African Studies of Witchcraft

Contemporary ideas of witchcraft provide an idiom for expressing individualism, innovation, and human agency that are much a part of modern life. During this period of rapid globalization and incorporation within the postcolonial state, ideas of witchcraft have been used by African peoples as frameworks of interpretation. As interpretive constructs, they also help to shape the political world, and they are, therefore, powerful forces that can both help to maintain or transform social and political worlds.