Ce mémoire porte sur le processus de racialisation des personnes de confession et/ou de culture musulmane. Il cherche à éclairer la manière dont cette racialisation s’incarne à l’égard des personnes musulmanes qui prennent part aux débats sociopolitiques de leur société (plus spécifiquement ceux entourant les enjeux de laïcité et de signes religieux). La posture scientifique adoptée allie expérience individuelle et analyse sociologique. Dans le cadre analysé, la participation à un débat public au Québec, en 2013 et 2014, autour d’un projet de loi sur la laïcité et la neutralité religieuse de l’État (le projet de loi no 60) a donné lieu à une campagne de diffamation ciblant l’auteure de cette recherche et culminant en une démarche en justice. Ce type de diffamation, qui a pour cible une personne musulmane, puise dans un registre conspirationniste de l’islamisation et de l’infiltration des institutions démocratiques et des organisations de la société civile par les musulman.es vivant dans les sociétés occidentales. À travers un cas comme celui-ci, il est possible d’observer, par une sorte d’effet grossissant, une cristallisation de plusieurs propriétés de la racialisation telle qu’elle s’incarne à l’égard des personnes musulmanes. L’analyse mobilise des vidéos et des publications diffusées sur un blogue actif en 2013 et 2014, véhiculant des thèses conspirationnistes anti-islam, des documents tirés du dossier juridique (poursuite en diffamation), ainsi qu’une reconstruction narrative des évènements. / This dissertation examines the process of racialization of people of Muslim faith and/or culture. It seeks to shed light on the way in which this racialization is exemplified with regard to Muslims who participate in the political and social debates within their society (more precisely, the debates concerning secularism and religious symbols). The scientific approach adopted in this dissertation combines individual experience and sociological analysis. In the case being studied, the participation by the author of this research in a public debate in Quebec, in 2013 and 2014, surrounding a bill on State secularism and religious neutrality (Bill 60) gave rise to a smear campaign targeting her and culminating in legal action. Since the target of this campaign was Muslim, the defamation drew on conspiracy tropes of Islamisation and the infiltration of democratic institutions and of civil society organizations by Muslims living in Western societies. By studying a case such as this it is possible to observe, by a kind of magnifying effect, the crystallisation of several properties of racialization as it is exemplified with regards to Muslims. The analysis in this dissertation employs videos and posts published on a blog that was active in 2013 and 2014 that peddled in anti-Muslim conspiracy theory, documents from the legal file (defamation suit), as well as a narrative reconstruction of the events.

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Distinguishing between information and disinformation is an ever growing issue. The dramatic structure of a conspiracy theory easily captures a large audience and with the advent of social media, this disinformation can spread at an ever growing rate. This is especially true with the infodemic following the Covid-19 pandemic in early 2020, where there was a drastic increase in Covid-19 related misinformation on social media. When misinformation replaces fact, some people will inevitably follow borderline dangerous advice. This could unfortunately be seen in the ivermection issue where people injected this substance in hope of preventing/curing a Covid-19 infection. This is why finding patterns in disinformation that distinguishes it from facts would allow us to take measures against the spread of conspiracy theories. We have found patterns in our dataset suggesting that there is a significant difference in the language patterns for terms relating to conspiracy theories, and non-conspiratorial terms. We find that the sentiment of conspiracy theories is very volatile when compared to that of non-conspiratorial terms which follow a more neutral pattern in terms of sentiment. Suggesting that the language usage in a post can be used as a factor when determining the credibility of its content. We also find that conspiracy theories tend to see a drastic increase in mentions when previously being relatively lowin mentions. The result of this thesis could therefore be used as a start for developing tools and processes which would seek to combat the spread of conspiracy theories and limit the potential harm that could come from them.

The coronavirus pandemic has changed the lives of individuals all over the world. The goal of this research is to investigate and understand the narratives and underlying messages of the QAnon movement concerning COVID-19. The theoretical basis for this analysis is that of uncertainty-identity theory and extremism to study the process by which people embrace these types of movements and their values. Also, to examine the spread of QAnons’ messages and conspiracy theories on digital media, network society theory is used. In order to carry out this research, we conducted qualitative content analysis on data gathered directly from QAnon sources. According to the results of the study, the movement proceeded to create crisis narratives that tap into social anxieties and political uncertainty. Accordingly, the pandemic was used for the movement to grow, gain new momentum and supporters, and even merge other conspiracy theories making the narratives more elaborate.

