In other words: Cosmology and the translatability of cultural difference

Liberal democracies have a problem with witchcraft

It is more common to hear reports of violence against people accused of sorcery that causes illness and death in Papua New Guinea. People who are accused often have to flee their homes and go into hiding (Jorgensen 2014; see also Bouscaren 2018).
- It’s not just in PNG that this happens, either (The New York Times 2016; Oppenheimer 2010)
In 2018 and 2019, rumours circulated that the president of Nigeria had been replaced by a clone (The Guardian 2018; Gagliardone et al. 2023).
In recent years, several Indian state governments have passed laws banning religious conversion in response to Hindu nationalist conspiracy theories that say Muslim men marry Hindu women to convert them even though most agree this is completely false (Frayer 2021).
Rural, conversative whites in the US increasingly rely on a separate ecosystem of right-wing media, through which they often hear that the US government possesses secret alien medical technology called a “med bed” that can cure any disease (Saslow 2024).

Experts are worried about the health of global democracies

Some political scientists believe that all of these things are examples of a dysfunction or disease in societies that prevents its members from participating in politics as citizens with rights (Hochschild and Einstein 2015).
For them, people get swept up in whatever feels right emotionally. They would say that citizens all have to have the same facts and accept that facts are facts.

Is this the best way to think about these ideas?

People see the world differently. Is this a problem?

Like many other societies, Azande people in South Sudan say that every bad thing is caused by someone’s invisible magic, even if they do not intend it:

Witchcraft is mentioned every day, and invoked to explain any number of bad things, from minor incidents to death. “Witchcraft is not less anticipated than adultery” (which is also common) (Evans-Pritchard [1937] 1976, 19).
Witchcraft belief coexists with reason and logic. When the granary collapsed on top of a person, and people saw that termites had eaten away the posts, they reasoned that termites made the granary fall, but a witch made sure it fell on that person at that time (Evans-Pritchard [1937] 1976, 22).
“Azande say, ‘Death always has a cause, and no man dies without a reason’” (Evans-Pritchard [1937] 1976, 51). Specifically, people’s death is always the result of a latent or overt conflict. The witch is always motivated by this conflict.

Beliefs of this kind are not only very common, but very resilient and adaptable.

Many people say that the rich get richer because of their witchcraft, and that politicians win elections thanks to witchcraft (Bonhomme 2012; Comaroff and Comaroff 2018; Englund 1996; Newell 2007).

Sorcery accusations and social justice

In small groups, discuss this news article:

Swanston, Tim, and Theckla Gunga. 2024. “The Sudden Death of Elli’s Relative Led to Her Being Branded a Witch. She Barely Escaped with Her Life.” ABC News, April 12, 2024. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-13/claims-of-witchcraft-can-lead-to-murder-in-png/103682576.

Small group discussion

Choose a spokesperson and a scribe
Skim the ABC News article. Discuss your reactions.
Share what you know about this topic or related topics
Is there a way that the authors of this article want the audience to understand “sorcery accusation”? What is it?
As a group, discuss whether you agree or disagree with this framing?

References and further reading

Bonhomme, Julien. 2012. “The Dangers of Anonymity: Witchcraft, Rumor, and Modernity in Africa.” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 2 (2): 205–33. https://doi.org/10.14318/hau2.2.012.

Bouscaren, Durrie, dir. 2018. “In Papua New Guinea’s Sorcery Wars, A Peacemaker Takes On Her Toughest Case.” All Things Considered. National Public Radio. https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2018/05/24/612451247/in-papua-new-guineas-sorcery-wars-a-peacemaker-takes-on-her-toughest-case.

Comaroff, Jean, and John L. Comaroff. 2018. “Occult Economies, Revisited.” In Magical Capitalism: Enchantment, Spells, and Occult Practices in Contemporary Economies, edited by Brian Moeran and Timothy de Waal Malefyt, 289–320. Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74397-4_12.

Englund, Harri. 1996. “Witchcraft, Modernity and the Person: The Morality of Accumulation in Central Malawi.” Critique of Anthropology 16 (3): 257–79. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X9601600303.

Evans-Pritchard, E. E. 1951. “Some Features of Nuer Religion.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland 81 (1/2): 1–13. https://doi.org/10.2307/2844013.

———. (1937) 1976. Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic among the Azande. Edited by Eva Gillies. Abridged edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Frayer, Lauren. 2021. “In India, Boy Meets Girl, Proposes — and Gets Accused of Jihad.” National Public Radio, October 10, 2021, sec. World. https://www.npr.org/2021/10/10/1041105988/india-muslim-hindu-interfaith-wedding-conversion.

Gagliardone, Iginio, Matti Pohjonen, Stephanie Diepeveen, and Samuel Olaniran. 2023. “Clones and Zombies: Rethinking Conspiracy Theories and the Digital Public Sphere Through a (Post)-Colonial Perspective.” Information, Communication & Society 26 (12): 2419–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2239890.

Hochschild, Jennifer L., and Katherine Levine Einstein. 2015. “Do Facts Matter? Information and Misinformation in American Politics.” Political Science Quarterly 130 (4): 585–624. https://doi.org/10.1002/polq.12398.

Jorgensen, Dan. 2014. “Preying on Those Close to Home: Witchcraft Violence in a Papua New Guinea Village.” The Australian Journal of Anthropology 25 (3): 267–86. https://doi.org/10.1111/taja.12105.

Kohn, Eduardo. 2007. “How dogs dream: Amazonian natures and the politics of transspecies engagement.” American Ethnologist 34 (1): 3–24. https://doi.org/10.1525/ae.2007.34.1.3.

———. 2015. “Anthropology of Ontologies.” Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (1): 311–27. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-anthro-102214-014127.

Newell, Sasha. 2007. “Pentecostal Witchcraft: Neoliberal Possession and Demonic Discourse in Ivoirian Pentecostal Churches.” Journal of Religion in Africa 37 (4): 461–90. https://doi.org/10.1163/157006607X230517.

Oppenheimer, Mark. 2010. “A Nigerian Witch-Hunter Defends Herself.” The New York Times, May 21, 2010, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/us/22beliefs.html.

Saslow, Eli. 2024. “Racked by Pain and Enraptured by a Right-Wing Miracle Cure.” The New York Times, July 28, 2024, sec. U.S. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/28/us/politics/far-right-miracle-cure-medbed.html.

The Guardian. 2018. “‘It’s the Real Me’: Nigerian President Denies Dying and Being Replaced by Clone,” December 3, 2018, sec. World news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/dec/03/its-real-me-nigerian-president-denies-dying-and-being-replaced-by-clone.

The New York Times. 2016. “Fighting Modern-Day Witch Hunts in India’s Remote Northeast,” February 24, 2016. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/25/world/asia/india-assam-state-witch-hunts.html.

In other words: Cosmology and the translatability of cultural difference