Theses and Dissertations

Advisor

Kelly, Kimberly

Committee Member

Leap, Braden

Committee Member

Johnson, Kecia

Committee Member

Barranco, Raymond

Committee Member

Vysotsky, Stanislav

Date of Degree

5-16-2025

Original embargo terms

Immediate Worldwide Access

Document Type

Dissertation - Open Access

Major

Sociology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

College

College of Arts and Sciences

Department

Department of Sociology

Abstract

This study seeks to better understand antifascist activism, in part to add sociological perspectives to the antifascist movement and better understand a group publicly maligned by negative portrayals by politicians and the media. This study is important because fascism is already doing real damage to marginalized Americans and represents a real threat of further identitarian and authoritarian oppression. Yet, the movement against growing fascism has been painted as a boogeyman in the public eye. Efforts to stop neo-Nazis and white supremacists from gathering are not discussed in terms of fighting fascism but rather in terms which criminalize and demonize antifascists. In this study I interview 39 antifascist activists to analyze the social movement framing strategies they used to contextualize their personal experiences, narratives, and meaning making regarding the fight against growing fascism in the United States. With this study, I paint a more complex picture of antifascist activism that extends beyond the doxxing, street fighting, and armed protest the public associates with antifascism. This study uses framing theory to interpret how antifascists define the problem of fascism (diagnostic framing), how they fight it in terms of strategies and tactics (prognostic framing), and how respondents join and sustain the movement (motivational framing). Antifascist diagnosticframing defines fascism so loosely as to make motivational framing. Without any real organizational structure, antifascist activists are not restrained by a need to generate cohesive inter-movement prognostic frames and corresponding strategies and tactics. Neoliberal strategies, including voting and peaceful protest, were the most common antifascist tactics. Most antifascist activists embrace the concept of violence and intimidation, but only a small portion of them engage in such tactics. Antifascist activists use motivational framing not of defeating fascism, but of subverting and surviving it. They aspire to build systems of mutual aid to help each other live with dignity despite the violent oppression of fascism. I conclude the negative public opinion of antifascists as a widespread violent threat is inaccurate and antifascism is incomparable in size and scope to the dangers of fascist groups.

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