1932
0
  1. Home
  2. A-Z Publications
  3. Annual Review of Anthropology
  4. Volume 53, 2024
  5. Article

Annual Review of Anthropology

Volume 53, 2024

Conspiracy Theories as Productive Practices: Toward a Theory of Conspiratorial Style, Agency, and Politics

Abstract

This article reviews anthropological explorations of conspiracy theories—in dialogue with insights from other disciplines, primarily political science, philosophy, and social psychology—to frame conspiracy theories as productive social practices. While conspiracy theories are often depicted through their epistemological shortcomings and associated with social and political margins, this article traces the nascent threads across anthropological scholarship to reach an emic understanding of those narratives and their sociopolitical reverberations and proposes approaching conspiracy theories through their style, agentive implications, and political effects. Conspiratorial style, the article argues, pertains not to the content of the narrative but to its incessant seeking of covert operations beyond readily visible forms as well as a growing flexibility regarding the narrator's belief in the narrative's veracity. The agentivizing dynamic generated through conspiracism differentiates contemporary conspiracism from its predecessors and involves an empowering current. Finally, the article focuses on how contemporary conspiracism is intricately linked to political contestations.

Keyword(s): agency, conspiracy theory, narrative, subjectivity, truth
Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-041422-125802
2024-10-21
2025-04-30
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/anthro/53/1/annurev-anthro-041422-125802.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-041422-125802&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Abrahamian E. 1993.. Khomeinism: Essays on the Islamic Republic. Berkeley:: Univ. Calif. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  2. Astapova A, Bergmann E, Dyrendal A, Rabo A, Rasmussen KG, et al. 2020.. Conspiracy Theories and the Nordic Countries. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  3. Azak AN, Wigen E. 2022.. “ Whatever they say I do the opposite”: vaccine resistance in Turkey during the Covid-19 pandemic. . Med. Anthropol. 41:(8):778–93
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  4. Bale JM. 2007.. Political paranoia v. political realism: on distinguishing between bogus conspiracy theories and genuine conspiratorial politics. . Patterns Prejud. 41:(1):45–60
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  5. Balta E, Kaltwasser CR, Yagci AH. 2022.. Populist attitudes and conspiratorial thinking. . Party Politics 28:(4):625–37
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  6. Barkun M. 2003.. A Culture of Conspiracy: Apocalyptic Visions in Contemporary America. Berkeley:: Univ. Calif. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  7. Barkun M. 2015.. Conspiracy theories as stigmatized knowledge. . Diogenes 62:(3–4):114–20
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  8. Bastian ML. 2003.. “ Diabolic realities”: narratives of conspiracy, transparency, and “ritual murder” in the Nigerian popular print and electronic media. . See West & Sanders 2003 , pp. 65–91
  9. Bergmann E. 2021.. The Eurabia conspiracy theory. . See Önnerfors & Krouwel 2021 , pp. 36–53
  10. Berridge WJ. 2018.. Islamism and the instrumentalisation of conspiracism. . See Dyrendal et al. 2018 , pp. 303–20
  11. Borenstein E. 2022.. Everybody hates Russia: on the uses of conspiracy theory under Putin. . Soc. Res. 89:(3):811–29
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  12. Bovensiepen J. 2016.. Visions of prosperity and conspiracy in Timor-Leste. . Focaal 2016:(75):75–88
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  13. Boyer D. 2006.. Conspiracy, history, and therapy at a Berlin Stammtisch. . Am. Ethnol. 33:(3):327–39
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  14. Bretfeld S. 2018.. Buddhism endangered by hidden enemies: conspiracy narratives in Sri Lankan Buddhist present and past. . See Dyrendal et al. 2018 , pp. 255–78
  15. Buchmayr F. 2021.. Denying the geopolitical reality: the case of the German ‘Reich citizens. .’ See Önnerfors & Krouwel 2021 , pp. 97–116
  16. Butt L. 2005.. “ Lipstick girls” and “fallen women”: AIDS and conspiratorial thinking in Papua, Indonesia. . Cult. Anthropol. 20:(3):412–42
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  17. Butter M, Knight P. 2015.. Bridging the great divide: conspiracy theory research for the 21st century. . Diogenes 62:(3–4):17–29
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  18. Butter M, Reinkowski M, eds. 2014a.. Conspiracy Theories in the United States and the Middle East: A Comparative Approach. Berlin:: De Gruyter
     [Google Scholar]
