Witchcraft In Post Colonial Africa

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Witchcraft in Post-colonial Africa

Khaukanani Mavhungu
Witchcraft in Post colonial Africa Book PDF

Author : Khaukanani Mavhungu
Publisher : African Books Collective
Page : 150 pages
File Size : 49,7 Mb
Release : 2012-10-10
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789956728329

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Witchcraft in Post-colonial Africa by Khaukanani Mavhungu Pdf

This is a comparative ethnographic study of witchcraft and associated violence between the kingdoms of Kom and Venda in Cameroon and South Africa respectively. The book shows why despite its prevalence in both societies, witchcraft does not lead to open violence in Kom, while such large-scale violence is commonplace in Venda. It reveals that this difference can be explained by factors such as the variations in local ideas on witches, differences in the role of traditional authorities, and various state interventions on witchcraft matters. The book demonstrates, through a rich collection of detailed cases, that contrary to anthropological theory that views witchcraft as a mechanism for the expression and resolution of social tensions and conflicts, witchcraft may at times become a disturbance of amicable social relations. Witchcraft accusations may occur in a context where strained social relations have not preceded them. The knowledge and experience that people have about witchcraft is sufficient to trigger an accusation and a violent reaction. Different forms of witchcraft account for variations in witchcraft attributions and accusations. This comparison provides a valuable contribution to ongoing witchcraft policy discourse amid widespread citizen anxiety over witchcraft, and the increasing call on the post-colonial state to intervene and protect its citizens against occult aggression.

The Modernity of Witchcraft

Peter Geschiere
The Modernity of Witchcraft Book PDF

Author : Peter Geschiere
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 311 pages
File Size : 43,9 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : Cameroon
ISBN : OCLC:1176106375

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The Modernity of Witchcraft by Peter Geschiere Pdf

In the Modernity of Witchcraft, Peter Geschiere uses his own experiences among the Maka and in other parts of eastern and southern Cameroon, as well as other anthropological research, to argue that contemporary ideas and practices of witchcraft are more a response to modern exigencies than a lingering cultural custom. The prevalence of witchcraft, especially in African politics and entrepreneurship, demonstrates the unlikely balance it has achieved with the forces of modernity. Geschiere explores why modern techniques and commodities, usually of Western provenance, have become central in rumors of the occult.

The Modernity of Witchcraft

Peter Geschiere
The Modernity of Witchcraft Book PDF

Author : Peter Geschiere
Publisher : University of Virginia Press
Page : 332 pages
File Size : 45,9 Mb
Release : 1997
Category : History
ISBN : 0813917034

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The Modernity of Witchcraft by Peter Geschiere Pdf

To many Westerners, the disappearance of African traditions of witchcraft might seem inevitable wuth continued modernization. In The Modernity of Witchcraft, Peter Geschieres uses his own experiences among the Maka and in other parts of eastern and southern Cameroon, as well as other anthropological research, to argue that contemporary ideas and practices of witchcraft are more a response to modern exigencies than a lingering cultural custom. The prevalence of witchcraft, especially in African politics and entrepreneurship, demonstrates the unlikely balance it has achieved with the forces of modernity. Geshiere explores why modern techniques and commodities, usually of Western Provenance, have become central in rumors of the occult.

Magical Interpretations, Material Realities

Henrietta L. Moore,Todd Sanders
Magical Interpretations Material Realities Book PDF

Author : Henrietta L. Moore,Todd Sanders
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 44,7 Mb
Release : 2003-09-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781134575572

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Magical Interpretations, Material Realities by Henrietta L. Moore,Todd Sanders Pdf

'Magical Interpretations, Material Realities brings together many of today's best scholars of contemporary Africa. The theme of "witchcraft" has long been associated with exoticizing portraits of a "traditional" Africa, but this volume takes the question of occult as a point of entry into the moral politics of some very modern African realities.' - James Ferguson, University of California, USA 'These essays bear eloquent testimony to the ongoing presence and power of the occult imaginary, and of the intimate connection between global capitalism and local cosmology, in postcolonial Africa. A major contribution to scholarship that aims to rework the divide between modernity and tradition.' - Charles Piot, Duke University, USA This volume sets out recent thinking on witchcraft in Africa, paying particular attention to variations in meanings and practices. It examines the way different people in different contexts are making sense of what 'witchcraft' is and what it might mean. 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.

Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900–1955

Katherine Luongo
Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya 1900 1955 Book PDF

Author : Katherine Luongo
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 265 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 2011-09-26
Category : History
ISBN : 9781139503457

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Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900–1955 by Katherine Luongo Pdf

Focusing on colonial Kenya, this book shows how conflicts between state authorities and Africans over witchcraft-related crimes provided an important space in which the meanings of justice, law and order in the empire were debated. Katherine Luongo discusses the emergence of imperial networks of knowledge about witchcraft. She then demonstrates how colonial concerns about witchcraft produced an elaborate body of jurisprudence about capital crimes. The book analyzes the legal wrangling that produced the Witchcraft Ordinances in the 1910s, the birth of an anthro-administrative complex surrounding witchcraft in the 1920s, the hotly contested Wakamba Witch Trials of the 1930s, the explosive growth of legal opinion on witch-murder in the 1940s, and the unprecedented state-sponsored cleansings of witches and Mau Mau adherents during the 1950s. A work of anthropological history, this book develops an ethnography of Kamba witchcraft or uoi.

Modernity and Its Malcontents

Jean Comaroff,John L. Comaroff
Modernity and Its Malcontents Book PDF

Author : Jean Comaroff,John L. Comaroff
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 278 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 1993-11
Category : Family & Relationships
ISBN : 0226114392

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Modernity and Its Malcontents by Jean Comaroff,John L. Comaroff Pdf

What role does ritual play in the everyday lives of modern Africans? How are so-called "traditional" cultural forms deployed by people seeking empowerment in a world where "modernity" has failed to deliver on its promises? Some of the essays in Modernity and Its Malcontents address familiar anthropological issues—like witchcraft, myth, and the politics of reproduction—but treat them in fresh ways, situating them amidst the polyphonies of contemporary Africa. Others explore distinctly nontraditional subjects—among them the Nigerian popular press and soul-eating in Niger—in such a way as to confront the conceptual limits of Western social science. Together they demonstrate how ritual may be powerfuly mobilized in the making of history, present, and future. Addressing challenges posed by contemporary African realities, the authors subject such concepts as modernity, ritual, power, and history to renewed critical scrutiny. Writing about a variety of phenomena, they are united by a wish to preserve the diversity and historical specificity of local signs and practices, voices and perspectives. Their work makes a substantial and original contribution toward the historical anthropology of Africa. The contributors, all from the Africanist circle at the University of Chicago, are Adeline Masquelier, Deborah Kaspin, J. Lorand Matory, Ralph A. Austen, Andrew Apter, Misty L. Bastian, Mark Auslander, and Pamela G. Schmoll.

Studies in Witchcraft, Magic, War, and Peace in Africa

Beatrice Nicolini
Studies in Witchcraft Magic War and Peace in Africa Book PDF

Author : Beatrice Nicolini
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 428 pages
File Size : 52,6 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : IND:30000116864269

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Studies in Witchcraft, Magic, War, and Peace in Africa by Beatrice Nicolini Pdf

This collection of essays offers opportunities towards a better understanding of African societies and their historical role in numerous political and military conflicts, and also within peace-building processes. This book broadens the focus from invocations of the supernatural in military and political mobilizations to rituals of healing in post-conflict societies.

