Humanitarian Profiteering in the Central African Republic as Conspiracy and Rumor

A massive influx of humanitarian actors in conjunction with a rise in armed violence in the Central African Republic has confronted Central Africans with their own poverty and others’ wealth in new ways. In attempting to explain Central Africans’ predicament, many have found evidence showing that it is in fact the humanitarians who are fomenting conflict to shore up their well-paid jobs. African theories of wrongdoing in their midst are generally discussed as rumor, but they are equally examples of conspiracy thinking. Conspiracy thinking is inherently about moral claims, and conspiracies must be considered in light of social processes and individual actions, because even conspiracies that are held with conviction do not always change how people act.