Limitless Opportunities for Wealth? Witchcraft as a Strategy for (In)Equality and Economic (Dis) Empowerment

Abstract

The persistence of witchcraft beliefs and practices in Africa contradicts earlier scholarly work that suggested it would disappear. In addition, theorising witchcraft as a local discourse that only exists between people in an intimate relationship in anthropology has also long been challenged. This strand of scholarship has sought to understand witchcraft within the local-global nexus pointing to a new direction in witchcraft studies. Unlike other themes in anthropology that began the discipline, witchcraft continues to be a ‘hot currency’ topic and has been termed by some scholars as the ‘long conversation’. This article presents a current ethnographic account of how witchcraft is utilised by individuals as a strategy for wealth gain and protection and serves as narrative for the challenges individuals are experiencing when having to navigate between often incompatible expectations placed on the individual vis-a-vis the community. This is further exemplified through the ethnographic account on how witchcraft strategies are employed against individuals who are pursuing success in neoliberal socio-economic model.

Keywords:

• collective
• empowerment
• strategy
• neoliberalism
• wealth
• witchcraft
• development, Sakawa

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank all individuals in Ghana who have generously given their time and shared their intimate stories regarding witchcraft and development in Ghana. I would also like to thank the two anonymous reviewers, for their extremely useful and constructive feedback on this article. Finally, special thanks go to Dr Violeta Schubert, Dr. Kalissa Alexeyeff and Dr. Samuelson Appau, for their comments on previous drafts. Research conducted in Ghana in April 2016-February 2017 upon which this article draws was supported through The University of Melbourne International Research Scholarship.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Matthew Mabefam

Matthew Mabefam is a Lecturer in Development Studies, School of Social and Political Sciences, University of Melbourne.