Things are not as they seem. Tracing the movements and immobility of conspiracy theories.
Panel P110 at conference EASA2018: Staying, Moving, Settling.
This panel focuses on conspiracy theories: we take them seriously and study them as part and parcel of social milieus. We invite papers examining mobile aspects of conspiracy theories, applying comparative approach with other anthropological topics (epistemological beliefs, witchcraft etc) or STS.
Long Abstract:
Conspiracy theories may seem stable and immutable since they often try to explain complex notions with simple answers. But conspiracy theories today depend on mobility: travelling and constantly evolving, budding and spreading ideas. Conspiracy theories also thrive on the mobile nature of their subjects (social and political groups, industries, non-humans, technologies etc.). The subjects of conspiracy theories are seen as detrimental forces in social and political life: always involved, omnipresent, pervasive. Yet at the same time, they are never 'here': they are only partially visible, in hiding, beyond the grasp. They are in and beyond at the same time.
We take conspiracy theories seriously and examine them as part and parcel of wider social milieus. How can the study of conspiracy theories help us understand ways in which individuals and societies generate knowledge, negotiate truth and authority, address issues of individuality and sociality? What can anthropology contribute to such discussions when fake news is on everybody's lips, and Big Pharma is part of the contemporary lingua franca?
The aim of this panel is to reinvigorate anthropological debates on conspiracy theories by inviting papers proposing new ways of thinking about conspiracy theories, beyond a normative and condemning approach. We are particularly interested in papers with a comparative approach and engaging with classical anthropological topics such as epistemological beliefs, witchcraft, occult cosmologies as well as STS.
Grounding analysis on a case-study of the shamans' counteroffensive against curse afflictions in the Russian Republic of Tuva, this paper contributes a Siberian example of anxiety and violence to anthropological research on conspiracy as the centerpiece of a globally prevalent "retributive logic".
Paper long abstract:
This paper focuses on shamans as the catalysts and healers of an epidemic of curses in Tuva Republic during the early twenty-first century. Focusing on how shamans establish and materialize "facts" and evidence relating to (invisible) crimes of sorcery, the paper offers documentation of a social field of transparency and "forensic" knowledge associated with religious practices of inspiration and supernatural retribution. It is argued that the centrality of suspicions and accusations of sorcery to contexts of judicial and political authority in Kyzyl - the capital city of Tuva and a (former) showcase for Soviet development in Central Asia - may be viewed as a local configuration of the currently global pandemic of a retributive logic. With the publication of "Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order" (Sanders and West 2003) evidence emerged of ("paranoid") styles of collective and radical thinking, which are contemptuous of "sacred" official truths and statements on elected government and open democracy. Alongside this enthusiastically anticipated collapse of Euro-modernist democracy, this paper will analyze the post-Soviet "return" of shamans as historical "anti-state" heroic actors in Tuva, as well as the perceived social impact of ideas on "cursing" as the hidden cause behind disasters (such as the terrorist attack on 11 September). In analyzing shamanic retaliation as a cultural expression of a global pandemic of retribution, the paper will also engage a well-known study by Garry Trompf, entitled "Payback: the Logic of Retribution in Melanesian Religions".
A global elite attempts to establish a One World Government by use of transnational policy in the field of social welfare and child protection. Similarities between this narrative and critical academic studies on neoliberal governance begs the question if these genres are all that different.
Paper long abstract:
Sexual perversion, broken families, and a totalitarian network of child protecting agencies persecuting innocent parents - these are central tropes to the Parents' Movement, a conservative grassroots mobilization in defense of "traditional Russian family values". The primary target is an ongoing state effort to strengthen the protection and the rights of children in line with the UN Child Convention, but the protests involve also sex education, gay parades, gender equality, and other moral threats brought upon Russia by "Euro-Sodom". Purportedly, a global liberal lobby and a domestic fifth column aim to subject Russia to a One World Government by attacking the family, the nexus of tradition, by way of transnational policy. Conspiracy narratives are symptomatic for contemporary Russian public discourse, but this one distinguishes itself by its focus on soft power, neoliberal governance, and welfare policy as conspiratorial devices. Chiming with Foucauldian critical policy studies, it stresses how policy, by superseding law, dislocates power from elected bodies to administrators, discursively disguised as politically neutral. Nor is the narrative erroneous per se, despite many outlandish conclusions, for the aim of transnational policy is indeed global standardization according to Western models. This paper attempts to relate this criticism of neoliberal governance and global standardization to the one of our own academic abode - are our worldviews really all that different, the question goes, or is it rather a matter of explanatory models, of different ways to persuade and to construct one's straw men?
This paper analyzes the rhetoric behind the rise of the Flat Earth movement online and the political tactics of its different proponents. Its key proponents argue against 'scientism' and propose an alternative view of the earth and universe aligned with indigenous and phenomenological cosmologies.
Paper long abstract:
Within the last three years, the Flat Earth 'community' and its 'movement' have emerged from a bundle of online conspiracy theories, and grew rapidly. By 2018, over 4 million videos focusing on questions raised by Flat Earth proponents have been posted on YouTube, amassing many millions of views, both supporting and rejecting the notion that the 'earth is not a spinning ball'. I analyze how key Flat Earth proponents construct different yet related narratives, weaving them with other conspiracy theories, and on their political tactics for mobilizing publics and followers. I focus on how they reference other 'truther' conspiracy theories that became popular since 9/11, such as questioning the lunar landings, weather manipulation, ancient aliens, secret societies in government, Hollywood's 'easter eggs', the Project 'Paper Clip' importing of Nazi scientists to the United States to found NASA, and Elon Musk's SpaceX orbiting car. Claiming objectivity, some of its major proponents question mainstream science as a quasi-religious doctrine of 'scientism' - a term that appears in the anthropological literature (e.g., Bourdieu 2004:85, 97, 107). This movement has received little or no anthropological attention since its inception, and yet, its proponents have organized and come together in international conferences held in the Netherlands (2016), the United States (2017) and in the United Kingdom (2018). Ingold (2001:209-218) is one of the only anthropologists who critiqued the notion of the earth as a globe, which contradicts many indigenous cosmologies and Ingold's own phenomenological cosmology of 'being in the world'.
