LA ROUMANIE AU MIROIR DES MÈMES : UNE ANALYSE ANTHROPOLOGIQUE DES THÉORIES DU COMPLOT
ROMANIA AS REFLECTED IN MEMES: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF CONSPIRACY THEORIES

Summary/Abstract: The study investigates how digital memes function as tools for political and social commentary in a highly polarized society. Social media has become an ideological battleground where competing narratives about reality vie for popularity, providing fertile ground for the spread of conspiracy theories. Our research explores conspiracy theories in Romania, interpreting them as mythological narratives that serve social functions and find in memes an ideal vehicle for dissemination. This paper analyzes digital memes in the Romanian context not merely as entertainment, but as tools for political engagement and digital guerrilla warfare through which anonymous users challenge official discourse and negotiate social values. We adapt Manuel Castells’ concept of „resistance identity” to explain how groups that feel devalued or marginalized by the processes of globalization construct their own, defensive sense of identity, anchored in local identity. Within this framework, conspiracy theories are interpreted as the fundamental discursive material of this identity of resistance, providing the narratives necessary to draw a clear boundary between „us” (the local community) and „them” (the global network, the abstract enemy such as the EU or hidden elites). Applying the methodology of structural anthropology, the paper analyzes specific cases from the Romanian digital space, focusing on memes associated with current conspiracy theories. In a context where the European Union represents the most complete embodiment of the „networked state” – a system based on shared sovereignty – progressive values, immigration, and climate skepticism are recurring themes used in the Romanian memetic sphere to stir up anti-European sentiment. Our research examines „binary oppositions” to demonstrate how memes symbolically link food classifications to deep identity boundaries between „us” and „them.”

• Details
• Contents