Witchcraft in Statecraft: Five Technologies of Power in Colonial and Postcolonial Coastal Kenya

Abstract

This work focuses on the production of discourse on witchcraft in relation to colonial and postcolonial statecraft in coastal Kenya. It distinguishes between two sets of terms for magical harm, the Mijikenda term utsai and the term witchcraft, and uses this analytical distinction to draw attention to the different worlds from which utsai and witchcraft emerge, and to frame each discourse on magical harm in terms of the political conditions of its production and use. It presents “witchcraft” as a disciplinary technology with five component practices identified as “witchcraft technologies of power.” These technologies have wide general applicability to other colonial and postcolonial situations in Africa and can be used to illuminate both processes of state formation and the emergence of new forms of magic and the occult.

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