"EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED": NETWORKED CONSPIRITUALITY IN NEW AGE MEDIA

Conspirituality refers to the confluence of New Age spirituality and conspiracism that frame reality through holistic thinking—connecting events and energies, the inner self to the outer world in unseen ways. Conspirituality has thrived online: between the pleasure of the weekly horoscope and the obsession with the QAnon drop is a mode of causal promiscuity in which, as Q puts it, “future proves past.” This panel traces forms of conspirituality from MAGA mystics to New Age influencers, from technolibertarian imageboards to Silicon Valley vision quests. While conspirituality marks an online psychographic segmentation, it also traces a formal quality that organizes ways of navigating, knowing, and critiquing the internet, which is undergirded by New Age spirituality’s perennialism: a belief that different spiritual traditions are equally valid, because they all essentially worship the same divine source that emanates throughout the cosmos and the human body. The internet supercharges perennialism, providing a connective medium for New Age ideology of manifesting: the belief that we create our own reality. As users trawl the internet for snippets and statistics to feed their confirmation bias and populate their vision boards, the connective medium of the internet manifests toxicity and misinformation at scale. The papers in this panel develop a line of research on the coevolution of spirituality and technology from organized to new religious movements. Instead of demystification, we use ethnographic, textual, and hermeneutic approaches—examining internet users, governance, genealogies, and internet studies itself—to politicize networked conspirituality as vernacular theories of power and powerlessness.

"Wake up, Sheeple!" Conspiracy theories and Māori during the COVID-19 pandemic

This situation report outlines some of the literature about conspiracy theories and its application to Māori during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report shows that while there are some psychological factors at play with regard to vulnerability to conspiracy theories, it appears that issues around power and powerlessness are most applicable to Māori, given our historical and political context. The report also advocates for a manaakitanga-informed approach to dealing with whānau who are disseminating conspiracy theories. A manaakitanga-informed approach is about continuing to treat whānau and friends with respect and supporting and nurturing relationships.

Local Response to Forced Adaptation Challenges: Lessons from a Post-flooding School Rebuilding Controversy

This study focuses on school rebuilding experiences in a distressed rural county in the wake of severe flooding. While considering scholarly literature, and making use of relevant public records and media coverage, the centerpiece of this qualitative study is an analysis of 391 public comments made in response to proposed rebuilding plans. The study focuses on how the schools rebuilding debate was socially constructed in response to the flood and in a time of growing awareness of climate change. The findings suggest that the debate was framed along lines familiar to rural school closure and consolidation controversies in general and in context of underlying political and social conditions specific to the county. Themes of power and powerlessness, fairness and justice, and community identity and viability were predominant. Specific discussion of climate change and associated themes was notably absent in the public comments. The findings suggest that existing sociopolitical context and policy domains may shape the consideration of new adaptation choices, whether forced by immediate events such as a natural disaster, or influenced by longer term concerns relating to climate change.

The Power of Connectivity in the Arctic: Citizen Participation in Arctic Institutions

Increasing business opportunities in the Arctic in the spheres of tourism, transport, mining, oil and gas and creative industries require efficient connectivity. Arctic territories offer an attractive place for data servers running on green energy. The subsea fiber cable connecting European High North territories with the US and Asia is an opportunity to improve connectivity in the Arctic. The opening of the Arctic sea creates preconditions for such a project. In this paper, I study existing Arctic institutions that deal with connectivity issues in the Arctic. As theoretical frameworks, I use Gaventa’s (1982) framework of power and powerlessness and stakeholder participation model. The power and powerlessness and modes of participation of stakeholders at the national and regional levels are investigated. I use secondary data, such as the EU and regional policies, statistical data on the topic of connectivity in the Arctic. The study contributes to the understanding of power structure and citizen participation in the Arctic institutions by using an example of connectivity in the Arctic. The findings suggest that Arctic institutions have very limited citizen participation opportunities due to their composition, working formats, and governance structures. Several suggestions for opening-up closed spaces to be inclusive of Arctic citizens perspectives are suggested.

EXPRESS: Caring Leader Identity Between Power and Powerlessness

This paper investigates what happens when managers’ identity is centred on caring, an underappreciated aspect of leadership. Drawing on a case study of managers in elderly care, we distil an ideal-typical caring leader identity as well as contextualised interpretations that suggest both problematic and constructive aspects. The caring leader identity implies a self-understanding as being highly present, supportive, and helpful to subordinates’ development. We find that the belief of making a decisive difference to others’ development by caring for them can be a deceptive fantasy that incites over-dependence among subordinates, particularly for ambitious managers who experience pressing situations and little power. Under better but likely less common conditions, managers can develop more modest expressions of a caring leader identity, leaving space for subordinates themselves to define problems and explore solutions.