Nov. 22, 2021

Us and Them: The Federal Social Credit Party and Conspiratorial Thinking in Canada

SSHRC Insight Development Grant helps Kevin Anderson and Jennifer Tunnicliffe investigate how and why conspiracy theories move between "fringe" and "mainstream" spaces
Kevin Anderson

Kevin Anderson, adjunct History instructor at the University of Calgary and sessional instructor at Mount Royal University, recently received a SSHRC Insight Development Grant for his project "Us and Them: The Federal Social Credit Party and Conspiratorial Thinking in Canada." Kevin and his collaborator Jennifer Tunnicliffe are in the early stages of researching the role of Social Credit in "mainstreaming" conspiratorial thought in postwar (1945-1980) Canada. Building on Kevin's work on anti-Catholicism in Canada and Jennifer's work on hate speech and free speech in Canada, they are hoping to better understand how and why conspiracy theories seem to move between "fringe" and "mainstream" spaces at different points in time and space.