“Complòóót?”

This chapter looks at a context in which conspiracy theorizing is neither stigmatized nor heterodox, and where politics and conspiracies are conceived of largely as synonyms. While hinting at the significant implications for knowledge production about conspiracy theories in such a context, we focus on analyzing different types of conspiracy theories that circulated about the Covid-19 pandemic in Côte d’Ivoire. On the basis of individual and group interviews with university students, teachers, pupils, housewives, health professionals, and individuals working in the informal sector, we broadly categorize conspiracy theorizing with respect to the alleged conspirators on different scales: (1) conspiracies by national political elites, (2) imperial or geopolitical conspiracies, and (3) transnational conspiracies by non-state actors, including references to witchcraft and religious belief systems. Each of these types can be intertwined as well as further divided into multiple subtypes. Across this spectrum, we seek to demonstrate that conspiracist allegations carry different moral criticisms that tend to be much more complex than the labels they employ.