Two doctoral students in Ethnology within the ERC project Conspirations: Conflicts Over Conspiracy Theories at Lund University, The Faculties of Humanities and Theology.

In recent years, conspiracy theories have become an important issue not only to the people who propagate them, but also to those who fear their consequences and design initiatives to push back against the ‘post-truth’ era. The objective of CONSPIRATIONS is to analyse this growing tension over conspiracy theories in Europe. The project proposes an innovative approach which moves beyond an exclusive focus on ‘truthers’ to examine the perspective of ‘truth defenders’ as well. This approach goes beyond the question of who is wrong and what to do about it. Instead, it offers a deeper understanding of the conflicts themselves, which are clearly of urgent importance for contemporary Europe. The premise of this project is that the answer lies not in addressing the content of the conspiracy theories themselves, but rather the kinds of conditions that give rise to them. The secondary goal is to understand how these conflicts are influenced by social contexts, and how they unfold across diverse European settings. The objectives of this project will be achieved through ethnographic case studies in Belgium, Bulgaria, Estonia, Germany, Poland, Sweden, and EU institutions.

Read more about the positions here.

Last application date: 21 May 2023