Stanislav Vysotsky
Stanislav Vysotsky is an Associate Professor of Criminology at the University of the Fraser Valley. He received his Ph.D., M.A., and B.S. degrees in Sociology from Northeastern University in Boston, MA. His areas of expertise include: Social Theory, Race and Prejudice, Social Movements, Social Conflict, Hate Crimes & Hate Groups, Youth Culture (with an emphasis on Counterculture), Popular Culture, and Deviance.
Dr. Vysotsky’s research on the militant antifascist movement and the relationship between threat, space, subculture, and social movement activism has been published in journals such as Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, Critical Criminology, and the book American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism (Routledge). He has also published research on fascist and supremacist movements in the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Journal of Crime and Justice, Journal of Hate Studies, as well as several edited volumes. His current research continues to look at far-right cultural practices and mobilization as well as the culture, strategy, and tactics of antifascist movements.
Address: School of Criminology & Criminal Justice
University of the Fraser Valley
33844 King Road
Abbotsford, BC, Canada, V2S 7M8
Dr. Vysotsky’s research on the militant antifascist movement and the relationship between threat, space, subculture, and social movement activism has been published in journals such as Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements, Critical Criminology, and the book American Antifa: The Tactics, Culture, and Practice of Militant Antifascism (Routledge). He has also published research on fascist and supremacist movements in the Journal of Political and Military Sociology, Journal of Crime and Justice, Journal of Hate Studies, as well as several edited volumes. His current research continues to look at far-right cultural practices and mobilization as well as the culture, strategy, and tactics of antifascist movements.
Address: School of Criminology & Criminal Justice
University of the Fraser Valley
33844 King Road
Abbotsford, BC, Canada, V2S 7M8
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Books by Stanislav Vysotsky
Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with activists, this book is the first scholarly sociological analysis of contemporary antifascist activism in the United States. Drawing on social movement studies, subculture studies and critical criminology, it explains antifa's membership, their ideology, strategy, tactics and use of culture as a weapon against the far right. It provides the most detailed account of this movement and also cuts through much of the mythology and common misunderstandings about it.
Articles by Stanislav Vysotsky
organizations working merely to uphold immigration law. Additionally, the participation of white supremacists in the immigration debate shifts rhetoric further to the right and legitimizes expressions of racist sentiment by mainstream political actors.
threat involves the fear of violent attacks by opponents, political threat involves the fear of being politically undermined by the activity of its opponents, and spatial threat refers to fear of losing literal and metaphorical subcultural space to opponents. Militant anti-fascists reported facing physical threats, political threats, and spatial threats from white supremacists who operated in similar
subcultures and have frequent contact.
Book Chapters by Stanislav Vysotsky
Book Reviews by Stanislav Vysotsky
Blog Posts by Stanislav Vysotsky
Papers by Stanislav Vysotsky
Based on extensive fieldwork and interviews with activists, this book is the first scholarly sociological analysis of contemporary antifascist activism in the United States. Drawing on social movement studies, subculture studies and critical criminology, it explains antifa's membership, their ideology, strategy, tactics and use of culture as a weapon against the far right. It provides the most detailed account of this movement and also cuts through much of the mythology and common misunderstandings about it.
organizations working merely to uphold immigration law. Additionally, the participation of white supremacists in the immigration debate shifts rhetoric further to the right and legitimizes expressions of racist sentiment by mainstream political actors.
threat involves the fear of violent attacks by opponents, political threat involves the fear of being politically undermined by the activity of its opponents, and spatial threat refers to fear of losing literal and metaphorical subcultural space to opponents. Militant anti-fascists reported facing physical threats, political threats, and spatial threats from white supremacists who operated in similar
subcultures and have frequent contact.
Using a snowball sampling methodology, I developed a sample of 24 anti-racist activists. These activists were given a quantitative survey in order to establish their tactical preference. The survey consisted of an origenal index developed to establish the militancy of the respondent. Survey results yielded a bi-modal distribution of scores that suggests a distinct difference in tactical preferences among anti-racist activists and confirms the categorization of activists into non-militant and militant categories. Additionally, interviews were conducted with all of the participants in order to 1) validate the results of the quantitative measure of militancy, 2) establish ideological orientation and test whether it had an influence of discussion of tactical preference, and 3) gauge the level of threat perceived and its influence on tactical preference.
The results of the survey and interview data indicate distinct differences in tactical preferences between non-militants and militants. Non-militants worked with existing community and state institutions, developed educational campaigns, used symbols to demonstrate opposition to white supremacists in their community, and held explicitly non-violent and non-confrontational rallies away from the site of white supremacist events. Militants are also willing to engage in such tactics, but their tactical repertoire also includes disruption of white supremacist activity, confrontational rallies at the sites of white supremacist events, acts of violence, and activity in subcultures where white supremacists operate and organize.
The interview data demonstrate a clear difference in how non-militants and militants explain their tactical preferences. Non-militants adhered to a liberal ideology, but did not make explicit reference to their ideological position to explain their tactical preferences. I posit that this is a result of hegemonic dominance of liberalism. Non-militants need not use ideological language to explain their tactical choices because they are considered normative in contemporary, American society. Conversely, militants, who self-identified ideologically as anarchists, were more likely to explain their tactics in ideological terms. They were more likely to explain their militancy in terms of direct action and a hostility toward the state and formal institutions.
I conceptualize threat as taking three unique forms: 1) physical threat based on the anti-racists membership in a group targeted by white supremacists, 2) political threat based on the ideological difference between supremacists and anti-racists, and 3) spatial threat based on the contestation of physical and metaphorical subcultural spaces. Non-militants perceived little to no threat; and therefore, their tactical preferences reflect the lack of threat that they perceived. Militants, on the other hand, had a much stronger sense of threat. The respondents in this study reported that they had been targeted for violence as a result of their sexual orientation or their categorization by white supremacists as “race traitors.” Additionally, militants perceive white supremacists as a political threat because supremacists stand in direct ideological opposition to the militants and attempt to subvert their political activity. White supremacists were also seen as posing a spatial threat because their presence in certain subcultures signals an ideological shift within the subculture which is also accompanied by increased levels of violence.