Conspiracist knowledge geographies and the potentiality of an impossible political alliance

Abstract

This paper interrogates the epistemic and spatial dimensions of conspiracy theories through the lens of knowledge geographies, foregrounding the socio-spatial infrastructures that condition the emergence, circulation, and legitimization of conspiracism. In response to Ridgway's provocation concerning geographers’ aversion to conspiracy discourses, I critique the normative deployment of ‘conspiracy theory’ as a pathologizing category that obscures the political and affective labour such narratives perform. The paper distinguishes conspiracist epistemologies from reflexive critique, while simultaneously acknowledging the complex affective investments that render conspiracy theories intelligible within marginalized or disenchanted communities. Further, it proposes the notion of an ‘impossible’ alliance, wherein leftist movements might strategically engage with conspiracist publics – not by validating epistemically closed worldviews, but by reorienting their latent anti-elite sentiments toward emancipatory political projects. By mapping the geographies of conspiracism and analysing the scalar, affective, and ideological registers through which these discourses operate, this paper articulates a call for geographers to reconceptualize conspiracism not as epistemic deviance, but as situated critique. In doing so, it opens space for a transgressive political imaginary that reclaims disaffection as a site of contestation and possibility.

Perhaps in no other present have conspiracy theories been more on the mind and of the world. And yet, as Victoria Ridgway observes in typical refrain to establish thematic boundaries, few Geographers have published on the topic. Ridgway's central point is not to outline a geography of conspiracy, but rather to interrogate why geographers have avoided the topic. They suspect instead an uneasiness with the alternative discourses of dissent that some conspiracy theories might represent to our 40-year Foucauldian call to ‘create new epistemic paradigms … but not like that’ of what gets designated as conspiracy theories (Ridgway, 2025).

We might also want to extend this observation of unease to state that we are ‘all conspiracists and/or conspiracy theorists at some level’ (Sturm and Albrecht, 2021: 134). What an uncomfortable proposition for academics. To some readers, there was a conspiracy in the Trump administration to manufacture a market tumble in March 2025 and buy the dip whilst claiming to be acting for the good of Americans, and to others, Putin has kompromat on Trump explaining, in part, his alienation of allies and dismantling of US soft power. Both theories fit the widely accepted definition of conspiracy theory: ‘an explanation of past, ongoing, or future events or circumstances that cites as a main causal factor a small group of powerful persons … acting in secret for their own benefit and against the common good’ (Uscinski, 2018a: 48). The slipperiness is how we move from belief in a conspiracy theory to being a conspiracist, given that ‘everybody believes in at least one conspiracy theory, but rejects countless others. Therefore, people disagree on which theories constitute “could-be-true” conspiracy theories and which constitute “are-true” conspiracies’ (Uscinski, 2018b: 235).

Too often the label conspiracy theorist is associated with pathologizing factors and is deployed pejoratively to politically polarize along US/Them, me/not-me fencing. Labelling something a conspiracy theory often tells us more about who is speaking and from where than about the truth or falsity of the claim itself (Harambam, 2020). We need to ask what work the categories ‘conspiracy theory’ and ‘conspiracy theorist’ are doing and therefore more work needs to be done on how we delineate these differentiations between critical cui bono theoretical engagement and conspiracy theory (Latour, 2004). While some social and critical theory can appear conspiratorial in their suspicion of surface realities and insistence on hidden structures, their epistemic grounding is different. Conspiracy theories offer certainty – a clear culprit, a neat explanation – while critical theory thrives in ambiguity, contradiction, and historical complexity. As Fenster (2008) notes, the best critical theories are reflexive: aware of their own limits, and open to contestation. Conspiracy theories, by contrast, are closed systems that cannot be falsified – any refutation is merely more evidence of the conspiracy.

Abandoning these concepts entirely is also problematic. There are indeed conspiratorial worldviews that are harmful, reactionary, and epistemically closed – QAnon, Holocaust/Gaza Genocide denial, or anti-Vaxx narratives that are not simply ‘alternative perspectives’, but dangerous ideological formations that mobilize paranoia, scapegoating, and sometimes violence. As Fenster (2008) emphasizes, what distinguishes these theories is not merely that they suggest hidden power, but that they posit omnipotent malevolent agents as the cause of all social suffering, thereby foreclosing systemic analysis and democratic agency. The question is not whether ‘conspiracy theory/theorist’ are useful as terms – but how, when, and why they are applied. Its continued use may be justified if employed reflexively, with awareness of its normative charge and the potential for misuse.

