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Abstract:In this study I hope to deconstruct dominant and popular homophobic discourses in Cameroon to offer a deeper analysis of the common association made between homosexuality, witchcraft, and cults. Through a closer engagement with rumors that suggest homosexuality, witches, and cults are working collectively and covertly to destroy Cameroonian society important issues of power, morality, and inequality emerge, providing a more complex understanding of homophobic violence. I argue that in order to address homophobic concerns in Cameroon, activists must contend with the complexity of epistemological differences and speak to the root causes of an emerging ressentiment.

Witchcraft-related violence in Ghana has been the subject of international media attention for decades. In the past few years, increasing interest in the sensational stories of Ghana’s northern witch camps have enthralled readers and elicited furore. While much of this outcry is motivated by concern, it is also greatly misinformed regarding local realities, witchcraft phenomena, and the impact of international interventionism in general, and in Ghana specifically. This paper aims to stress the importance of informed and reflexive engagement with the subject of witchcraft in Ghana and elsewhere. Based in part on my own doctoral research on the subject of witchcraft and witchcraft-related violence in Ghana, this paper stresses the power of language of international actors, looking specifically at the discursive interventions of one non-governmental organization, ActionAid International, that have led the charge against the witch camps in Northern Ghana. This paper concludes that a critical discourse analysis of Action Aid International’s ‘anti-witch camp campaign’ reveals numerous layers of neo-colonial intervention.

AbstractThis article addresses the application of the concept of space to witchcraft in Africa. Throughout colonial history, and still today, efforts to mediate and control witchcraft and witchcraft-related violence have focused on the manipulation of physical spaces, such as villages, shrines and witch camps. While critical theories of space and power are increasingly relevant in a number of fields, the exploration of these concepts may be somewhat limited in their application to witchcraft-related violence and witchcraft as a lived reality in Africa. In this article, the theoretical ability of Western concepts of space to analyze the phenomenon of witchcraft will be considered, looking at the relations of space and power in colonial and postcolonial Africa. This analysis brings into question the modernist foundations of these concepts and explores the role of witchcraft in the governance of Ghanaian and Cameroonian spaces and imaginations.