Pascale Taplin: Why Native Title anthropologists should care about conspiracy theories

Pascale Taplin  has worked for over 20 years in the Northern Territory and Far North Queensland, in diverse areas from youth diversion to plant ecology and plenty in between. In recent years Pascale has specialised in Native Title anthropology. Recently Pascale became aware that there are serious goings on in the wider world, such as belief in conspiracy theories (BCTs), that demand her immediate attention. In this paper, Pascale explores what native title anthropologists might have to do with this social phenomenon. In this example of anthropology’s capacity to link apparently unconnected epistemologies, Pascale proposes that there are compelling reasons for paying attention to the place of beliefs in conspiracy theories, not least because Native Title claimants on occasion can bring conspiracy theories into their engagement with the Native Title process. The machinations of global disinformation wars might seem worlds away from our native title practice, Pascale observes, but in her experience fragments of their fallout may already be at our doorstep.