From the body to the wallet: conceptualizing Akan witchcraft at home and abroad

This article focuses on the way that Akan witchcraft invokes imagery of new forms of modernity, especially a feature of the post-colonial monetary economy, the credit card. Credit card spending encodes relations within a technological monetary network, and it affects personal relations at home and abroad. The article is based on fieldwork carried out in 1990-1 at anti-witchcraft shrines in the Brong-Ahafo region of Ghana. It looks at young entrepreneurs who work in the large commercial cities, and who visit shrines in the Dormaa-Ahenkro district in order to buy protection from witchcraft. These young businessmen distinguish between two types of witchcraft and explain how a witch at home, as opposed to a witch abroad, does not have the business acumen or technological knowledge to harm their finances.