Climate Catastrophe and/as Conspiracy

“While this project focuses on conspiracy theorizing among Black Americans, it is simply an entry point into a larger reconceptualization of these practices. In its broadest application, this work posits conspiracy theorizing as a sense-making process through which oppressed peoples are simply attempting to understand their relationship to power, as well as how dominant groups may be exerting power in ways that cause them harm. Instead of investigating these practices in a vacuum of feigned “neutrality,” which simply engages the standpoints of those in power and assumes their benevolence, this work grounds itself in critical understandings of history and the lived realities of oppressed peoples to conceptualize conspiracy theorizing more honestly. It also serves as a case study of the ways in which cultural forms are used to shape and communicate such knowledges which subvert existing power structures. All over the world, there are multifarious cultural forms that oppressed groups use to pass down vital histories, practices, and knowledges that facilitate their ongoing survival. As such, this work can be broadened to understand the subversive knowledge production processes of marginalized and oppressed peoples in a variety of contexts.”

Chapter 5 Beyond Blackness: Paranoia, Power, and Creating Knowledge in Oppressive Contexts