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Europe's Authoritarian Turn: Right Wing Politics and Where to Go from Here

Race, Migration, and Coloniality in Europe Working Group
Mar
5
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Humanities Quadrangle
320 York Street, New Haven CT, 06511
Room 136

Race, Migration, and Coloniality in Europe Working Group hosts a round table conversation with the following speakers:
Ouassima Laabich, PhD candidate in Political Science, Free University Berlin
Fatima El-Tayeb, Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
Jeff Kwasi Klein, former Co-director, Multitudes Foundation

The recent elections in Germany are the latest sign of a consolidating trend in Europe: the systematic normalization of far-right politics and authoritarian governance. From France to Germany, the ideological foundations of exclusionary politics have seeped into mainstream institutions, reshaping policies on migration, citizenship, and national identity. Marginalized communities — long positioned as Europe’s "Others"—bear the brunt of these developments, facing heightened surveillance, shrinking rights, and
increasing systemic violence.

Starting from the idea of racialized exclusion as a constitutive feature of European modernity, the speakers in this panel bring interdisciplinary and community perspectives to interrogate the structural roots of the resurgence of far-right ideologies from a national as well as transnational perspective. As the far right consolidates its power across Europe, this panel invites a critical examination of what is at stake. How can Europe reckon with its own racialized histories while resisting the forces of authoritarianism in the present? What lessons can be learned from those already at the forefront of resistance?

Generously Sponsored by the Edward J. and Dorothy Clarke Kempf Memorial Fund; and the European Studies Council of the Yale MacMillan Center

Speakers

Head shot of Fatima El-Tayeb
Fatima El-Tayeb, Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University
Ouassima Laabich
Ouassima Laabich, PhD candidate in Political Science, Free University Berlin
Jeff Kwasi Klein
Jeff Kwasi Klein, a member of the Berlin Senate’s Equality Advisory Board
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