Sophie Bjork-James

This project seeks to explore how various stakeholders are responding to the growing presence of white nationalism in the Northwest United States. For decades white nationalists have seen the region as a potential site for the establishment of an all-white state and dozens of skinhead, neo-Nazi, Christian Identity, and other groups have operated in the region. They have also inspired ongoing local resistance. Despite an array of organized efforts to track and respond to resurgent white nationalism, no sustained academic study has attended to the variety of anti-racist response to this movement or to their effectiveness. There are two primary goals of this research. The first is to contribute to the social scientific literature on race and racism through a scholarly book and a minimum of two research articles on anti-racist responses to white nationalism. The second goal of this project is to influence policymakers, NGOs, and a broader public on the possibilities of reducing the impacts of organized racism. Through focusing on a region with forty years of organized resistance to the racist right, this project will contribute new insights into the ways that anti-racist responses to this movement circulate their own understandings of nation, race, and belonging.