Below I make two further interventions not advanced by Ridgway. The first briefly outlines a (Knowledge) Geography of Conspiracism. Summarizing arguments on conspiracy theories I’ve made elsewhere, I outline how geographers might think of conspiracies geographically through epistemic knowledge geographies (Albrecht and Sturm, 2024; Sturm et al., 2021). I conclude by asking us to think about the ways in which conspiracists, given their uneasy confluence of challenging epistemic power relations, might help us build an impossible political alliance. I argue, again revisiting arguments I have made elsewhere (Sturm and Albrecht, 2021; Flaherty et al., 2022), that conspiracies present an opening for contestatory politics to serve not only as tools to possibly achieve some immediately progressive gains to destabilize hegemonic power but also for a cultivation of constituencies for change across leftward and rightward positionalities.

Knowledge geography of conspiracism

The concept of knowledge geographies – which foregrounds the spatial, cultural, and epistemic contexts within which knowledge is produced, circulated, and legitimated – offers one analytical framework for the study of conspiracy theories (Albrecht and Sturm, 2024). It allows scholars to interrogate how knowledge claims, including those deemed conspiratorial, emerge not as isolated anomalies but as embedded socio-spatial phenomena rooted in historically contingent and geographically situated epistemic landscapes.

Conspiracy theory discourses potentially offer distinct ontological perspectives on geopolitics (Jones, 2012), rendering them intelligible as counter-epistemic or counter-elite knowledge formations (Robertson, 2016), albeit embedded within geographically contingent frameworks. The epistemic legitimacy attributed to such conspiratorial worldviews is not merely contingent upon the authority of their disseminators, but also deeply rooted in the sociocultural, epistemological, and spatial configurations of the interpretive communities in which they circulate (Shapin, 1994). As Livingstone (2003: 5) articulates, ‘space matters’ in the constitution, circulation, and reception of knowledge; however, scalar considerations are equally salient. What may be construed as conspiratorial or oppositional knowledge at the macro-scale of national discourse may, within localized or digitally bounded social contexts, be accorded the status of mainstream or elite knowledge. Thus, prevailing communal belief systems significantly shape the interpretive reception of epistemic claims (Shapin, 1994). Such a framework problematizes the notion of a universal standard of rationality and instead situates knowledge claims – mainstream or conspiratorial – within specific configurations of power, belief, and space.

Knowledge geographies also provide tools for understanding the affective dimensions of conspiracy theories. These narratives are often emotionally charged and grounded in visceral experiences of disempowerment, alienation, and cognitive dissonance. Spatial metaphors – such as ‘the deep state’, ‘hidden powers’, or ‘invisible enemies’ – are central to conspiracist rhetoric, mapping epistemic anxieties onto geopolitical imaginaries. The study of such spatial metaphors helps us to think through how conspiracy theories operate not merely as discursive anomalies but as affective cartographies that express deep-seated anxieties about space, power, and agency (Anderson and Secor, 2025).

In examining conspiracy theories through the prism of knowledge geographies, attention shifts from the content of the claims themselves to the socio-spatial infrastructures and cultural ecologies that facilitate their formation and uptake. This approach considers how epistemic legitimacy is unevenly distributed across space and time and how different communities possess divergent epistemological repertoires through which they interpret the world. It problematizes the notion of a universal standard of rationality and instead situates knowledge claims – mainstream or conspiratorial – within specific configurations of power, belief, and space. For example, communities historically marginalized by state institutions may be more susceptible to counter-hegemonic narratives not simply due to misinformation, but because their epistemic experiences with state knowledge have been marked by exclusion, paternalism, or violence. In parts of the Global South, conspiracy theories about Western biopolitics and medical imperialism gain traction by resonating with colonial histories and postcolonial inequalities in global health governance (Fassin, 2021; Fofana, 2020; Sturm et al., 2021).

What emerges, then, is a complex geography of conspiratorial knowledge – one that is transnational in scope but always grounded in specific socio-spatial coordinates. Theories do not simply move across space; they are remade in space. This makes the study of the spatiality of knowledge not just a methodological consideration, but a substantive one: the geography of a conspiracy theory is part of its meaning, its power, and its affect.

