Join us for a talk with Dr Humeira Iqtidar, Lecturer in Politics, King’s College London, on her recent paper exploring the politics of Blackwater. Pakistan seems to offer a particularly fertile ground for conspiracy theories. The presence and undefined role of Blackwater, a private security firm working as a subcontractor to the US Army, has lent new fervour to these discussions. Certainly mainstream North Atlantic media portrays Pakistanis as particularly prone to believing conspiracy theories. Such a representation carries within it many suggestions: of blind nationalism and ignorance of history, of misinformed locals unable to deal with a complicated reality, and of shifting blame from Pakistanis to those outside this imagined community. But what precisely is the relationship between conspiracy theories and a sedimented history?