Heather Thompson
HIST 457
Dr. Harris
4/10/2012
West, Harry G. and Todd Sanders, ed., Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of
Suspicion in the New World Order. London: Duke University Press, 2003.
Transparency and Conspiracy, a 2003 book edited by anthropologists Harry West and
Todd Sanders, is a collection of essays which discuss transparency, conspiracy and how they
interact with the mystical forces of new world order through cultural practices. West and Sanders
open this collection with an introduction and argument that explains how conspiracy cannot be
without transparency and how the two are intertwined. The essays included reflect this argument
by discussing how the transparency of government and economy allow for conspiracy theory to
become prevalent in society. However, with this comes the mystical aspect of new world order, a
mystical force which takes a different form in every culture and drives people to change their
social situation. This argument is the common theme seen in the essays about Korea, Nigeria,
Mozambique, Indonesia, and Tanzania. Following these essays, an essay about Stalin and others
about the politics, protest practices, and religion of the United States explain how the strong
transparency of a government allows for the spreading of rumors and falsehoods in a way that
makes them not only believable, but also containable by the powers that be. Overall, West and
Sanders not only present a well claimed argument about transparency, conspiracy, and the new
world, but also show how these themes are prominent and affect various types and classes of
society all over the world.
Looking at this collection of essays, the basic argument the editors make is effectively
supported by the different authors and experts they chose to contribute pieces. While each
contributor discusses this argument with varying degrees of clarity, they are still very supportive
for multiple reasons. Some reasons include how no author discusses the same country, how each
present a different cultural consideration to analyze, and how the authors approach transparency,
how it contributes to conspiracy, and how altogether it applies to the presence of new world
order. This is all seen in one essay by Misty L. Bastian which discusses how a child was
kidnapped from a poor area in Niger and had his head found in the trunk of a car of an employee
of the prominent Owerri Otokoto Hotel. Bastian goes on to discuss how the poor community
“who were weary both of strange disappearances and of the notion that their city had become a
notorious center of wrongdoing” (66) responded with rioting. The poor community believed that
this murder was part of a conspiracy by the rich to take advantage and hurt the poor as much as
possible. The poor community also believed that the government was supporting the rich in this
conspiracy and thus became a target by the people, calling for serious change.(83) Because of
how transparent the government was and how the cultural practices of the people of niger work,
this conspiracy theory was founded to be true. This essay is singled out because it reflects the
editors’ argument of how transparency and conspiracy are entwined which allows for change
because of culture and new world order.
However, while the majority of contributing authors support the editors’ argument, there
are a small number of contributions that are less effective. One author, Karen McCarthy Brown,
contributed an interesting piece about how the Haitian immigrant community in New York City
staged a protest against the beating of Abner Louima and how they believe that their use of
voodoo was integral in making their protest heard. While the idea of a belief in a mystical power
holding sway over groups of people is very well explained and supports the cultural new world
order aspect of the editors’ argument, the transparency and conspiracy aspect of the argument is
not well addressed. A conspiracy theory is not directly addressed in this author’s essay nor is
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there a good case for transparency on the Haitian immigrant community’s part. Instead, the
author focuses on the mystical aspect of new world order in showing how the Haitian immigrant
community was effectively “working on wanga”(240) and because of this voodoo belief, their
protest was that much more effective. Because Brown does not directly address how all factors
of the editors’ argument play together to make this protest successful, the reference to the
purpose of the book is vague. Fortunately, there are few pieces in Transparency and Conspiracy
that do not have an obvious correlation to the editors’ argument.
The best way to describe how this book fits in with the historiography of the study of
conspiracy theory is presented in another book review on this work by William Biebuyck.
Biebuyck notes in his review that this collection is “a potential path-breaking model for social
scientists to use in uncovering the complex realities that bring culture and global structures to
become mutually constitutive.”1 I agree with Biebuyck because this collection truly is the first of
its kind to draw analysis and make connections between transparency, conspiracy, and new
world order from different factions of the study of social studies other than history. While West
and Sanders look at historical analysis from Richard Hofstadter and Daniel Pipes in the
beginning, they mainly use analysis from anthropologists to support their argument. Each essay
has sufficient evidence, proven by their endnotes, to support their claims and provide a different
way to look at conspiracy theory and new world order. This book is well structured in terms of
chapter order and ends with an effective conclusion by Jean and John Comaroff that reaffirms
how these essays support the editors’ argument. This work on a whole is truly unique to this area
of study and allows for scholars to look at transparency, conspiracy, and new world order in a
new light.
West, Harry G. and Todd Sanders, ed “Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the
New World Order (Book)” review of Transparency and Conspiracy: Ethnographies of Suspicion in the New World
Order by William Biebuyck. Utopian Studies 14 (2003): 225.
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