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On the Margins of Life: Life Stories of Radical Nationalists

1999; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 42; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/000169939904200405

1502-3869

Katrine Fangen,

Canadian Identity and History

This essay discusses the life stories of four radical nationalists. It is based on life story interviews as well as information gathered through a year of fieldwork. This includes conversations with all forty participants of the Norwegian radical nationalist subculture in 1993-94, and in-depth interviews with all the leading activists, except one. Elsewhere I have analysed the identities of these young people in terms of group membership, ideology and gender issues. In this essay, I highlight the radical nationalists' lives prior to their entrance into the radical nationalist underground. I focus on the way they relate to common interpretations of them by outsiders, and the way they themselves argue in order to bring reason into their choice to join a group which is condemned by most people. I look for the common features we can find in these life stories, and in the mechanisms of recruitment described by these four men.