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Dear all,
Please consider the call for papers for this Developing Areas Research
Group-sponsored session in the Royal Geographical Society-IBG 2014
conference below. Please feel free to forward to anyone who might be
interested who is not on this list:
*Call for papers: RGS-IBG Annual International Conference 2014: *London, 26
th–29th August 2014
*Witchcraft, spiritual beliefs, and the co-production of development
knowledges and practices in the Majority World. *
Convenor: *Tom Smith*, Department of Geography, The University of
Sheffield, [log in to unmask]
*Sponsored by the Developing Areas Research Group (DARG)*
*Session Abstract:*
Traditionally a domain of anthropological study, witchcraft, occult and
spiritual practices in the Majority World have received considerably less
attention from geographers. Yet the continued importance of these
knowledges and practices in Africa and elsewhere prompts this session to
call for discussion over their contemporary role in the co-production of
development knowledges and practices.
Whilst there has been some influential work on the history of magic and
occult thinking in early geographical/scientific thought (Livingstone 1990;
Matless 1991), and the embodied practices of witchcraft in the Minority
World (Rountree 2002), much less consideration has been offered from the
realms of Development Geographies (broadly defined) to the intersections
between witchcraft, occult practices, and spiritual beliefs with
development in the Majority World. Yet these themes seem ripe for
discussion, particularly concerning the nature of rationality, or
rationalities, being applied to contemporary development agendas at a range
of geographic scales. Whilst current thinking on local knowledges
*for*development and local participation
*in* development have done away with privileging knowledges and
technologies from the Minority World, a focus on witchcraft and the occult,
and its role in development practice, might ask more fundamental questions
about the kinds of rationalities, moralities and ethics being applied to
development agendas and goals. In Africa, witchcraft and magical practices
have not receded under the variegated forms of development which have and
continue to operate across a range of national contexts (Kohnert 1996;
Luongo 2010). This should prompt us to consider: What role does witchcraft
and spiritual belief play in contemporary forms of development practice and
knowledge at a range of scales? How do such practices and beliefs intersect
with the current participatory/local knowledges agenda? Do witchcraft and
spiritual beliefs contribute to the co-production of development knowledges
and imaginaries, both locally and nationally?
This session invites contributions which discuss how witchcraft, occult
practices, and spiritual beliefs intersect with the geographies of
development at a range of scales and contexts. This might include the
relationship between such practices and environmental management,
education, rural and urban livelihoods, healthcare and medicine, law,
community organisation, among others, whilst broader theoretical,
conceptual and methodological reflections are also encouraged. I would also
like to invite those from a broad range of disciplinary backgrounds to
participate.
*Please email proposals (title, 250 word abstract) and/or questions to:*
[log in to unmask]
*Deadline for abstracts: 3rd February 2014*
*References: *
Kohnert, D. (1996) Magic and witchcraft: implications for democratisation
and poverty-alleviating aid in Africa, *World Development* 24(8), 1347-1355.
Livingstone, D. N. (1990) Geography, tradition and the scientific
revolution: an interpretive essay, *Transactions of the Institute of
British Geographers* NS: 15(3), 359-373.
Luongo, K. (2010) Polling places and “slow punctured provocation”:
occult-driven cases in postcolonial Kenya’s High Courts, *Journal of East
African Studies* 4(3), 577-591.
Matless, D. (1991) Nature, the modern and the mystic: tales from early
twentieth century geography, *Transactions of the Institute of British
Geographers* NS: 16(3), 272-286.
Rountree, K. (2002) How magic works: New Zealand feminist witches’ theories
of ritual action, *Anthropology of consciousness* 13(1), 42-59.
Best,
Tom
*Dr Thomas Aneurin Smith*
Department of Geography,
The University of Sheffield,
Sheffield, S10 2TN,
United Kingdom
*[log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>*
*http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/smith_tom
<http://www.sheffield.ac.uk/geography/staff/smith_tom>*
*@TomAneurinSmith*
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