  19. Butter M, Reinkowski M. 2014b.. Introduction: mapping conspiracy theories in the United States and the Middle East. . See Butter & Reinkowski 2014a , pp. 1–34
  20. Byford J. 2011.. Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction. Berlin:: Springer
     [Google Scholar]
  21. Coady D. 2006.. Conspiracy Theories: The Philosophical Debate. Farnham, UK:: Ashgate
     [Google Scholar]
  22. Delouvée S. 2015.. Repeating is not believing: the transmission of conspiracy theories. . Diogenes 62:(3–4):56–63
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  23. De Poli B. 2018.. Anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist conspiracism in the Arab world: historical and political roots. . See Dyrendal et al. 2018 , pp. 321–42
  24. Douglas KM, Sutton RM. 2023.. What are conspiracy theories? A definitional approach to their correlates, consequences, and communication. . Annu. Rev. Psychol. 74::271–98
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  25. Drążkiewicz E. 2023.. Virtuosos of mimesis and mimicry: a case study of movements propagating conspiracy theories in Ireland and Poland. . Partecip. Conf. 15:(3):651–71
     [Google Scholar]
  26. Drążkiewicz E, Rabo A. 2021.. Conspiracy theories. . In The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, ed. H Callan, S Coleman , pp. 1–4. Hoboken, NJ:: Wiley Blackwell. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118924396.wbiea2449
    [Google Scholar]
  27. Drążkiewicz Grodzicka E. 2021.. Taking vaccine regret and hesitancy seriously. The role of truth, conspiracy theories, gender relations and trust in the HPV immunisation programmes in Ireland. . J. Cult. Res. 25:(1):69–87
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  28. Dyrendal A, Robertson DG, Asprem E, eds. 2018.. Handbook of Conspiracy Theory and Contemporary Religion. Leiden, Neth:.: Brill
     [Google Scholar]
  29. Evans-Pritchard EE. 1976 (1937).. Witchcraft, Oracles, and Magic Among the Azande. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  30. Fassin D. 2011.. The politics of conspiracy theories: on AIDS in South Africa and a few other global plots. . Brown J. World Aff. 17::39–50
     [Google Scholar]
  31. Fassin D. 2021.. Of plots and men: the heuristics of conspiracy theories. . Curr. Anthropol. 62:(2):128–37
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  32. Fenster M. 2008 (1999).. Conspiracy Theories: Secrecy and Power in American Culture. Minneapolis:: Univ. Minn. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  33. Giry J. 2015.. Conspiracy theories: archaeology and morphology of a political myth. . Diogenes 62:(3–4):30–37
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  34. Goertzel T. 1994.. Belief in conspiracy theories. . Political Psychol. 15:(4):731–42
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  35. Gray M. 2010.. Conspiracy Theories in the Arab World: Sources and Politics. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  36. Gürpınar D. 2020.. Conspiracy Theories in Turkey: Conspiracy Nation. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  37. Harambam J. 2021.. Against modernist illusions: why we need more democratic and constructivist alternatives to debunking conspiracy theories. . J. Cult. Res. 25:(1):104–22
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  38. Harding S, Stewart K. 2003.. Anxieties of influence: conspiracy theory and therapeutic culture in millennial America. . See West & Sanders 2003 , pp. 258–86
  39. Hellinger D. 2003.. Paranoia, conspiracy and hegemony in American politics. . See West & Sanders 2003 , pp. 204–32
  40. Hellinger DC. 2018.. Conspiracies and Conspiracy Theories in the Age of Trump. Berlin:: Springer
     [Google Scholar]
  41. Herrberg N. 2021.. Legitimised by God to liberate the “Reich”: religious semantics in the “Reichsbürger-scene. .” Z. Relig. Ges. Politik 5::503–29
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  42. Hofstadter R. 2012 (1965).. The Paranoid Style in American Politics and Other Essays. New York:: Vintage
     [Google Scholar]
  43. Ilieva K. 2022.. Framing the “refugee hunter”: gender and nationalist perspectives on border vigilance in Bulgaria. . Confl. Soc. 8:(1):90–105
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  44. Iqtidar H. 2016.. Conspiracy theory as political imaginary: Blackwater in Pakistan. . Political Stud. 64:(1):200–15
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  45. Ivasiuc A. 2015.. Watching over the neighbourhood: vigilante discourses and practices in the suburbs of Rome. . Etnofoor 27:(2):53–72
     [Google Scholar]
  46. Ivasiuc A. 2022.. “ The state cannot protect us”: how vigilance (un)makes the state in Western Europe. . Confl. Soc. 8:(1):106–24
