Debating Witchcraft in Africa

Given the circularity of the witchcraft complex in Africa, given
its performative potential, isn’t the flood of anthropological
publications on the topic counter-productive insofar as it feeds what it
pretends to analyse, and even stigmatize? Wouldn’t the social
scientists be well advised not to emulate the media and the Evangelical
preachers and to avoid bestowing on Africa the dubious privilege of
being no more than a shadow theatre devoid of substance on the stage of
which everything – power, work, production, economy, the family – would
actually be played in the occult? In this publication, eight scholars –
namely: Jean-Pierre Warnier, Didier Péclard, Julien Bonhomme, Patrice
Yengo, Jane Guyer, Joseph Tonda, Francis Nyamnjoh and Peter Geschiere –
engage in a lively and contradictory debate on witchcraft/sorcery in
Africa in a controversial historical context.