Paper short abstract:

As they are often characterized as a form of distrust towards science and institutions, our ethnographic research indicates that conspiracy theories show meaningful elements of knowledge production and political purchase that trouble the divide between “conspiracy theories” and democracy.

Paper long abstract:

More often than not, conspiracy theories are characterized as a form of distrust and suspicion towards science and institutions. Reading against the grain of such interpretations, our ethnographic research indicates that conspiracy theories show specifically meaningful elements of knowledge production. We argue that conspiratorial thinking should not be dismissed as simply the result of a cognitive deficit or categorized through the logic of traditional partisan divides. Instead, it corresponds to a specific politics of knowledge, which we call “apophenic.” Reclaiming this term out of the language of psychopathology, where it refers to the tendency to perceive connections between apparently unrelated phenomena, and to ascribe meaning to what might also be a coincidence, we frame conspiracy theories as thick worldviews that include, among other things, representations, imaginaries, values, practices, and ways of becoming social. Tracing the political purchase of conspiracy theorists as they seek revelations throughout different registers, and critically compose complex and ever-deeper interpretations, apophenic politics troubles the idea that the enemies of democracy are its aliens and should be treated as such. Conditioning the divide between “conspiracy theory” and “non-conspiracy theory” on different political explanations, what differentiates them from ideal models of Enlightened citizenship? This leads us to reassess the question as of what differentiates conspiracy theories and worldviews deemed as more respectable.