Syftet med den här studien är att undersöka vilka konspirationsteorier som förekommer bland medlemmar i tre Facebookgrupper utifrån sex inlägg om Covid-19. Studien jämför även inläggen om Covid-19 i Facebook-grupperna med information från de officiella källorna World Health Organization och Folkhälsomyndigheten, hur informationen från de olika källorna framställs och skillnaderna i informationen mellan dem. Detta bidrar till en bättre förståelse om användningen och olika typer av vilseledande information. Studien utgår från en kvalitativ språklig analys eftersom det sällan förekommer studier om textens innehåll i vilseledande information.  Studien uppmärksammar tidigare forskning om sambandet mellan sociala medier och konspirationsteorier. De teoretiska utgångspunkterna är tre typer av vilseledande information och begrepp såsom social kontroll och selektiv exponering förekommer. Resultatet visar att det förekommer fyra huvudsakliga konspirationsteorier och sex tillhörande konspirationsteorier i diskussioner om Covid-19 i de undersökta grupperna på Facebook. I dessa diskussioner är desinformation mest förekommande. Resultatet diskuteras i jämförelse med information från World Health Organization och Folkhälsomyndigheten. Den vilseledande informationen bildar budskap och tolkningar genom tecken och språk i form av texter. Diskussionerna belyser slutligen att den tidigare forskningen, till viss del, stämmer överens med vår studie samt ger förslag på eventuell framtida forskning om konspirationsteorier. / The purpose of this study is to investigate the conspiracy theories that exist among members of three Facebook groups based on six posts about Covid-19. The study also compares the posts about Covid-19 in the Facebook groups with information from the official sources World Health Organization and the Swedish Public Health Authority, how the information from the different sources is presented and the differences in the information between them. This contributes to a better understanding of the use and different types of misleading information. The study is based on a qualitative linguistic analysis since there are only a few studies on the text's content in misleading information. The study draws attention to previous research on the connection between social media and conspiracy theories. The theoretical starting points are three different types of misinformation and concepts such as social control and selective exposure occur. The results show that there are four main conspiracy theories and six related conspiracy theories in discussions about Covid-19 in the analyzed groups on Facebook. In these discussions, disinformation is most common. The result is discussed in comparison with information from the World Health Organization and the Swedish Public Health Authority. The misleading information forms messages and interpretations through signs and language in the form of texts. Finally, the discussions highlight that the previous research, to some extent, is consistent with our study and provide suggestions for possible future research on conspiracy theories.

This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Departing from the predominant methodological individualism that characterizes many contemporary analyses of conspiracy theory, which take the individual subject as the unit to be explained and governed, this study situates the production and proliferation of conspiracy theory discourses in the context of cybernetics and related transformations in politics that have tended to reduce democratic representativeness and increase forms of economic and political inequality. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. I utilize Michel Foucault's governmentality approach to formulate a cybernetic governmentality methodology, which analyzes the governance of subjectivity in and through cybernetic systems of communication. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic systems, conceptualizes the subject as a consumer and processor of information. I put forth the notion of the scripted political to analyze a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory, as a speculative genre of thinking, aims to steer events towards certain political ends. Conspiratorial speculation has become a popular means to connect and reflect on a felt obsolescence or superfluity on the part of the individual subject. To substantiate these arguments, I specifically analyze the discourses of QAnon and Covid-19 conspiracy theories. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. The politics of contemporary conspiracy theory in the United States thus concerns the fact that these conspiratorial discourses seek to perform a form of liberal subjectivity. However, this performance of individual liberal subjectivity is always caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which seek to produce value, harvest data, and maximize the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any meaningful form of liberal subjectivity. / Doctor of Philosophy / This study analyzes the politics of contemporary conspiracy theory discourses in the United States. Whereas today many scholars approach conspiracy theory as concerning the beliefs of individual subjects, whose thoughts are considered deviant and potentially requiring reform or monitoring, this study engages with conspiracy theory discourses and their conditions of possibility. While many acknowledge that conspiracy theory is a response to a felt loss of control, this notion of control is understood to be only potentially true or valid. Cybernetics, which is often defined as the science of command and control, offers a series of concepts that facilitate an understanding of how freedom and control have become aligned in the second half of the 20th and early 21st centuries in the United States. Cybernetics, which seeks to invite the individual subject to realize itself through 'choice' and by way of its imbrication into machinic and technological systems, conceptualizes the individual subject as a consumer and processor of information. I develop a new notion that I call the scripted political to study a key tension within contemporary U.S. politics, as politics is becoming increasingly uncertain yet also often appears to be strongly controlled by political and economic elites. Conspiracy theory is a speculative genre of thinking that is well-suited to produce social and political meaning in a condition of information saturation characteristic of today's social domain. It does so, among other things, by providing explanations about the operations of what many conspiracy theorists consider to be concentrated forms of power and by attempting to steer events towards certain desirable political ends. However, as a way of producing social and political meaning, conspiracy theory often misses the mark. Yet, despite its frequent factual inconsistencies, conspiratorial discourses and speculations have become popular means to create social connections and to reflect on a sense of obsolescence or superfluity felt by many individual subjects. To support these arguments, I focus on the conspiratorial discourses of and about QAnon and about the Covid-19 pandemic. These discourses express political fantasies that often privilege the idea of a liberal autonomous individual subject. However, I show in this study that fantasies about a re-empowered mode of individual liberal subjectivity are often caught in cybernetic systems of communication, which are more interested in producing economic value, harvesting all sorts of data about individual subjects, and maximizing the attention of their 'users', thus undermining the potential for any return to a meaningful form of liberal subjectivity.

