Explaining PEGIDA’s ‘strange survival’: an ethnographic approach to far-right protest rituals

This article explores the link between ritualization of public protest and movement persistence in context contemporary far-right politics. Drawing from interpretive approaches political science, social studies, anthropology, it introduces under-researched analytical category ritual to scholarship on movements. It argues for a strong ritualistic persistence, conceptualized as symbolic continuity, suggests use ethnographic methods gain insights into concrete processes ritualization. Empirically, provides case study one Europe’s most sustained instances protest: German ‘Patriotic Europeans against Islamization Occident’ (PEGIDA). Based an original ‘patchwork’ dataset generated both conventional virtual fieldwork 2019–21, analysis redefines PEGIDA performance expressing dense meanings ‘democratic resistance’ highlights constitutive role ‘PEGIDA ritual’ streets online novel explanation PEGIDA’s continuity beyond its peak 2014–15. Overall, this contributes emerging body research focusing local extra-parliamentary actors, particularly taking emic perspective meaning-making activism.