ABSTRACT
Modern social and cultural anthropology developed in the historical context of colonialism as a study of non-Western people. The methodological ideals were rooted in anthropological fieldwork in small-scale societies, where relations were generally based on the possibility to have face-to-face relations and where the anthropologist could follow the flow of everyday life. Since then, anthropology has developed enormously as an academic discipline. Generally speaking, anthropological research on conspiracy theory has developed in tandem with research on witchcraft, sorcery and evil forces. It can be summarised in two, often interrelated, lines of inquiry. The starting point for much anthropological discussions on occult cosmologies is E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s extremely influential text on witchcraft. In 1926, as a graduate student in anthropology, he conducted fieldwork among the Azande in the southern part of Sudan. Many researchers focusing on witchcraft and conspiracy theories discuss the impact of modernity, globalisation and political upheaval.