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  47. Jenkins R. 2014.. Social Identity. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  48. Johnson AA. 2013.. Moral knowledge and its enemies: conspiracy and kingship in Thailand. . Anthropol. Quart. 86::1059–86
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  49. Keenan J. 2006.. Conspiracy theories and ‘terrorists’: how the ‘war on terror’ is placing new responsibilities on anthropology. . Anthropol. Today 22:(6):4–9
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  50. Knight P. 2002.. Conspiracy Nation: The Politics of Paranoia in Postwar America. New York:: NYU Press
     [Google Scholar]
  51. Mădroane ID. 2021.. Populist conspiracy rhetoric and arguments on EU immigration: an exploratory analysis of pro-Brexit newspapers. . See Önnerfors & Krouwel 2021 , pp. 138–62
  52. Mahmood S. 2004.. Women's agency within feminist historiography. . J. Relig. 84:(4):573–79
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  53. Mahmood S. 2006.. Feminist theory, agency, and the liberatory subject: some reflections on the Islamic revival in Egypt. Temenos—Nord. . J. Comp. Relig. 42:(1):31–71
     [Google Scholar]
  54. Mahmud L. 2012.. “ The world is a forest of symbols”: Italian Freemasonry and the practice of discretion. . Am. Ethnol. 39:(2):425–38
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  55. Mahmud L. 2020.. The Brotherhood of Freemason Sisters: Gender, Secrecy, and Fraternity in Italian Masonic Lodges. Chicago:: Univ. Chicago Press
     [Google Scholar]
  56. Maldonado J. 2023.. ‘ Communism is the virus. COVID-19 is how it spreads’: partisan epistemology and the medical freedom movement. . Emot. Soc. 5:(3):332–47
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  57. Mathur N. 2015.. “ It's a conspiracy theory and climate change”: of beastly encounters and cervine disappearances in Himalayan India. . HAU 5:(1):87–111
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  58. McIntosh J. 2022.. The sinister signs of QAnon: interpretive agency and paranoid truths in alt-right oracles. . Anthropol. Today 38:(1):8–12
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  59. Melley T. 2000.. Empire of Conspiracy: The Culture of Paranoia in Postwar America. Ithaca, NY:: Cornell Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  60. Moore R, Sanders A. 2002.. Formations of culture: nationalism and conspiracy ideology in Ulster loyalism. . Anthropol. Today 18:(6):9–15
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  61. Nefes TS. 2013.. Political parties’ perceptions and uses of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories in Turkey. . Soc. Rev. 61:(2):247–64
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  62. Nefes TS. 2017.. The impacts of the Turkish government's conspiratorial framing of the Gezi Park protests. . Soc. Mov. Stud. 16:(5):610–22
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  63. Niehaus I, Jonsson G. 2005.. Dr. Wouter Basson, Americans, and wild beasts: men's conspiracy theories of HIV/AIDS in the South African Lowveld. . Med. Anthropol. 24:(2):179–208
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  64. Nyhan B, Reifler J. 2010.. When corrections fail: the persistence of political misperceptions. . Political Behav. 32:(2):303–30
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  65. Önnerfors A, Krouwel A, eds. 2021.. Europe: Continent of Conspiracies. Conspiracy Theories In and About Europe. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  66. Oushakine SA. 2009.. “ Stop the invasion!”: money, patriotism, and conspiracy in Russia. . Soc. Res. 76:(1):71–116
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  67. Panchenko A. 2016.. The computer called the beast: eschatology and conspiracy theory in modern religious cultures. . Forum Anthropol. Cult. 2016:(12):186–200
     [Google Scholar]
  68. Pasieka A. 2017.. Taking far-right claims seriously and literally: anthropology and the study of right-wing radicalism. . Slav. Rev. 76:(S1):S19–29
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  69. Pelkmans M, Machold R. 2011.. Conspiracy theories and their truth trajectories. . Focaal 2011:(59):66–80
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  70. Popper KR. 2020 (1966).. The Open Society and Its Enemies. Princeton, NJ:: Princeton Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  71. Rabo A. 2014.. “ It has all been planned”: talking about us and powerful others in contemporary Syria. . See Butter & Reinkowski 2014a , pp. 212–28
  72. Rabo A. 2020.. Conspiracy theory as occult cosmology in anthropology. . In Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories, ed. M Butter, P Knight , pp. 81–93. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  73. Rakopoulos T. 2020.. Show me the money: conspiracy theories and distant wealth. . In Towards an Anthropology of Wealth: Imagination, Substance, Value, ed. T Rakopoulos, K Rio , pp. 102–17. New York:: Routledge
