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ABSTRACT
Whether scholars have the academic responsibility to debunk conspiracy theories depends on the social processes these theories set in motion. Based on ethnographic research with environmentalist activists in Greece, I argue that their engagement with conspiracy theories constitutes a kind of debunking that is both conceptual and relational. Specifically, the article traces four qualities of engagement with conspiracy theories in the Greek environmentalist scene: the conceptual opposition of structure with agency, the implementation of agency through personal development, the shift of significance from geopolitical power to environmental concerns, and finally the tackling of existing power structures through consequential ecological ethics. The core of this ethics is responsibility, and as such provides a valuable sign-post for the question this Special Issue poses. I argue that academic responsibility lies first and foremost in the pursuit of relationality. As science is increasingly used to serve political-economic knowledge authority and civil society truth trajectories, an ecological ethics based on relationality renews empiricist realism and thus debunks reifying power structures.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Correction Statement
This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.
Notes
1. This article was written in 2019, before the outbreak of SARS-coV-2 which sparked an unprecedented popularity of conspiracy theories. Research conducted during Greece’s first national lockdown (an international public health measure to cope with the pandemic) further consolidated the findings presented here.
2. Thanks to the anonymous reviewer for encouraging me to make my argument more explicit and suggesting relevant and enlightening literature.
3. While the Greek eco-project scene does not constitute a unified movement or ideology, both their concurrence with the European sovereign debt crisis and this triplet of relationality coalesce their efforts to socio-environmental change.
4. Part of this research was funded by the Wenner Gren Foundation and the University of Manchester’s School of Social Sciences Studentship.
5. Alternative spirituality or ‘New Age’ entails a wide range of spiritual practices borrowed variously from Asian religions, Latin American and African shamanism, and novel interpretations of European folk practices. For useful introduction see Sutcliffe 2003.
6. But see, for instance, Thierbach-McLean Citation2019 for critique of depoliticisation and individuation of social change.
7. Mainly cob, a sand, clay and straw mix similar to adobe.
8. See also Wepfer Citation2018, 113–144 for a secular approach to self-transformation in Greek eco-projects.
9. E.g. through education outside formal institutions, alternative health practices and recreation of decision-making processes. This by no means arises to any absolute disengagement from the state. Environmentalists generally stressed that they did not exist outside national or social systems but merely acted in partial opposition to them.
10. The onset of solar geoengineering to minimise climate change has lately fuelled this debate (see, for instance, Keith & Wagner, Citation2017).
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Elvira Wepfer
Elvira Wepfer is a social anthropologist who works on European grassroots engagement for social and ecological change. Her interests span social ecology, ethics and metaphysics, communal and alternative livelihoods, and critique of capitalism. She is currently undertaking post-doctoral research that considers the ontology of processual becoming through sound healing in eco-activism. [email protected]