ABSTRACT
The far-right targets asylum seekers, Muslims and Black/minority ethnic (BME) people as problematic and radical Islamists target gay people as problematic. This chapter provides the connections between research and the dominant discourse of community, culture and values. It shows how research decisions are embedded in a common sense idea of how the world works. The chapter discusses how social research on extremism, because it is in a highly and already politicised field, runs the risk of contributing to the problem it seeks to examine, whatever the stance taken. The meson-level analysis, with ideas of Asian areas, White estates and extremist groups as the context for social problems, can reassure society. The chapter presents by comparing the research with that into other problem groups, arguing that in the case of extremism, the liberal instinct to explain and assist is often replaced by the instinct to condemn and other.
