Alter(native) Magic

Race and the Other in Beninese Witchcraft

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2145108
AutoresDouglas J Falen (0000-0002-9279-0489, Agnes Scott College, autor correspondente)
Ano2020
Volume30
Fascículo4
Páginas360-376
Data de publicação2020-10-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoAnthropological Forum (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0066-4677 • E-ISSN: 1469-2902
EditoraInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/00664677.2020.1847038
OpenAlexW3113483589
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas4
Referências citadas52

In Benin, as in many postcolonial settings, views of foreign ‘Others’ figure prominently in local discourses about identity and morality. Most of these characterisations centre on whites or other foreigners, known as Yovó in the Fon language of Southern Benin. While Yovós are stereotypically and disapprovingly believed to hold a distaste for African food and culture, they are praised for their production of modern technology, such as airplanes, cell phones, and the internet. These technological innovations are described by Beninese people as fantastic, even magical, and are referred to as ‘White people’s witchcraft’ (Yovó àzě), in contrast to malevolent African occult powers. The racial discourse of good and evil draws on essentialised notions of whites’ and Africans’ knowledge and power, suggesting the maintenance of colonial-era, hegemonic identities. However, formerly colonised people’s interest in foreign customs can demonstrate ambivalence, and Beninese express both pride and criticism for indigenous supernatural powers, while voicing critiques of foreign knowledge systems. Furthermore, entanglements with a powerful Other can reflect local agency, as in Beninese people’s appropriation of European and Asian spiritual traditions in order to co-opt the Other’s power – a power that enterprising healers re-interpret as foreign witchcraft to add to their supernatural arsenals. In these examples, religious borrowings are not always externally imposed examples of cultural imperialism, but rather can be the will of local actors incorporating elements from abroad into conceptualisations of themselves

Aesthetics · Agency (philosophy · Appropriation · Colonialism · Epistemology · Hegemony · Indigenous · MAGIC (telescope · Morality · Political science · Politics · Power (physics · Social science · Sociology · African Studies and Ethnography · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Caribbean and African Literature and Culture · Law · Philosophy