Witchcraft as a Social Diagnosis

Roxane Richter is president of World Missions Possible.Thomas Flowers is medical director of World Missions Possible.Elias Kifon Bongmba is the Harry and Hazel Chair in Christian Theology and professor of religion at Rice University.

• 1. History, Tradition, and Religion2. Gnani – Banished to the Witches’ Village3. Medical Concepts of Disease and Illness4. Gnani – Etiology of Diseases and Disorders5. Pathologies of Prejudice in Social Mechanisms6. Facing Forward

This important interdisciplinary study sheds light on African witchcraft as an expression of gender-based and structural violence and human rights abuses. Bongmba, Flowers, and Richter succeed in illuminating processes of negotiation between Western medical and African religious discourses in rural regions in Ghana, and analyze the concept of “witchcraft” and its social dynamics, which discriminates against and excludes women from society. The book provides fundamental insights into the social dynamics of the belief in witchcraft and makes an important contribution to the history of African Religion, Medical History, and Sociology of Religion.