In summary, the mobility of conspiracy theories is shaped by their ability to be culturally translated and politically recontextualized. Their global circulation is conditioned by local receptivity, shaped by historical memory, and mediated by digital infrastructures that allow for rapid but uneven flows of epistemic material. This underscores the critical value of approaching conspiracy theories not as detached, irrational outliers but as deeply embedded social phenomena whose meanings and implications can only be fully understood through attention to their spatialized dynamics.

Toward an impossible alliance?

In the Trumpian dispensation, the traditional dichotomy between elite and popular knowledge regimes appears increasingly untenable. But where do we go from here? Žižek's (2009: 69, 120) notion of the ‘impossible’ political alliance – a strategic, transgressive collaboration across ideological divides – offers a compelling if contentious framework for considering how leftward movements might engage with communities typically dismissed as conspiracy theorists. Rather than reinforcing liberal moralism or technocratic dismissal, Žižek invites us to consider political formations that are not merely coalitions of the like-minded, but unstable, agonistic, and even scandalous assemblages capable of reconfiguring the political terrain.

As developed above, conspiracy theorists are not merely irrational actors outside the political field – they are subjects expressing distorted forms a critique of existing power structures. Their narratives of hidden elites, systemic deception, and alienated sovereignty signal, however, mis-directed, a profound dissatisfaction with contemporary capitalist governance and its attendant crises of representation, inequality, and technocratic rule (Rhodes-Purdy et al., 2023). In this sense, we might encourage the left not to dismiss conspiracy communities outright, but to interrogate the surplus meaning within conspiratorial worldviews – that is, the latent political desire beneath these symbolic distortions.

The task, then, is not to validate conspiracy theories per se, but to redirect energies and anti-elite sentiments they mobilize toward emancipatory projects. This requires a reframing of political antagonism away from personalized, often racialized myths of cabals or globalist plots, and toward systemic critiques of capitalism, state violence, and ecological destruction. It is here that Žižek's (2009: 99) notion of a political ‘short-circuit’ becomes operative – where the left might stage unlikely encounters that expose contradictions in hegemonic ideologies and offer new coordinates for political identification.

To form such an impossible alliance, the left would need to craft a new kind of populist imaginary – one that acknowledges the legitimacy of disenchantment and systemic mistrust while refusing the reactionary logics often attached to them. Rather than insisting on epistemic purity or technocratic expertise, this approach would involve meeting communities in their affective registers: anger, betrayal, loss. The goal would be to build what Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 144) call a ‘chain of equivalence’, in which disparate grievances – about surveillance, corporate control, or institutional decay – are linked under a new, progressive hegemony.

For example, anti-vaccine conspiracy theorists often express suspicion toward Big Pharma, state coercion, and opaque decision-making (Flaherty et al., 2022). These are, at their core, valid critiques – ones that can be recontextualized within a broader anti-capitalist framework that exposes pharmaceutical profiteering, neoliberal health policy, and structural inequities in access to care (Crockford, 2025). By way of example with the COVID-19 crisis, ‘narratives of contagious conspiracism have also unified conservative, radical, and religious groupings across conspiracist milieus … leftward and rightward voices question how the virus will empower state and corporate actors with malicious intent to limit rights, and capture political and monetary capital’ (Sturm and Albrecht, 2021: 133). The left could offer not just facts, but a better story: one that connects individual disempowerment to collective struggle, and that situates distrust within a material analysis of power, rather than mythic scapegoats (Martel, 2012).

This isn’t to advocate naïve inclusivity, however. The alliance Žižek imagines is impossible not because it cannot exist, but because it necessarily risks contradiction, rupture, and failure. The left must therefore approach such engagements with ideological clarity and strategic rigour, continually distinguishing between reclaimable discontent and irredeemable reaction. The line must be drawn at racism, misogyny, and fascist nostalgia, even as the movement seeks to poach from the margins of conspiracy culture the seeds of revolutionary critique.

This impossible alliance, then, is less a formal coalition and more a terrain of ideological struggle – a contested space where the left must fight to hegemonize disaffection, to rearticulate rage into resistance, to transform paranoia into praxis.