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

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. InBewitching 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 developmentgreater wealth for some, dashed hopes for many morefoster moral debates that Taita people express in occult terms. By carefully chronicling the beliefs and actions of this diverse communityfrom frustrated youths to nostalgic seniors, duplicitous preachers to thought-provoking witch doctorsBewitchingDevelopmentvividly depicts the social life of formerly foreign ideas and practices in postcolonial Africa.

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