<p dir="ltr">This dissertation explores questions of personal change and the power of narrative with respect to both an individual and to the wider social environment. In chapter one, I explore the connections between the various facets of liminality and agency, with a focus on how it is that people can consciously craft specific ways of being an agent. In chapter two, I explore the nature of disagreements that involve our most fundamental commitments from within the context of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s posthumous <i>On Certainty</i>. Wittgenstein was pessimistic that argumentation could help in such cases, yet left it an open question as to whether they could be otherwise resolved. Here, I suggest the practice of storytelling as one strategy to resolve these disagreements. Finally, in chapter 3, I examine recent takes on conspiracy theories that include evaluating conspiracy theories as contrarian claims to secret knowledge as well as highlighting the political function that many conspiracy theories can play. Here, I will develop a claim that is common to both camps: conspiracy theories tell stories. By analyzing the characters and narrative structures at play in conspiracy theories, we can gain a deeper understanding of why conspiracy theorists think they know what they know, why particular conspiracy theories reference certain groups or agents rather than others, and why some tropes appear and reappear in conspiracy theories.</p>

Le présent mémoire interroge la figure du complot en tant que posture interprétative qui possède elle-même des points communs avec la structure de l’analyse littéraire et artistique. En tant que dynamique de lecture, ces deux démarches tentent de révéler un discours en récoltant une série d’indices qui présupposent la composition d’un discours totalisant et descriptif. À partir de cette analogie initiale, je tente de réfléchir une pratique d’analyse littéraire délaissant ses prétentions à la rationalité et favorisant l’exposition de la subjectivité comme point de départ nécessaire à l’élaboration d’une connaissance. Cette réflexion sur le complot se présente comme une suite de trois études de cas. Le premier chapitre s’intéresse à l’œuvre dessinée de la mangaka Tsurita Kuniko (1947-1985), en s’attardant particulièrement à la représentation des manifestations étudiantes japonaises de la fin des années 60 à travers un récit intitulé « 65121320262719 ». Cette lecture devient l’occasion d’interroger les théories herméneutiques de la « lecture symptomale » et de la « lecture de surface ». Le second chapitre s’intéresse à la représentation de la société secrète dans le film Out 1 : noli me tangere (1971) de Jacques Rivette. Créé à partir d’un strict procédé d’improvisation, le film met en parallèle l’indétermination narrative de cette méthode de tournage à la force de contrôle de ses sociétés secrètes fictives. Le troisième chapitre est l’occasion d’une étude de réelles théories du complot, et propose une interprétation de l’interactivité lectorale dans les échanges web autour de la théorie du complot QAnon. / This thesis examines the figure of the conspiracy as an interpretive stance that shares similarities with the framework of literary and artistic analysis. As reading practices, they both seek to reveal a specific discourse by gathering a series of clues that presuppose the composition of a totalizing and descriptive account. From this opening analogy, I attempt to consider a practice of literary analysis that abandons its pretensions to rationality and favors the exposure of subjectivity as a necessary stage and starting point for the elaboration of knowledge. This study of conspiracy is presented as a series of three case studies. The first chapter looks at the comic work of mangaka Tsurita Kuniko (1947-1985), focusing in particular on the representation of the Japanese student protests of the late 60s through a story entitled "65121320262719". This work offers an opportunity to question the hermeneutic theories of "symptomatic reading" and "surface reading". The second chapter focuses on the representation of secret societies in Jacques Rivette's film Out 1: noli me tangere (1971). Created from a rigorous process of improvisation, the film contrasts the narrative indeterminacy of this shooting method with the controlling force of its fictitious secret societies. The third chapter examines real-life conspiracy theories, and proposes an interpretation of readership