Beyond the Metropolis: Small-Town Antifascism between Defense and Rural Exodus

Antifascism is in crisis, and if things turn out to be not quite as dreary anywhere, it’s the big city. It is where the action is, the heated debates, and all the fun. At least that’s what activists in the city assume – and many from the smaller towns and rural areas as well. On the other hand: Many of our small political victories were won at the peripheries. Experience taught us: Agency might even be easier to capture in a smaller setting! Antifascism at the periphery means: Entering into alliances. Barely any anonymity to count on. To be able (and to have to) work on a load of different things at the same time. To rely on oneself entirely – since help from the city is chronically unreliable. And it means to constantly deal with generational change, since, in the end, they all move to the metropolis. The workshop sketches out the coordinates of antifascist politics at the peripheries and aims at opening a dialogue on its potentials and limits- beyond big city arrogance.