The Anthropology of Conspiracy Theory

One feature of post-pandemic politics is controversy over “conspiracy theory”. What makes a theory a conspiracy theory? Why are they so popular? Who deploys the phrase and to what end? Providing an accessible tour through the social science of power and ideology, Lagalisse and Drążkiewicz offer a mini-series on “conspiracy theory” as a form of social critique that indexes broad mistrust in institutions and the state, and why scholars of the Global North treat paranoia about corruption differently when it’s found at home. Together they explore the differences between “conspiracy theory” of state power and accepted “social theory” of the same, and what the social sciences can tell us about the possibility of an all-knowing elite.

This first episode explores “conspiracy theory” by also introducing anthropology, explaining what it means to study “conspiracy theory” as both an objective category and an “ethnographic” one.

Find more about Politics After the Pandemic at The Sociological Review.
Credits:
Executive Producer & Host: Erica Lagalisse
Guest: Elżbieta Drążkiewicz
Sound Engineer: Clara-Swan KennedyIllustrator: Laura Arlotti
Musicians: Excerpts from AV materials submitted to the Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic publishing platform and research archive:

• "The Lightwell (Boşluk)", by Begüm Özden Fırat, Sound mix: Sair Sinan Kestelli (Independent film, Turkey, 2020), published at Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic, Dec. 2020.
• "Know place like home: The 82.3m2 Project" — Dan Lovesey, autistic musician who crafted soundscape of domestic recordings during lockdown, published at Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic, 31 August, 2020.
• “Walking Through Lockdown – An Exercise in Care” by Kim Harding, who took soundscape recordings of South London during lockdown, published at Solidarity and Care During the Covid-19 Pandemic, July 22, 2022.

Additional open source audio elements from freesound.org users Halima Ahkdar and Graham Makes.

Erica Lagalisse’s book is Occult Features of Anarchism (2019, PM Press). You can watch her Public Lecture at the London School of Economics or her festival appearance as the debunker of “conspiracy theory” David Dyke
Elżbieta Drążkiewicz’s book is Institutionalised Dreams: The Art of Managing Foreign Aid (Begrhahahn, 2020). You can also read her essay, co-authored with Lisa Sobo, “Rights, responsibilities and revelations: COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the state.” in Viral Loads: Anthropologies of urgency in the time of COVID-19 (UCL, 2021).
Find extended reading lists and learn more about Politics After the Pandemic at The Sociological Review