Authors: Peter Geschiere, Janet Roitman
ISBN-13: 9780813917030, ISBN-10: 0813917034
Format: Paperback
Publisher: Univ of Virginia Pr
Date Published: June 1997
Edition: 1st Edition
Peter Geschiere is Professor of African Anthropology at the University of Leiden, The Netherlands. He is the author of Pathways to Accumulation in Cameroon, Old Modes of Production and Capitalist Encroachment, and Village Communties and the State.
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.
Preface to the English Language Edition | ||
Acknowledgments | ||
1 | Introduction: Witchcraft as Political Discourse | 1 |
2 | A Full Belly: The Maka and the Djambe | 26 |
Comparative Interstice 1: The Variable Faces of Sorcery and Witchcraft | 61 | |
3 | Witchcraft and Local Politics: The Dialectics of Equality and Ambition | 69 |
4 | Witchcraft and National Politics: The Paradoxes of the New Elite | 97 |
Comparative Interstice 2: The Temptations of Power | 131 | |
5 | Witchcraft and the Art of Getting Rich: Regional Variations | 137 |
6 | The State Attacks: A Judiciary Offensive against Witches | 169 |
7 | Balance | 198 |
Afterword:The Meanderings of Anthropological Discourse on Witchcraft | 215 | |
Notes | 225 | |
Bibliography | 283 | |
Index | 301 |