The Construction of Nationhood

Adrian Hastings
The Construction of Nationhood Book PDF

Author : Adrian Hastings
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 260 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 1997-11-06
Category : History
ISBN : 0521625440

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The Construction of Nationhood by Adrian Hastings Pdf

The Construction of Nationhood, first published in 1997, is a thorough re-analysis of both nationalism and nations. In particular it challenges the current 'modernist' orthodoxies of such writers as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner, and it offers a systematic critique of Hobsbawm's best-selling Nations and Nationalism since 1780. In opposition to a historiography which limits nations and nationalism to the eighteenth century and after, as an aspect of 'modernisation', Professor Hastings argues for a medieval origin to both, dependent upon biblical religion and the development of vernacular literatures. While theorists of nationhood have paid mostly scant attention to England, the development of the nation-state is seen here as central to the subject, but the analysis is carried forward to embrace many other examples, including Ireland, the South Slavs and modern Africa, before concluding with an overview of the impact of religion, contrasting Islam with Christianity, while evaluating the ability of each to support supra-national political communities.

Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust

Peter Geschiere
Witchcraft Intimacy and Trust Book PDF

Author : Peter Geschiere
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 46,5 Mb
Release : 2013-08-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780226047751

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Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust by Peter Geschiere Pdf

In Dante’s Inferno, the lowest circle of Hell is reserved for traitors, those who betrayed their closest companions. In a wide range of literatures and mythologies such intimate aggression is a source of ultimate terror, and in Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust, Peter Geschiere masterfully sketches it as a central ember at the core of human relationships, one brutally revealed in the practice of witchcraft. Examining witchcraft in its variety of forms throughout the globe, he shows how this often misunderstood practice is deeply structured by intimacy and the powers it affords. In doing so, he offers not only a comprehensive look at contemporary witchcraft but also a fresh—if troubling—new way to think about intimacy itself. Geschiere begins in the forests of southeast Cameroon with the Maka, who fear “witchcraft of the house” above all else. Drawing a variety of local conceptions of intimacy into a global arc, he tracks notions of the home and family—and witchcraft’s transgression of them—throughout Africa, Europe, Brazil, and Oceania, showing that witchcraft provides powerful ways of addressing issues that are crucial to social relationships. Indeed, by uncovering the link between intimacy and witchcraft in so many parts of the world, he paints a provocative picture of human sociality that scrutinizes some of the most prevalent views held by contemporary social science. One of the few books to situate witchcraft in a global context, Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust is at once a theoretical tour de force and an empirically rich and lucid take on a difficult-to-understand spiritual practice and the private spaces throughout the world it so greatly affects.

Encounters with Witchcraft

Norman N. Miller
Encounters with Witchcraft Book PDF

Author : Norman N. Miller
Publisher : State University of New York Press
Page : 243 pages
File Size : 44,5 Mb
Release : 2012-04-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781438443591

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Encounters with Witchcraft by Norman N. Miller Pdf

Encounters with Witchcraft is a personal story of a young man's fascination with African witchcraft discovered first in a trek across East Africa and the Congo. The story unfolds over four decades during the author's long residence in and many trips to Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda. As a field researcher he learns from villagers what it is like to live with witches, and how witches are seen through African eyes. His teachers are healers, cult leaders, witch-hunters and self-proclaimed "witches" as well as policemen, politicians and judges. A key figure is Mohammadi Lupanda, a frail village woman whose only child has died years before. In her dreams, however, she believes the little girl is not dead, but only lost in the fields. Mohammadi is discovered wandering at night, wailing and calling out for the child. Her neighbors are terror-stricken and she is quickly brought to a village trial and banished as a witch. The author is able to watch and listen to the proceedings and later investigate the deeper story. He discovers mysteries about Mohammadi that are only solved when he returns to the village three decades later. Today, witch-hunting and witchcraft-related crimes are found in more than seventy developing countries. Epidemics of violence against alleged witches, mainly women, but including elders of both genders, and even children is on the increase in some parts of the world. Witchcraft beliefs may lie behind vigilante murders, political assassinations, revenge killings and commercial murders for human body parts. Through African voices the author addresses key questions. Do witchcraft powers exist? Why does witchcraft persist? What are its historic roots? Why is witchcraft-based violence so often found within families? Does witchcraft serve as a hidden legal and political system, a mafia-like under-government? The author holds up a mirror for us to think about religious beliefs in our own experience that rely heavily on myth and superstition.

