“The Truth Is Out There” There” Is Out Truth “The UITNODIGING “The Truth Is Out There” Conspiracy Culture in an Age of Epistemic Instability Voor het bijwonen van de openbare verdediging van mijn proefschrift op: Conspiracy Culture in an Age of Epistemic Instability Age in an Culture Conspiracy Donderdag 26 oktober 2017 om 15:30 precies in de Senaatszaal van de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Burgemeester Oudlaan 50, 3062 PA Rotterdam Aansluitend is er een feestje met hapjes en drankjes om dit te vieren Jaron Harambam Paranimfen Jaron Harambam Jaron Irene van Oorschot Laurens Buijs Jaron Harambam 514059-L-os-harambam Processed on: 10-10-2017 “The Truth Is Out There” Conspiracy Culture in an Age of Epistemic Instability By Jaron Harambam 514059-L-bw-harambam 514059-L-bw-harambam “The Truth Is Out There” Conspiracy culture in an age of epistemic instability ~ De waarheid op losse schroeven Complotdenken in een tijd van epistemische instabiliteit Proefschrift ter verkrijging van de graad van doctor aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam op gezag van de rector magnificus Prof.dr. H.A.P. Pols en volgens besluit van het College voor Promoties. De openbare verdediging zal plaatsvinden op donderdag 26 oktober om 15.30 uur door Jaron Harambam geboren te Amsterdam, 16 januari 1983 514059-L-bw-harambam Promotiecommissie: Promotoren: Prof.dr. D. Houtman, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Leuven University Prof.dr. S.A. Aupers, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam, Leuven University Overige leden: Prof.dr. E.A. van Zoonen, Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam Prof.dr. P. Achterberg, Tilburg University Prof.dr. R. Laermans, Leuven University Prof.dr. W.G.J. Duyvendak, University of Amsterdam Prof.dr. A. Rabo, Stockholm University 514059-L-bw-harambam 514059-L-bw-harambam 514059-L-bw-harambam Acknowledgements Although I am really proud of having brought this PhD project to a successful end, it is only with the cooperation, inspiration and love of so many people around me that I have been able to do so. A first and special thanks to the participants of this study for their trust and time to show me what role “conspiracy theories” play in their everyday lives. I appreciate your willingness to have let me into your lives without exactly knowing what I will do with whatever you were sharing with me. These experiences have been fascinating and made a lasting impact on me, both professionally and personally, so thank you. I also thank the reviewers and the committee at The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO) who have granted this project, ‘Conspiracy Culture in the Netherlands: Modernity and Its Cultural Discontents’, number 404-10-438, with funding. Then my promotors, Stef Aupers and Dick Houtman, thank you for having nurtured me so well as an all-round sociologist. Ever since I made my first professional steps during my research master, you guys gave me the confidence and opportunity to walk and look further, but always kept a critical eye on my explorations. I am also grateful that you have consistently put my professional development central in our collaborations, for example by making me first author to our joint publications. Stef, your incessant support over all those years – always taking the time to meet me, read my work, and talk about whatever was on my mind – has been incredibly helpful, intellectually stimulating and personally a lot of fun as well. I am therefore so happy that our mentor-apprentice relationship has developed into a real friendship over the last years. I enjoy the openness we now have to discuss personal and sociological issues alike. Our many work trips abroad always lead to exciting adventures and hilarious conversations, and I am looking forward for those still to come. My former fellow cultural sociologists at CROCUS, Erasmus University Rotterdam: Peter Achterberg, Jeroen van der Waal, and Willem de Koster. Although I always had difficulties to really fit in, I never felt unwelcome nor unappreciated. From the very start, you guys accepted me and took me along as part of the gang, despite our differences in approach, background, and lifestyle. Peter, thank you for always being so supportive of me and my work, and of course, for having had an important hand in making my PhD project, and its extension, possible. Samira van Bohemen, 514059-L-bw-harambam Roy Kemmers en Liesbet van Zoonen, I enjoyed your alternative voices in our research group. Samira and Roy, it is beautiful to see how we developed in our own ways into proper sociologists over the last seven years. My dear Irene (van Oorschot), from the first moment we met in our PhD reading group I was charmed by your outgoing and witty