Bewitching Development: Witchcraft and the Reinvention of Development in Neoliberal Kenya

Description: These days, development inspires scant trust in the West. For critics who condemn centralized efforts to plan African societies as latter day imperialism, such plans too closely reflect their roots in colonial rule and neoliberal economics. But proponents of this pessimistic view often ignore how significant this concept has become for Africans themselves. In Bewitching Development, James Howard Smith presents a close ethnographic account of how people in the Taita Hills of Kenya have appropriated and made sense of development thought and practice, focusing on the complex ways that development connects with changing understandings of witchcraft.

Similar to magic, development's promise of a better world elicits both hope and suspicion from Wataita. Smith shows that the unforeseen changes wrought by development--greater wealth for some, dashed hopes for many more--foster moral debates that Taita people express in occult terms. By carefully chronicling the beliefs and actions of this diverse community--from frustrated youths to nostalgic seniors, duplicitous preachers to thought-provoking witch doctors--BewitchingDevelopment vividly depicts the social life of formerly foreign ideas and practices in postcolonial Africa.

Brief description: James Howard Smith is assistant professor of anthropology at the University of California, Davis.

Review Quotes:

"Bewitching Development offers a challenging approach to the issue of development and its relationship with witchcraft. In people's perceptions they are as opposed as for outside experts--yet in daily practice they become intertwined in intriguing ways. In analyzing this shifting balance of opposition and interaction Smith succeeds in opening up new perspectives on both development and witchcraft. His innovative interpretations will have a profound influence on ongoing debates since they touch upon urgent issues--the ambivalent appropriation of development from below, marked by the continuing dynamics of ideas about the occult."