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As resources are poured into countering disinformation, not much attention is given to learning about the actors entrusted with these tasks. This paper argues that understanding phenomena of disinformation and conspiracy theories cannot be completed without learning about the Disinfo Sector.

Paper long abstract

Our knowledge of actors and conditions that give rise to disinformation and conspiracy theories is increasingly improving. But we know very little about the growing sector of state, civic, private and other actors specialising in countering disinformation itself: the Disinfo Sector. Who are the main stakeholders at the national, local and civic levels who are involved in preventing and countering disinformation? What kind of interventions do they design and for whom, and why? In this paper I argue that anthropology is particularly well suited to answer these questions, to understand a complex web of the Disinfo Sector, diverse approaches to information governance, the ways that state and non-state stakeholders connect with or separate from one other, and how ideas, data and knowledge are produced and exchanged across spatial, cultural and political distances as well as across the private and the public sector. This paper also makes a point that this knowledge is necessary not only to better address the problem of disinformation, but also to gain a better insight into the changing political landscapes of our societies, the new alliances and disruptions connecting and disconnecting state, civic and private actors.

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The presentation traces the resulting contradictions and political confusion of political categories and their negotiations in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic and analyzes how “progressive” and “regressive” attitudes and behaviors oppose each other and tend to overlap on different sides.

Paper long abstract

Building on anthropological fieldwork on the controversy surrounding measures to contain the spread of SARS-CoV-2 in Germany, in which I emphasized the widely disputed common ground between supporters and opponents of the measures, this presentation traces the further development of the controversy and its actors, some of whom only became politicized through the coronavirus protests and have now turned their attention to new crises. In new crises, such as the war in Ukraine or the situation in Palestine, the polarization of the debates resembles that during the coronavirus period, in which mutual accusations of misinformation, conspiracy theories, and right-wing extremism were exchanged. And in their assessment of new crises and conflicts, the actors from both sides still repeatedly refer to the coronavirus controversy. It is not uncommon in the current protests against orthodox opinion, for example with regard to Ukraine, to find former opponents during the coronavirus pandemic on the same side, with new alliances being formed and old divisions along accusations of following conspiracy theories being reinforced at the same time. The presentation traces the resulting contradictions and political confusion and their negotiations and analyzes how “progressive” and “regressive” attitudes and behaviors tend to overlap on different sides, and proposes a symmetrical perspective that aims „to untangle the mess without adding one more accusation to those that the actors have already made“ (Akrich), and that is necessary to reach an analysis capable of producing new understandings, rather than merely deepening the rift between opposing groups by choosing a side.

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Drawing on ethnographic research among activists, journalists, and educators in Belgium, I explore systematic suspicion as the attitude that allows progressive civil society to combine emphasis on independent critical thinking with support for legal regulation of public speech.

Paper long abstract

In 2026, Francophone Belgium stands out for its lack of an institutionalised far right. This phenomenon is often attributed to the cordon sanitaire: a legal ban on broadcasting anti-democratic or xenophobic views in the media. This prohibition enjoys popular support and is part of a political culture centred on compromise and moderation. Among Belgian progressive activists and intellectuals, this regulated vision of what is permissible to say coexists with a strong emphasis on critical thinking, as well as a systematic distrust of the state. How can this combination of trust and mistrust be explained? Drawing on ethnographic research among activists, journalists, and educators, I highlight suspicion as the central attitude. Francophone Belgian civil society is shaped by the progressive legacy of the 1990s, when a positive political agenda was replaced by the relentless deconstruction of mainstream media narratives. These narratives are seen as veils concealing elite interests. In the absence of an alternative epistemic authority, this milieu has organised itself around a posture of systemic suspicion. This posture enables heightened vigilance against the far right and neoliberalism, but it also traps the activist world in a reactive mode: any official truth (the necessity of austerity measures, the dangers of immigration, the usefulness of vaccines, the Russian threat) is rejected out of hand. Civil society is thus “civil” in both senses: it is structured by rites and beliefs that prevent the emergence of an “uncivil society,” but at the same time, it blurs the line between legitimate and less legitimate criticism.

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The study analyses Bulgarian “truth defenders” who counter conspiracy theories. Interviews reveal their profiles, motivations, credibility strategies, and responses such as education, policy, and media literacy, highlighting their role in contested information environments.

Paper long abstract

In recent years conspiracy theories have gained unprecedented visibility and popularity on a global level, circulating on social media platforms and eroding trust in public institutions, expertise and democracy. While there is a solid body of scholarship that has investigated the development and the role of conspiracy beliefs and narratives, less attention has been paid to those social actors that counteract such narratives – the so-called “truth defenders”. This paper aims to contribute to this expanding body of scholarship by investigating how Bulgarian truth defenders articulate their motivation to counteract conspiracy theories, position themselves in the contested field of information and conceptualise recommendations in response to conspiracy theories.

