On March 7th, Anthropology graduate student Max Horder successfully defended his dissertation “Britain Alone: Conspiracy and Disorder After Brexit.”

This dissertation examines the cultural lifeworld of pro-Brexit interlocutors over a number of years in the United Kingdom. Spending two years of fieldwork interviewing, participating in political rallies, and generally seeking a more intimate understanding of the motivations, beliefs, and attachments of 'populist' supporters, this thesis provides a systematic account of this significant period of British politics. It seeks to make sense not only of their particular beliefs in and of themselves - such as conspiracies about the COVID-19 lockdown that appear coeval with a right-wing populist worldview - but to understand them from a classically anthropological point of view.

Max's dissertation defense committee included his co-advisers John Borneman and Laurence Ralph, as well as his two examiners Carolyn Rouse and David Cannadine (History)