     [Google Scholar]
  74. Rakopoulos T. 2022.. Of fascists and dreamers: conspiracy theory and anthropology. . Soc. Anthropol./Anthropol. Soc. 30:(1):45–62
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  75. Reyes I, Smith JK. 2014.. What they don't want you to know about planet X: Surviving 2012 and the aesthetics of conspiracy rhetoric. . Commun. Q. 62:(4):399–415
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  76. Rice J. 2020.. Awful Archives: Conspiracy Theory, Rhetoric, and Acts of Evidence. Columbus:: Ohio State Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  77. Robertson DG. 2018.. The counter-elite: strategies of authority in millennial conspiracism. . See Dyrendal et al. 2018 , pp. 234–54
  78. Saglam E. 2020.. What to do with conspiracy theories?: Insights from contemporary Turkey. . Anthropol. Today 36:(5):18–21
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  79. Saglam E. 2021.. Taking the matter into your own hands: ethnographic insights into societal violence and the reconfigurations of the state in contemporary Turkey. . Southeast Eur. Black Sea Stud. 21:(2):213–30
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  80. Saglam E. 2022.. Subjectivity, mobilization, and everyday politics: insights from reconfigurations of conspiracy theories in Turkey. . Soc. Res. 89:(3):831–57
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  81. Saglam E. 2025.. Embodying the state in the margins: men's forgings of politics via conspiratorial narratives and vigilante violence. . Curr. Anthropol. In press
    [Google Scholar]
  82. Sanders T, West H. 2003.. Power revealed and concealed in the New World order. . See West & Sanders 2003 , pp. 1–37
  83. Silverstein PA. 2002.. An excess of truth: violence, conspiracy theorizing and the Algerian Civil War. . Anthropol. Q. 75::643–74
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  84. Sivelä JS. 2015.. Silence, blame and AIDS conspiracy theories among the Xhosa people in two townships in Cape Town. . Afr. J. AIDS Res. 14:(1):43–50
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  85. Sobo EJ, Drążkiewicz E. 2021.. Rights, responsibilities and revelations: COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the state. . In Viral Loads Anthropologies of Urgency in the Time of COVID-19, ed. L Manderson, NJ Burke, A Wahlberg , pp. 67–88. London:: UCL Press
     [Google Scholar]
  86. Song H. 2011.. Pigeon Trouble: Bestiary Biopolitics in a Deindustrialized America. Philadelphia:: Univ. Pa. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  87. Soukup C. 2008.. 9/11 conspiracy theories on the World Wide Web: digital rhetoric and alternative epistemology. . J. Lit. Technol. 9:(3):2–25
     [Google Scholar]
  88. Stewart K. 1999.. Conspiracy theory's worlds. . In Paranoia Within Reason: A Casebook on Conspiracy as Explanation, ed. GE Marcus , pp. 13–20. Chicago:: Univ. Chicago Press
     [Google Scholar]
  89. Stewart K, Harding S. 1999.. Bad endings: American apocalypsis. . Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 28::285–310
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  90. Sturm T, Albrecht T. 2021.. Constituent Covid-19 apocalypses: contagious conspiracism, 5G, and viral vaccinations. . Anthropol. Med. 28:(1):122–39
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  91. Sunstein CR, Vermeule A. 2009.. Conspiracy theories: causes and cures. . J. Political Philos. 17:(2):202–27
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  92. Sutton D. 2003.. Poked by the ‘foreign finger’ in Greece: conspiracy theory or the hermeneutics of suspicion?. In The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, ed. KS Brown, Y Hamilakis , pp. 191–210. Lanham, MD:: Lexington Books
     [Google Scholar]
  93. Swami V, Chamorro-Premuzic T, Furnham A. 2010.. Unanswered questions: a preliminary investigation of personality and individual difference predictors of 9/11 conspiracist beliefs. . Appl. Cogn. Psychol. 24:(6):749–61
     [Crossref] [Google Scholar]
  94. Uscinski JE. 2018.. Conspiracy Theories and the People Who Believe Them. Oxford, UK:: Oxford Univ. Press
     [Google Scholar]
  95. van Buuren J. 2023.. Breaking (with) the system: exodus as resistance?. Perspect. Terror. 17:(1):88–102
     [Google Scholar]
  96. van Eck Duymaer van Twist A, Newcombe S. 2018.. “ Trust me, you can't trust them”: stigmatised knowledge in cults and conspiracies. . See Dyrendal et al. 2018 , pp. 152–79
  97. West HG, Sanders T, . 2003.. Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World Order. . Durham, NC:: Duke Univ. Press
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-anthro-041422-125802
Loading
  • Article Type: Review Article

Most Cited Most Cited RSS feed

This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error