Based on in-depth interviews, the study identifies four main interrelated dimensions. First, the analysis pays attention to the socio-demographic profile of the truth defenders within the Bulgarian context. Second, it examines the motivations outlining personal, civic, and moral reasons that lead truth defenders to counteract conspiracy narratives. Third, it investigates how truth defenders negotiate their authority and credibility within contested information environments. Fourth, it explores the recommendations truth defenders suggest to counteract conspiracy narratives, ranging from educational reforms and public policies to media literacy and civic dialogue. By situating these perspectives within the global contestation over truth and authority, the study illuminates the lived experiences and negotiations of truth defenders as crucial and yet underexplored aspects of the counteractions against conspiracy narratives and campaigns.

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This paper sheds light on an emerging category of newsmakers, political workers, and digital influencers who both produce and counter politically motivated disinformation in organised and creative ways, constituting the world of “IT cells” in India.

Paper long abstract

An hour into my conversation with Adrik, I asked him, “How exactly do you define what you do?” Turning away from his monitor, he remarked, “I am a software engineer by profession, but emotionally speaking, I am a full-time party publicist.” Adrik spends his weekends creating a digital archive of audio-visual media that indexes political violence in contemporary West Bengal. These clips that circulate digitally often originate across the globe but are effectively weaponised by the Hindu nationalist BJP to highlight “lawlessness, and disinformation” as an urgent material crisis in present-day West Bengal, governed by their political rival, the AITMC. In that context, figures like Adrik constitute an emerging category of newsmakers, political workers, and digital influencers who both produce and counter politically motivated disinformation in organised and creative ways, constituting the world of “IT cells (Information Technology cells)” in India.

This paper, based on 18 months of sustained ethnographic fieldwork with IT cell workers in West Bengal, specifically focuses on the everyday workings of IT cells to pursue two broader questions. First, it investigates how the birth of IT cell-enabled informational ecologies within the field of democratic politics produces new logics of political publicity in India. In a related breath, it asks: how do the workers at the center of both producing and combating disinformation regarding West Bengal think of the work they do in deeply sentimental and ethical terms? What conceptions of "disinformation" are challenged, reinvented, and negotiated through the wilful participation of uncompensated IT cell work?

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This paper aims to problematize the clash between views of democracy among professionals who counter conspiracy theories in Sweden and groups who endorse conspiracy theories. Whereas the latter argue that we have no democracy, professionals talk about strategies to maintain democracy.

Paper long abstract

Conspiracy theories are often talked about as a threat to democracy and open societies. This perception gave foundation to global and national initiatives launched to counteract disinformation. In Sweden these include agencies, non-governmental organizations and civil society.

In my research I study everyday working experiences and meaning making practices of scholars, journalists and representatives of non-governmental organizations in Sweden who work in various ways with issues relating to disinformation and conspiracy theories, as well as preventive activities. I also study everyday experience and meaning making practices of people who engage with conspiracy theories, the activists involved in the grassroots political parties founded during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In this paper, I present preliminary empirical findings from interviews with these two groups, showing how they talk about and refer to democracy. The aim is to analyze and show the clash between their views. Whereas, both groups view democracy as a crucial pillar of society, the assumption, that we live in a democracy in Sweden, is present in the interviews with scholars, journalists and non-governmental organizations but contested by those who engage in conspiracy theories. The latter believe strongly that we have no democracy. The paper problematizes the meaning of these different standpoints in relation to the ‘taken for granted’ attitude, that conspiracy theories constitute a threat against democracy in society. Whereas this makes sense for broader society and guides initiatives designed to combat conspiracy theories, I argue that it is not a convincing argument for those who endorse conspiracy theories.

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This paper examines socio-cultural aspects and emotional dynamics of countering conspiracy theories in Germany, focusing on counselling and civic education.

Paper long abstract

Conspiracy theories (CT) have become a highly polarized topic in Germany. They are to a certain extent “hypervisible”, normalized and politicized by various actors. But CT are also perceived as a threat to democracy and social cohesion, which is why they are increasingly the subject of political efforts, civic education work and civil society activism. This paper opens the perspective from the exclusive focus on conspiracy theorists, also to actors and organizations that are countering them and are developing initiatives to defend themselves against the “post-truth”. This paper examines socio-cultural aspects of countering CT in Germany and aims to better understand how this is practiced by the organizations and people. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, I will first, put a specific focus on counselling and civic education as “tools” to tackle and counter CT. Counselling in this context implies confidential counselling for relatives, friends and the environment of people who believe in CT. Civic education then again includes various topics such as media literacy, democracy promotion, prevention of extremism, culture of remembrance and aim to reach a broad range of target groups such as skilled workers, schools or the public. Secondly, by considering current political developments as well as flourishing public debates, especially normalization processes of far-right politics and delegitimizations through the “Anti-Ngo-Narrative” I aim to trace the socio-political challenges those organizations are embedded in. By focusing on cultural practices including emotional dynamics this paper aims to contribute to better understanding broader conflicts over truth, politics, values and knowledge.

