The Regulation of Witchcraft and Sorcery Practices and Beliefs

Miranda Forsyth

45 citations0/0 files storedAnnual Review of Law and Social Science

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Religious Freedom and Discrimination Criminal Law and Policy Multicultural Socio-Legal Studies

Abstract

This article reviews and analyzes the growing bodies of literature on the regulation of sorcery and witchcraft beliefs and practices. The most visible problems relating to these beliefs and practices are the violent exorcisms, banishment, torture, and killing inflicted upon those accused of practicing sorcery and witchcraft in many parts of the global South. Sorcery and witchcraft are also (once again) becoming a challenge for countries in the global North, mainly within migrant communities in relation to children accused of witchcraft and exorcized and also in the context of claims to refugee status and freedom of religion. The article covers scholarly literature (legal, anthropological, economic, historical), law reform commission reports, nongovernmental organization (NGO) reports, and UN documents over the past 15 years concerning the regulation of the negative societal impacts of sorcery and witchcraft practices and beliefs. It concludes that there is a need for greater empirical study of the impacts of various regulatory initiatives adopted and promoted by national governments, NGOs, and international organizations.

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References

1999Occult economies and the violence of abstraction: notes from the South African postcolony 2007Law and disorder in the postcolony*2020Occult Economies and the Violence of Abstraction: Notes from the South African Postcolony 2000The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa 2005Poverty and Witch Killing 2013Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust 2015Witchcraft beliefs and the erosion of social capital: Evidence from Sub-Saharan Africa and beyond 2004Policing Culture, Cultural Policing: Law and Social Order in Postcolonial South Africa

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2021Magic, Explanations, and Evil 2022Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis 2019Witchcraft beliefs as a cultural legacy of the Atlantic slave trade: Evidence from two continents 2019Pacific Youth: Local and Global Futures 2018Witchcraft Accusations as Gendered Persecution in Refugee Law 2022The lived experiences of elderly women accused of witchcraft in a rural community in South Africa

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