The kingdom, the witch, and the general

Abstract

In Western Equatoria, South Sudan, witchcraft accusations enable a narrativization of the material processes of predation that undergird the state, in a sphere adjacent to that of formal politics. These accusations critique the political economy of the South Sudanese state, but only at the cost of domesticating and individualizing critique, such that it plays out in the intimate sphere, without reference to state forces. Witchcraft accusations offer the possibility of explaining uncertainty, but on the condition that contingency can only be resolved in relation to intimate social relations, and not to the structural conditions that produce it.