Overview

Witchcraft is alive and well in Africa today both among the disenchanted and downtrodden as well as the educated elite. This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It crucially examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean. Clearly the promises of countless western social theorists - that such 'enchantments' would die a sudden death with 'modernity' - have not come to pass. In fact, despite growing democracy and development throughout the region, the general sentiment on the continent is that witchcraft is increasing. Indeed witchcraft is routinely implicated in modern state politics, free markets and legal systems. But why now? Using recent ethnographic materials from across the continent, the volume explores how witchcraft articulates with particular modern settings for example: the State in Cameroon; Pentecostalism in Malawi; the university system in Nigeria and the IMF in Ghana, Sierra Leone and Tanzania. The editors provide a timely overview and reconsideration of long-standing anthropological debates about 'African witchcraft', while simultaneously raising broader concerns about the theories of the western social sciences. This book will be widely read and used amongst anthropologists and social scientists. Adam Ashforth Institute for Advanced Study , Misty Bastian Franklin and Marshall College, Rijk Van Dijk African Studies Centre, Cyprian Fisiy, The World Bank, Peter Gesc

Full Product Details

Author:   Henrietta L. Moore ,  Todd Sanders
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 1.20cm , Length: 23.40cm
Weight:   0.453kg
ISBN:  

9780415258678

ISBN 10:   0415258677
Pages:   272
Publication Date:   13 December 2001
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

1. Magical interpretations and material realities: an introduction Henrietta L. Moore and Todd Sanders 2. Delusions of development and the enrichment of witchcraft discourses in Cameroon Francis B. Nyamnjoh 3. Cannibal transformations: colonialism and commodification in the Sierra Leone hinterland Rosalind Shaw 4. Vulture men, campus cultists and teenaged witches: modern magics in Nigerian popular media Misty L. Bastian 5. Witchcraft and scepticism by proxy: Pentecostalism and laughter in urban Malawi Rijk van Dijk 6. Black market, free market: anti-witchcraft shrines and fetishes among the Akan Jane Parish 7. Betrayal or affirmation? Transformations in witchcraft technologies of power, danger and agency among the Tuareg of Niger Susan Rasmussen 8. Save our skins: structural adjustment, morality and the occult in Tanzania Todd Sanders 9. Witchcraft in the new South Africa: from colonial superstition to postcolonial Reality? Isak Niehaus 10. On living in a world with witches: everyday epistemology and spiritual insecurity in a modern African city (Soweto) Adam Ashforth 11. Witchcraft, development and paranoia in Cameroon: interactions between popular, academic and State discourse Cyprian Fisiy and Peter Geschiere

Reviews

'This is a very useful collection of essays of essays discussing various aspects of beliefs and prosecutions of witchcraft in contemporary African societies.' - Anthropos

Author Information

Henrietta L. Moore is Professor of Anthropology and Todd Sanders is a Research Fellow. Both are in the Department of Anthropology at the London School of Economics.

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