‘What kind of witchcraft is this?’ Development, magic and spiritual ontologies

This collection represents a significant intervention in the space cohabited by witchcraft, spirit worlds, and development – a realm frequently marginalised by development practice. Through a diverse set of scholarly and methodological orientations, the contributions draw on contrasting case studies...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Smith, T, Murrey, A, Leck, H
Format: Journal article
Published: Routledge 2017
Description
Summary:This collection represents a significant intervention in the space cohabited by witchcraft, spirit worlds, and development – a realm frequently marginalised by development practice. Through a diverse set of scholarly and methodological orientations, the contributions draw on contrasting case studies (spanning the local, national, and borderlands) to explore the current and possible future co-productions of development through various forms of spirituality. They do so with attention to the paradoxes, nuances, and complexities of these intersections. This introduction explores some of the cross-cutting themes arising from these complexities, including: scale; limitations of Euro-dominant conceptualisations of development; Othering of polytheistic, multi-theistic, and non-theistic spiritual ontologies; entanglements of spirituality, politics, and power; and co-productions of new forms of development. We argue that thinking through these various cross-cutting themes provides a multitude of possibilities for decolonising the development project.