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In western Kenya, women weighed COVID-19 vaccination against fears vaccines could "close the womb." This paper examines how vaccine skepticism emerged as reproductive reasoning, showing how doubt enabled navigation of competing truth claims about fertility, authority, and knowledge.

Paper long abstract

In Khwisero, western Kenya, women encountered COVID-19 vaccination not as a simple choice between science and belief, but as a struggle over reproductive truth. As fears circulated that vaccines could "close the womb," communities weighed biomedical assurances against embodied experience, spiritual interpretations, and memories of earlier medical interventions that failed to protect reproductive life. Decisions to delay, refuse, or selectively accept vaccination reflected careful moral reasoning rather than ignorance or conspiracy. These uncertainties unfolded alongside disrupted burial practices, changing hospital infrastructures, and donor-driven health programs that reshaped relations between community, state, and medicine. Fertility, already experienced as fragile, became the primary lens through which the community evaluated competing claims to authority. Skepticism emerged as vigilance, a form of care oriented toward safeguarding future fertilities in a landscape marked by loss, uncertainty, and uneven trust. Women did not reject science. Instead, they tested it by watching what vaccines did to other bodies, listening to stories of injury or recovery, and interpreting reproductive outcomes over time. Truth was not settled through evidence alone, but through anticipation, comparison, and collective reflection. Doubt functioned as a social and moral practice, enabling women to navigate polarized debates without fully committing to any single epistemic regime. By tracing how reproductive futures anchor struggles over truth, this paper shows how skepticism and belief are embedded in everyday practices of care, responsibility, and survival. It argues that vaccine polarization cannot be understood without attending to the reproductive stakes through which authority, certainty, and trust are lived and contested

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Drawing on ethnographic research with Anthroposophists in Stuttgart, this paper disentangles science skepticism from conspiracy theory. It shows how vaccine hesitancy is articulated through secular idioms of care, authority, and state power within an explicitly spiritual milieu.

Paper long abstract

Especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many theories circulated in the public sphere around the world concerning the origins of the virus, and the “real” function of masks and mRNA vaccines. In mainstream discussions, the label “conspiracy theorist” became a sweeping analytic used to describe a wide range of positions, from vaccine hesitancy grounded in diverse concerns to claims that Bill Gates was attempting to implant chips into human bodies to control humanity. In this environment, critiques of science became easy to come by. Based on my field research with Anthroposophists in Stuttgart, a spiritual movement that emerged in German-speaking Europe in the early twentieth century, I examine how science skepticism is articulated outside conspiratorial frameworks. As it is usually covered in the German media, the Anthroposophists I spoke with rarely explained their vaccine hesitancy in spiritual terms. While Anthroposophists do understand disease as an opportunity for karmic lessons, and vaccines as potentially interfering with these processes, they often articulated “secular” reasons when asked about their hesitancy, from reluctance to introduce “unnatural” substances into their bodies to opposition to state vaccination mandates, which they interpreted as authoritarian. In this talk, I argue that while science skepticism and conspiratorial thinking may overlap, as they often do, they are not analytically the same. Disentangling these positions allows us to better understand why science so readily becomes an object of critique, particularly in relation to how scientists articulate science in the public sphere and how scientific authority is mediated and moralized.

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Based on ethnographic fieldwork among contemporary spiritual practitioners in Greece, this paper examines conspiracy narratives as forms of lived spirituality. It explores how actors negotiate crises of authority, science, and care through spiritually elastic epistemological frameworks.

Paper long abstract

Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork among contemporary spiritual practitioners in Greece, which has been conducted in the context of the research project ‘ReSpell: Religion, Spirituality and Wellbeing. A Comparative Approach of Transreligiosity and Crisis in Southern Europe (FCT grant reference: 2022.01229.PTDC)', this paper explores the entanglements of conspiracy narratives, spirituality, and religious imaginaries during the covid-19 pandemic and its aftermath. Rather than approaching conspiracy beliefs as forms of irrationality or misinformation, the paper examines how they emerge as culturally and affectively grounded responses to crises of authority, care, and trust surrounding health, science, and governance.

Focusing on alternative spiritual milieus marked by anti-vaccine attitudes, the paper traces how conspiracy narratives intersect with Orthodox Christian symbols, New Age cosmologies, and holistic understandings of healing and the body. These narratives operate as flexible sociocultural frameworks through which practitioners negotiate disruptions to religious and (spi)ritual rhythms, recalibrating boundaries between science, belief, and embodied knowledge.

By conceptualizing conspiritual beliefs as expressions of spiritual elasticity and lived religiosity, the paper situates them within broader negotiations over truth, authority, and politics in contemporary Greece. In doing so, it contributes to anthropological debates on belief, skepticism, science, and alternative epistemologies, showing how polarization around (con)spirituality, science, and healing is embedded in everyday practices rather than treated as epistemic failure.