Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa

by Henrietta L. Moore (Co Editor), Todd Sanders (Co-editor)

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 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.

Genres: Anthropology, Africa

272 pages, Paperback

First published December 13, 2001

About the author

Henrietta L. Moore is a British social anthropologist. She is the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Cambridge and Director of the Culture and Communications Programme at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics (LSE). Previously Moore was a Governor of the LSE; LSE Deputy Director for research and external relations 2002-2005, and served as the Director of the Gender Institute at the LSE from 1994-1999.