Sorcellerie et modernité. Les enjeux des nouveaux procès de sorcellerie au Cameroun

Witchcraft and Modernity. The Stakes of the New Witchcraft Trials in Cameroon. P. Geschiere. Since 1980, State courts in the East Province of Cameroon began to convict "witches ", mostly on the basis of the testimonies of "witch-doctors ", whose "expertise " thus receives official recognition. Such direct interventions by the State in witchcraft affairs are not exceptional in post-colonial Africa; they reflect a general obsession with a supposed proliferation of "witchcraft". Striking is that "witchcraft" becomes an overriding issue precisely in the more modern sectors of society. A comparison with historical studies of witchcraft trials in early Modern Europe is of interest because in these studies as well the relation between "witchcraft" and "modernity" is a central, albeit highly differently interpreted, issue. Of special relevance is Michel de Certeau's insistence that the witches, as much as the magistrates who convict them, are part and parcel of the modern changes. In Africa as well, witchcraft is not to be studied as a relief of a tradition that will disappear with "modernisation". It is rather modernity itself, its dreams and practices, that seems to reproduce the witchcraft imaginary on an unprecedented scale. Witchcraft trials offer a concrete setting to locale the intermediares that play a key role in this. The African examples, like the Italian "micro-historians", emphasize the role of seemingly subaltern actors in the crystallization of the modern changes: the nganga (witch-doctors) — more than the State and its representatives —figure as key actors in this modern reproduction of witchcraft discourses.Geschiere Peter. Sorcellerie et modernité. Les enjeux des nouveaux procès de sorcellerie au Cameroun. In: Annales. Histoire, Sciences Sociales. 53ᵉ année, N. 6, 1998. pp. 1251-1279