Witch Camps and Witchcraft Discourse in Africa: Critiquing Development Practices [Hardcover]

Witch Camps and Witchcraft Discourse in Africa: Critiquing Development Practicesexplores how local development interventions related to witchcraft in Africa intersect and conflict with globally accepted development practices. This book argues that development practitioners need to pay attention to what concepts like witchcraft and occult mean to local people, and provides a nuanced account of how different development actors conceptualize and approach development in Africa through communities of refuge. Matthew Mabefam invites development practitioners to be open to culturally sensitive solutions to social inequalities, rather than dismissing them and acting in ways that may further aggravate the challenges faced by individuals accused of witchcraft. The foundational knowledge for the book is derived from ongoing ethnographic fieldwork in Gnani in Northern Ghanaa rural community that provides refuge for people who have been banished from their communitiesand is deeply informed by the authors experiences of growing up and working within refuge communities in Ghana. This book contributes to the decolonization of development epistemes, knowledge, and practices, and contributes to a better understanding of the limits of the neo-liberal paradigm of socio-economic development that has dominated the direction of development policy.Matthew Gmalifo Mabefamis a lecturer in anthropology and development studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne.

Development and occult power are two perennial topics in African studies scholarship. This fascinating work examines how beliefs in occult force and development policies meet in contemporary northern Ghana. Mabefam, an anthropologist from this region, uses his insider knowledge and his mastery of the literature on witchcraft well. Rejecting claims that beliefs in occult force are hindrances to social development, he shows how the impact of neoliberal policies led to chal“Ð