personality. You made my time at our department fun and stimulating, I cannot tell you how important you were for making me feel at home in Rotterdam, as a friend and as a colleague. I cherish those years we worked together in our little office, thank you. But there are more great people at our university I wish to thank. Friso van Houdt, thank you for the good times we have together, sharing personal ponderings about life in- and outside academia. I enjoy how you always dot our conversations with references to the great sociologists, and of course, to Foucault. Maja Hertoghs, Sanne Boersma, Rogier van Reekum, Jess Bier, Talitha Stam, Rob Timans, and Ali Konyali, it was a pleasure to have you guys around for a talk and a walk in between work. Willem Schinkel, Justus Uitermark and Peter Mascini, it was inspiring to have you guys working at our department, and many thanks for the great feedback I got on my work at our PhD days. Mark van Ostaijen, Frank Daudeij en Erwin Dekker, what a wonderful adventure it was to set up the Academic Culture Group. We did not organize as much as we wanted, but bringing together so many different PhD students from all our different departments felt special and I am proud of us to have started this important mission of nurturing “culture” at our graduate school. This counts for the Netherlands Graduate School of Science, Technology and Modern Culture (WTMC) as well where I have had the opportunity to experience thought provoking and socially stimulating graduate schooling at their summer schools and work-shops. They know how to organize and foster intellectual and personal growth with fascinating lectures and pieces to read, but also with the more playful activities generally lost in science. Thank you, Teun Zuiderent-Jerak, Willem Halffman and Sally Wyatt for your efforts to bring these events to a success, and Andreas Mitzschke, Anne Wolters, Hans Schouwenburg, Willemijn Krebbekx and Else Vogel for the fun we had over there. Tom Gieryn and Steven Shapin thank you for their your helpful thoughts and suggestions on my work after presenting at the WTMC’s 2013 Annual Meeting. A special thanks to the people from the Fulbright Association and the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds who enabled me to spend half a year at Northwestern University, Illinois, USA. It was a fascinating experience to work, live and study in a country that feels so familiar, yet is so different 514059-L-bw-harambam from life in Europe. In particular I would like to thank Steven Epstein and Helen Tilly for hosting me at the wonderful Science in Human Culture program. I have learned a lot from your ability to convey critical feedback in such a well-versed way. Aaron Norton and Ozzie Zehner, thank you for making me feel not alone in Chicago and for the interesting talks we had about life in the US, academia, conspiracy theories, and environmentalism, they often turned my thoughts upside down, and nothing feels better than that. Aaron, thank you for bringing me into contact with Daniel Williford who has meticulously proofread my dissertation. Daniel, I loved our interaction from the beginning, you are so funny, humble and diligent and I learned a lot from the corrections you made. Hopefully you can be that “aggressive editor” for me in the future! And lastly, I want to thank all those wonderful people who have helped me indirectly with completing this work. Laurens Buijs and Marijn Siebel, my good friends, with you guys I share this fascination for the crazy world around us, and our many talks and projects involving sociology, Latour and STS have been so important for my intellectual growth, and always a lot of fun as well! Jorrit Goddijn, Marvin Jacobsz, Mirthe van Lieshout, Evert Bosdriesz, Mark Bosman, and Marijn Siebel (again), who would have thought that what we were told at the introduction weekend of the Beta-Gamma Propedeuse was actually going to be true? We really became friends for a lifetime! Camila Ferro, Judith Fronczek and Lior Tabib, you all three make me happy in so many ways, and our friendship is one I don’t want to live without. Justin Merino, Yair Landau and Alon Steinmetz, thank you for the good times and warm friendship we developed during the many times I escaped my PhD to come to enjoy my life in Tel Aviv. Motti Harambam and Tanya Rosenberg, thank you for always welcoming me to your house in Tel Aviv, which feels like mine now too. I cannot wait for our next out-of-the-ordinary Shabbat dinner. And finally, my brother and parents, Royie, Rammy and Annelies, you guys are the safety net I always can rely on, and over the past six years I have often done so. I am so fortunate to have this warm and intimate family bond with you, this ultimate back-stage where I can be totally myself.