ABSTRACT
This chapter on methodology speaks about how this study on contemporary conspiracy culture was carried out. The chapter begins by explaining how the research object of this study, the Dutch conspiracy milieu, is demarcated in relational terms, since essentialist definitions of conspiracy theories do not work well in practice. This means that the definition of conspiracy theories is sociologized by following what both insiders and outsiders see and define as such, which slowly delineated the field of this study. The chapter continues by discussing the empirical sources from which this study draws, and are categorized by conspiracy theory websites, social movements and organizations, performances and documentaries, and people. The chapter concludes by explaining how the empirical material was inductively analyzed in order to develop grounded theory, and details how this process starts from open coding, then goes up in abstraction by means of axial coding, leading to the conceptual building blocks of the developing theory. Recurrent interpretative moves back and forth between the empirical material and the analytical concepts are central to this method. Because this chapter contains much empirical information about the Dutch conspiracy milieu itself, it will be relevant for the understanding of the following chapters, and may therefore be of interest to all readers, not just the methodology minded.
