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Witchcraft, Violence and Mediation in Africa: a Comparative Study of Ghana and Cameroon Shelagh Roxburgh Thesis Submitted To

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Witchcraft, Violence and Mediation in Africa: a Comparative Study of Ghana and Cameroon Shelagh Roxburgh Thesis Submitted To Witchcraft, Violence and Mediation in Africa: A comparative study of Ghana and Cameroon Shelagh Roxburgh Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Doctorate in Philosophy degree in Political Studies School of Political Studies Faculty of Social Sciences University of Ottawa ©Shelagh Roxburgh, Ottawa, Canada, 2014 Table of Contents Chapter 1 – Introduction: Waking from the Fantasy of Western Reality 1 Chapter 2 – Theories of the Unknown: The usual work of political science and witchcraft 38 Chapter 3 – Into the World of Witches: A method for studying witchcraft 69 Chapter 4 – Witches on the Road to Power: Witchcraft and the state in Africa 97 Chapter 5 – Empowering Witches and the West: NGOs and Witchcraft Intervention 131 Chapter 6 – Prayer is the Only Protection: Religious Organizations and Witchcraft 163 Chapter 7 – Accessing the Invisible World: The shared origins of Traditional Authorities and Witches 186 Chapter 8 – Flying by Night: Looking for Answers in the Dark 207 References 217 ii Abstract This thesis explores the question of how witchcraft-related violence may be best addressed through the discipline of political science. This comparative analysis seeks to investigate the effectiveness of four actors mediation efforts: the state, religious organizations, NGOs and traditional authorities. Based on an extensive inter-disciplinary literature review and fieldwork conducted in Ghana and Cameroon, this thesis views witchcraft as a form of power and through this analysis presents two inter-related conclusions. The first conclusions argues that no actor is currently able to successfully address witchcraft-related violence or reduce the sense of spiritual insecurity which is associated with violence due to logical constraints. This is seen primarily in the inability of the state, many religions and NGOs to acknowledge the reality of witchcraft or address experiences of witchcraft which reflect the needs of those seeking redress. Where actors may share these experiences or reality, as in the case of traditional authorities, their ability is often seen as being limited by or in conflict with other actors. The second conclusion addresses this conflict by framing the logics of witchcraft and contemporary liberalism, seen in the state and NGO interventions, as a site of contention and debate; one which not only affects witchcraft-related violence in West Africa, but which also contributes to the construction of this phenomenon in academia and international discourse. I would like to thank my supervisor Stephen Brown for his unending patience and support. I would also like to recognize Erika Kirkpatrick, Aline Korban, Jade Rox, Paul London and Liam Brown for enduring this obsession. I would like to thank my committee members, the International Development Research Centre, the Presbyterian Church of Ghana and the University of Yaounde II for making this work possible. And most importantly, I would like to thank Susan Thomson for the initial vote of confidence that launched this ship. This work was carried out with the aid of a grant from the International Development Research Centre, Ottawa, Canada. Information on the Centre is available on the web at www.idrc.ca. iii Chapter One – Introduction: Waking from the Fantasy of Western Reality I was living in South La, a neighbourhood in Accra, Ghana, only feet away from the Gulf of Guinea. From my bedroom window, through steel bars and over a white wall topped with shards of green glass, broken beer bottles laid into the concrete, I could see the ocean. Behind the wall of the compound was a soccer field, dusty and pock marked, beyond that, a line of small houses, five of them, built out of recycled materials. From there, the shore fell steeply, at least five feet, onto a thin line of beach where refuse from the ocean rolled in and remained in long arcs. I rarely walked on the beach, a bit weary of the drove of pigs which could be found snuffling and snorting through the piles of waste. This day I was walking on the beach looking for sea dollars or shells, something to bring home and decorate with. As I walked I noticed children playing on the beach, working on cartwheels and throwing stones into the waves. For the first time it struck me that I had not yet seen a child playing with sea shells or searching the sand as I was for a perfect, unbroken shell. After returning home to the compound where I lived, I asked a friend why these small marvels were ignored. I was immediately corrected. They aren't ignored, I was told, they are avoided. Sea shells are known to have contained curses and it may be that some still contain remnants of witchcraft. Children know from a young age to avoid sea shells at all cost. The subject of witchcraft had always been on the periphery of my life and interests, from fairy tales to movies, TV and the adolescent phase of occult dabbling. However it had never become a consuming reality until I lived and worked in Osu, Accra, in 2008. A few months into my eight-month internship with the NGO HelpAge Ghana, I arrived at work to find the office in a tense silence around the radio. Isaac1, the driver, Rebekah, the secretary, and Isaiah, the other project officer, were listening intently to the report as I approached. Unable to decipher the shouts and static, I asked for a summary of events so far. Isaiah pulled himself away from the yelling to explain: A man had been found to be cheating on his wife, who, in retaliation, went to a fetish priest and had the husband cursed and turned into a woman. The man was currently in a taxi at Danquah circle on his way to the hospital to be surgically returned to his proper manhood. Intrigued, I drew a chair over and joined the huddle. However, after an hour of listening to the call-in reports of the people who were swarming the circle, hoping to glimpse the man/woman in what was now full and growing gridlock, consisting of details such as whether or not braids could be seen through the rear window (conflicting calls came in) and which taxi number people thought it was (unclear), I became less interested and hoped to get the day started. Unfortunately, the project I was working on required Isaiah's assistance. In trying to persuade him to move away from the radio, I was expressing a scepticism that was expected. Isaiah took me aside and explained that “things like this happen here”, I had to be understanding. After five hours of waiting in the office, the accounts becoming less detailed and in my view, less credible, I left the office in a huff. If I wasn't going to work here, I might as well go home and get something else done. I began walking back through Osu towards South La, passing first the open market next door to my office. I looked over the low wall and noticed the mountains of tomatoes unattended, wooden stalls piled and alone. Where was everyone? I walked into the covered central area and found a crowd around the loudest radio. I walked further to the main road, which was nearly empty. A few taxis were on the side, doors open and radios blaring. All the way home, people could only be found in small groups, listening and discussing the event of the day. The city, as far as I could tell, had ground to a halt. I arrived at my compound and for the first time in my life felt truly lost, unattached, isolated, 1 I have used pseudonyms for these former co-workers. 1 singular and alone. This was not the first time I had encountered witchcraft in my work. Just a week earlier I had conducted a program evaluation survey with every Adopt-A-Gran recipient and met a bedridden and blind woman who had not been receiving her arranged meals. It took a few days to find the delivery boy who admitted that he was too afraid to bring the woman food because he thought she was a witch. In a few weeks' time, I would be travelling to the Northern Region to conduct an assessment of the witch camps2 there. But somehow, this was just the work I was there to do; I hadn't reflected critically on myself, my role there and more ultimately, my complete disconnect from the reality being lived around me. I was completely unprepared. I had left Ottawa two weeks after being offered the position with HelpAge Ghana during an interview for a posting with HelpAge Canada. I had hoped to be working with isolated seniors in my own community, but without even thinking had jumped at the opportunity to work overseas. Before I left, I was aware of some of the witchcraft stories that had made international news over the years. When I was thirteen I read a report on the witch camps at my aunt and uncle's house in Thunder Bay. During my undergraduate studies at Concordia, I read Adam Ashforth's Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa and was enthralled but allowed other work and interests to slowly crowd it out. Even the experiences throughout my life; being given a tarot deck as a child (which I had with me in my room in South La); going to the psychic fair with my foster parents to have my past lives read; having friends who practised Wicca; and myself from a young age, being drawn to symbol and ritual and constructing little altars all over our apartment; nothing had prepared me for this.
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