Anastasiya Astapova

Since 2016, I have been doing research into disinformation and conspiracy theories, including that of the ethnic minorities. I find it crucial to recognize that while conspiracy theories are global, they vary locally, and their variants depend on societal structures and historical contexts. In my research, I concentrate on Russian speakers in Estonia, a heterogeneous group, whose exposure to disinformation varies greatly, yet persists (which is true about any minority or majority group worldwide nowadays). I explore the reasons and vulnerabilities behind this group’s conspiratorial thinking and analyze other narratives that, as I discover through ethnography, tend to gravitate toward conspiracy theories, from humor to supernatural beliefs.

In addition to the academic research, I have practiced very productive interventions for different age, ethnic, professional, and social groups in Estonia by doing seminars about conspiracy theories, most often at high schools. These projects will continue, and to not only intervene, but also to learn more from these opportunities for intervention, I am in the process of designing the study of the Russophone adolescents’ repertoire of conspiracy theories. This includes the methodological design (thorough planning of focus groups and individual interviews), but most importantly dealing with challenges conditioned by the young age and the ethnic minority status of those under study. Schools and education are central for addressing the problem of disinformation and training students in critical, rational thinking have shown the best effects. Sharing the results of my ongoing research into conspiracy theories among Russophones in Estonia as well as shaping its newer directions for it will be the aim of my visit to Stanford University.

Anastasiya Astapova is an Associate Professor of Folkloristics (University of Tartu, Estonia) and a member of Estonian Young Academy of Sciences. Previously, she was interested in the research of post-socialist humor and rumor under authoritarianism (which, along with other publications, resulted in her monograph Humor and Rumor in the Post-Soviet Authoritarian State. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2021). In 2016-2020, Astapova was a board member of the COST project “Comparative Analysis of Conspiracy Theories”, within which she published a co-edited Conspiracy Theories in Eastern Europe: Tropes and Trends (Routledge, 2020) and a co-authored Conspiracy Theories and the Nordic Countries (Routledge, 2020), among other works. Astapova is one of the founding members of CONNOR: Nordic Network of Conspiracy Theory Research. At the moment, Astapova is a principal investigator in Estonian Science Foundation project “COVID-19 Conspiracy Theories: Contents, Channels, and Target Groups”, a member of Horizon project DELIAH: Democratic Literacy and Humor”, and a member of ERC grant “Conspirations: Conflicts over Conspiracy Theories”.