Event overview
The control of witchcraft was essential to everyday life in eastern Zimbabwe in the late nineteenth century. Witchcraft was a form of malice that undermined good relationships between people. Recognised systems existed for distinguishing serious witchcraft accusations from trivial ones, and there were well-established procedures for trying the serious accusations and dealing with the problems that these created.
When white invaders occupied the region in the last decade of the nineteenth century, their rationalist ideologies led them to outlaw these established procedures. The practice of witchcraft control was driven undergound and the transmission of knowledge about due process was disrupted.
Using techniques drawn from anthropology and literary theory, this paper traces the transformations of witchcraft control across a century of prohibition. It suggests that the banning of indigenous systems for controlling witchcraft had long-term consequences for Zimbabwe, influencing the nature of both human rights abuses in the liberation war of the 1970s and the political violence of the 2000s.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 24 Feb 2016 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
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