Debating Witchcraft in Africa: The Magritte Effect

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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 P�clard, 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.

Informations

• Publié par: Langaa RPCIG
• Date de parution: 03 août 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789956550500
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

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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

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

is a Senior lecturer at the Global Studies Institute, University of Geneva. He holds a PhD in Political Science from Sciences-Po Paris (2005). His research interests include religion and politics, nationalism, as well as the dynamics of peacebuilding and state formation in Africa.

 (PhD, Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania, 1975, hororary Professor since 2006) taught anthropology in Nigeria, Cameroon, and, since 1985, at the University Paris-Descartes. Since 1972, he did research on the economic and political history of the Cameroon Grassfields. He later shifted to the study of bodily and material

. Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2007.

Debating Witchcraft in Africa: The “Magritte Effect”

Edited by

Didier Péclard and Jean-Pierre Warnier

Debating Witchcraft in Africa The “Magritte Effect” Edited by Didier Péclard & Jean Pierre Warnier Langaa Research & Publishing CIG Mankon, Bamenda

Publisher: LangaaRPCIG Langaa Research & Publishing Common Initiative Group P.O. Box 902 Mankon Bamenda North West Region Cameroon [e-mail] www.langaa-rpcig.net Distributed in and outside N. America by African Books Collective [e-mail] www.africanbookscollective.com ISBN-10: 9956-550-02-7 ISBN-13: 978-9956-550-02-9 ©Didier Péclard&Jean Pierre Warnier 2018 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical or electronic, including photocopying and recording, or be stored in any information storage or retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher

Table of contents Preface:Witchcraft in Africa. Debating the “Magritte effect” ...................................................v Didier Péclard Part I.............................................................................1 1. This Is Not a Witch. About the Magritte Affect in Matters of Witchcraft......................3 Jean-Pierre Warnier Part II ...........................................................................29 2. Witchcraft and Discourse Genres: From Intimate Stories to Public Rumours ..................31 Julien Bonhomme 3. For a Hermeneutics of Witchcraft ...........................39 Patrice Yengo 4. Magritte’s Multiplicities and Warnier’s Inspirations ..................................................47 Jane I Guyer 5. From One Crisis to Another: Afrodystopia .................................................................55 Joseph Tonda 6. The Incompleteness of the African Subject .............................................................63 Francis B. Nyamnjoh

iii

7. Witchcraft: A Knowledge that Defies Knowing? ...................................................69 Peter Geschiere Part III..........................................................................77 8. The Unfathomable Lightness of the Witch .............79 Jean-Pierre Warnier

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