interactivity in web exchanges around the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Cardinal Richelieu is traditionally accredited with defeating the power of the grands, the upper echelon of the French nobility, as part of his supposedly successful project for monarchical absolutism. Modern historians have recast Richelieu as a nobleman of his time, who advanced himself within the social and political hierarchies through marriage alliances and patronage. He therefore worked hard to forge alliances with the grands rather than trying to destroy them. Yet his ministry was riven by persistent noble conspiracies and rebellions, which have gone largely without systematic investigation. This study examines the nature and causes of that unrest during Richelieu’s final six years, offering a radical re-assessment of the opposition and the politics of the period. Noble conspiracy was not just a by-product of government by a first minister, but reflected the factional nature of Richelieu’s approach. Factional rivalry was exacerbated by the emergence, after 1638, of a struggle for the anticipated regency. After this, Richelieu took a more hostile approach to his adversaries, forcing them to adopt strong countermeasures in order to preserve their positions. Richelieu’s opponents were surprisingly successful in asserting their independence. As well as enjoying widespread domestic support, they allied with the Habsburg powers to engineer military rebellion, posing a major threat to the Cardinal and undermining the war effort against Spain. The Spanish set their stall out for a long-term war, expecting that Richelieu’s opponents would eventually gain power and negotiate peace on more flexible terms. The ability of the grands to re-assert themselves was still a dominant characteristic of French politics. Richelieu’s legacy, on his death in 1642, was a highly volatile political situation in which success was still a long way off for France. These findings suggest the catalytic impact of Habsburg power on France’s internal divisions, which should consequently be seen as integral to the forging of the ancien régime.

Les sciences criminelles ont mis en lumière le développement contemporain des infractions commises en groupe. Leur domaine recouvre des activités criminelles variées, du trafic de stupéfiants à la traite des êtres humains, en passant par la piraterie ou le terrorisme. La complexité et la gravité des crimes commis par ces groupes, ainsi que la capacité d'organisation qu'ils révèlent, constituent aujourd'hui une menace pour l'État de droit et pour la démocratie. Les groupes criminels prennent des formes diverses, depuis le regroupement ponctuel d'amateurs jusqu'aux réseaux organisés de professionnels aguerris et socialement implantés (bandes, mafias, sectes, milices...). Aussi le droit pénal doit-il s'adapter à cette délinquance collective et concertée. Cela pose la question des modalités de répression en cas de division des tâches et de pluralité d'agents, quand le droit pénal est traditionnellement soumis au principe de personnalité de la responsabilité. Cette recherche se propose donc de réaliser une étude comparative des dispositions adoptées en droit français et libanais, qui permettent d'appréhender les infractions commises en groupe en mettant l'accent sur la légitimité et sur l'efficacité des différentes techniques pénales introduites ces dernières années. / Criminal sciences have highlighted the recent rise of group crime. This cover term refers to a variety of criminal activities, from drug smuggling to piracy and terrorism to human trafficking. The complexity and seriousness of the crimes committed by these groups, as well as the organizational capacity they reveal, constitute a threat for the rule of law and democracy today. Criminal groups take various forms, from informal, random petty thief bands to organized networks of hardened and socially embedded professionals (gangs, mafias, cults, militias). In response to this collective, well-planned crime, criminal law has to adapt itself. This raises the issue of how to tackle this problem in a context of division of labor and multiple agents, when criminal law traditionally applies the principle of personal liability. This piece of research therefore aims to make a comparative study of the measures taken by the French and Lebanese law to deal with group crime, focusing on the legitimacy and effectiveness of various criminal techniques introduced in recent years.