Postcolonial Identities in Africa

Pnina Werbner,Terence Ranger
Postcolonial Identities in Africa Book PDF

Author : Pnina Werbner,Terence Ranger
Publisher : Zed Books
Page : 308 pages
File Size : 42,7 Mb
Release : 1996-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : UOM:39076001759658

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Postcolonial Identities in Africa by Pnina Werbner,Terence Ranger Pdf

Making a break with conventional wisdom in post-colonial discourse, this book explores contemporary African identities in transition. The contributors look at the colonial legacy and how colonial identities are being reconstructed in the face of deepening social inequality across the continent.

African Magic

Heidi Holland
African Magic Book PDF

Author : Heidi Holland
Publisher : Penguin Random House South Africa
Page : 207 pages
File Size : 52,8 Mb
Release : 2012-09-26
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780143527855

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African Magic by Heidi Holland Pdf

Africa's traditional beliefs - including ancestor worship, divination and witchcraft - continue to dominate its spiritual influences. Readers in search of a better understanding of the continent will be enriched by this book's timely exploration of sub-Saharan Africa's natural philosophy. The author's meticulous research reveals that, whereas technology-driven Western societies prefer to rely largely on logical explanations, many Africans continue to obey their intuition - trusting in images, dreams and divination to rationalise misfortune and illness. African Magic explains why so many Africans understand the relationship between people and unfortunate events not through the Western concept of chance in the case of accidents, or germ theory in the case of illness, but through belief in witchcraft. The book records a collection of true stories which illustrate this traditional belief system. Included are the famous Malawian diviner whose prophecies were considered so accurate that people flocked from neighbouring countries to consult him; a group of Western-trained Mozambican psychologists who successfully refined cross-cultural therapy by working with traditional healers to combat post-traumatic stress syndrome among child soldiers; Ghanaian and Zimbabwean 'witches' living in a nightmare world where popular belief becomes their reality; and a Zambian archbishop whose attempt to embrace traditional African beliefs provoked serious conflict within his Christian church.

The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West

David J. Collins, S. J.
The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West Book PDF

Author : David J. Collins, S. J.
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 45,8 Mb
Release : 2018-12-20
Category : History
ISBN : 1108703070

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The Cambridge History of Magic and Witchcraft in the West by David J. Collins, S. J. Pdf

This book presents twenty chapters by experts in their fields, providing a thorough and interdisciplinary overview of the theory and practice of magic in the West. Its chronological scope extends from the Ancient Near East to twenty-first-century North America; its objects of analysis range from Persian curse tablets to U.S. neo-paganism. For comparative purposes, the volume includes chapters on developments in the Jewish and Muslim worlds, evaluated not simply for what they contributed at various points to European notions of magic, but also as models of alternative development in ancient Mediterranean legacy. Similarly, the volume highlights the transformative and challenging encounters of Europeans with non-Europeans, regarding the practice of magic in both early modern colonization and more recent decolonization.

Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction

John L. Comaroff
Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction Book PDF

Author : John L. Comaroff
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 86 pages
File Size : 55,6 Mb
Release : 1998
Category : Informal sector (Economics)
ISBN : STANFORD:36105061960865

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Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction by John L. Comaroff Pdf

The Max Gluckman memorial lecture, 1998.

Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa

Adam Ashforth
Witchcraft Violence and Democracy in South Africa Book PDF

Author : Adam Ashforth
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 434 pages
File Size : 44,8 Mb
Release : 2005-01-15
Category : Body, Mind & Spirit
ISBN : 0226029735

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Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa by Adam Ashforth Pdf

Large numbers of people in Soweto & other parts of South Africa live in fear of witchcraft, presenting complex & unique problems for the government. Adam Ashforth explores the challenge of occult violence & the spiritual insecurity that it engenders to democratic rule in South Africa.