture, that you can be a part of. It also offers an antidote to boredom. It’s an entertainment factor in itself now.’

Dr Ebner is concerned that extremist tactics are being used in mainstream politics:

‘I think the mainstreaming of some of the extreme concepts and ideas and language that I used to observe only in the darkest corners of the internet, but that is now being heard in parliaments, that is now being seen in large social media channels of influencers or voiced by politicians. I think that is something that I find hugely worrying.’

Dr Ebner faced backlash and safety concerns when her real identity was exposed.

Listen and learn more: https://www.socialsciencespace.com/2024/11/julia-ebner-on-violent-extremism/