Why Did the Soldiers Not Go Home?: Demobilized Combatants, Family Life, and Witchcraft in Postwar Mozambique

Drawing on the role of witchcraft in relationships between ex-RENAMO combatants and their relatives in central Mozambique, this article suggests a different understanding of reintegration processes of ex-combatants, not merely shaped by their role as perpetrators of violence, but situated in the complexities of social life. It is argued that the reintegration of former combatants in Mozambique was shaped by certain changes within family relations, which were contingent to the war (but not necessarily to war violence), creating an enabling environment for witchcraft dynamics, which influenced former combatants’ settlement decisions.