The research on the complex relationships between modernity and globalization has been pointing out the relevance of the study of witchcraft in contemporary Africa.
In postcolonial Mozambique, suspicion and accusations of the practice of witchcraft are an ever-growing concern, as the distinct models of development and modernization have not delivered their promises and therefore have not led to liberation from occult forces. This explains why religion and witchcraft stand as one of the most powerful rhetorics of political culture in Africa. Public rumors depict witchcraft as the most common way to achieve personal success, wealth, and prestige in times of economic shortage and declining social opportunities. In the domestic arena, family and social conflicts repeatedly crystallize around accusations of witchcraft, especially during times of sudden deaths or personal disasters. Permeating the entire social and cultural spectrum, witchcraft stands today as an ambivalent force that helps promote individual and collective accumulation as well as control social differentiation.
Yet, the occult dimension of politics in Africa is often ignored by contemporary political and social studies. This project aims at bringing to attention the symbolic dimensions of these current practices, developed as a discourse of resistance steaming from the exercise of power by forces that are not perceived as legitimate. Therefore, it represents an alternative modernity, forged at the confluence of various knowledges and practices. A preliminary approach suggests that this dimension of politics is not a marginal, but a central dimension of the nature of public authority, leadership, and popular identities in Mozambique. Exploring written sources and the ethnographies of distinct actors, the research seeks to develop a grounded, comparative, and historical exploration of the multiple religious layers of political beliefs, relocating traditional realities and beliefs in ‘other’ modern settings. The research will be conducted under the hypothesis that the shifts and continuities of meanings and cultural reconfigurations of witchcraft in the colonial and postcolonial period will show that the African cultural references, rather than destroyed in the process, are constantly adapted and reconfigured. An in-depth analysis of the relationships among witchcraft, politics and law will shed light on the broader issue of social and cultural innovation in Mozambique. This project also aims at projecting a broader understanding of these phenomena; a public exposure and discussion of these facts will help prevent potentially conflictual situations labeled otherwise as obscure practices, and assisting in the promotion of a better perception on the social and political landscape of conflicts in the country. Finally, the data from the research can help generating new approaches in the struggle for a stronger affirmation of a culture of human rights and interculturality both at a local, national and international context.