Provincializing European Witchcraft: Thoughts on Peter Geschiere’s Latest Synthesis

This review essay offers a reaction to Peter Geschiere’s Witchcraft, Intimacy and Trust. Geschiere’s book argues hat witchcraft is essentially about the paradox that the group of people with whom we are most intimate (neighbors and kin) has, by virtue of its intimacy, tremendous power and a potentially dangerous hold over us. The remedy for this paradox is trust; when trust fails, witchcraft appears. While Geschiere’s study is primarily grounded in African witchcraft, the present essay considers the possibilities these ideas may hold for the study of witchcraft phenomena on a global scale, both historically and sociology, in other parts of the world, and especially for those who focus on Western Europe