The paper anthropologically examines the role of digital media in re-imagination of conspiracy theories about the 'other's' attempt to undermine Hindus by propagation of falsified history of glorious,prosperous Hindu society.
Paper long abstract:
"Internet existed in the times of Mahabharata (roughly 600 B.C); "Lord Ganesha had an elephant head transplant which shows surgical prowess of ancient Hindu society"; "Chanakya (an ancient sage) was like google"; "Taj mahal was actually a shiva temple called Tejo Mahalaya"; These statements have been made by prominent right wing politicians, including the current Prime Minister, to further a 'Hindutva' political rhetoric, constructing a fundamentalist identity. Using the instrumentality of social media platforms such as Facebook, conspiracy theories have been reimagined, redistributed and propagated exponentially. The intent behind such theories is to other the west, the muslims or the 'outsiders' in the hindu homeland, who constantly 'conspire' to overtake the supreme 'Hindus'. The paper is an examination of the attempt to discredit the 'others' and reinforce Hindu supremacy, while simultaneously using falsified, misinterpreted and twisted history to validate the glorious Hindu past. To understand the Conspiracy of the others to undermine 'Hindus', four major strands of analysis are presented: 1). Cognizing the othering process through cumulative narrative of around built by contrivance of conspiracy theories 2). Understanding the dissemination of information on social media. 3). Tracing the Propagation and acceptance of such beliefs as an indirect causality of digital technology. 4) Deconstructing the semantics of such theories as a post-truth discourse. The study is a confluence of both qualitative and quantitative aspects, mostly obtained through ethnographic methodology, supplemented with statistical analysis, using data analytics tools such as Python, R, Tableau and Excel.
This paper elucidates the conspiracies weaved around the vaccination regime in Pakistan. The conspiracies ultimately are making the elimination of infectious diseases difficult and leading towards the 'killing' of vaccination teams.
Paper long abstract:
The regime of vaccination is one among the valuable entry points for comprehending and explicating the conspiracism used as a mean to an end through 'spinning' and contextualizing the facts. This provides to understand the trust and mistrust among various stakeholders - local and global. There are pro and anti-movements of vaccination. The imposition and resentment lead towards 'not meeting the intended results' and 'killing of vaccination teams along-with security' in the country. The discourse is visible in everyday discussions in the course of life. The social media is one among the platforms of initiating the discourse through blaming - which is determined by some 'conspiracies' - 'each other'. Every stakeholder comes up with a 'logic'. It commenced as soon as the family planning programme was introduced in the country. The paper draws on the PhD fieldwork, which I conducted in one of the province of Pakistan in various phases.
Taking into account the modern information crisis, this paper investigates communication and collaboration strategies of pro-science and alternative knowledge activists in the US, inquiring into their resistance practices in social media, focusing on narrations of mistrust and conspiracy.
Paper long abstract:
Social networking sites have become an important source of knowledge for many, on both political news, as well as information on science, health, and nutrition. Taking into account the miscommunication issues of modern media, this paper investigates communicative strategies of American science advocates and alternative knowledge advocates, inquiring into their practices of resistive knowledge activism, focusing on narration of mistrust and conspiracy surrounding controversial topics of GMOs and vaccinations. This study inquires into collaboration and conflict between the two groups of activists, inside their own category and outside of it, when trying to resist misinformation by producing alternate knowledge discourses in social media environment. Pro-science activists resist what they refer to as pseudoscientific quackery, while alter-science activists mistrust the Big Pharma or Big Food industries, including mainstream science sources, such as governmental research centres or academic institutions. Referring to an ethnographic data on the case study, the paper answers following research questions: (1) How narrations of conspiracy theories are produced and used by the two groups that operate in different epistemologies, but are engaged in the same conflict?; (2) Why they have an ambiguous role? Being both a reason to ridicule the Other having them, and a way of these ridiculing to explain the conspired actions of the same other, conspiracy theories provide an excellent insight into the modern information and communication crisis.
Through looking at Irish and Polish debates surrounding vaccinations this paper examines how conspiracy theories impact the ways in which people define sociality. Instead of looking at conspiracy beliefs as abnormality this paper examines them as a regular part of the systems of governance.
Paper long abstract:
Recognising that one of the main stakeholders in vaccination debate is the state, using the examples from Poland and Ireland this paper examines the vaccination refusal from the perspective of biopower, law and social contract. The decision to opt-out from vaccination schemes is usually perceived as an anti-social act. While it is not clear what exactly is the crime of "anti-vaxxers" (legal approaches differ across countries), often they occupy the space outside of the law due to their refusal to participate in preventive medicine, and breaking the solidaritist approach to the society. This paper considers how anti-vaccination movements redefine culturally specific definitions of society, its boundaries, and social contracts. It further examines how they are rendering local identifications transnational.
Secondly, taking into account reactional and contingent nature of conspiratory theorising, this paper also asks about the role of opponents of Big Pharma conspiracy (state, health professionals, researchers) in keeping the beliefs in motion. As such, this paper moves beyond an approach which explains conspiracy theories simply as an expression of mistrust towards the state. Instead, it offers a possibility to examine them as a regular (rather than marginal) part of the systems of governance, and see how they impact the way people define and perform their agency as citizens.
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