Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth: Inequality and the Popular Imagination in Southeastern Nigeria | Zendy

Smith Daniel Jordan | Zendy

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Ritual Killing, 419, and Fast Wealth: Inequality and the Popular Imagination in Southeastern Nigeria

Author(s) -

Smith Daniel Jordan

Publication year - 2001

Publication title -

american ethnologist

Language(s) - English

Resource type - Journals

SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875

H-Index - 78

eISSN - 1548-1425

pISSN - 0094-0496

DOI - 10.1525/ae.2001.28.4.803

Subject(s) - ambivalence , nigerians , inequality , context (archaeology) , power (physics) , sociology , gender studies , aesthetics , history , political science , art , social psychology , psychology , law , mathematical analysis , physics , mathematics , archaeology , quantum mechanics

In this article, I situate a seemingly fantastic series of events in Nigeria in a context that renders them meaningful and acknowledges their intimate connection to everyday issues of wealth, power, and inequality. Focusing on popular stories of the occult circulating in the wake of a widely publicized case of ritual killing, I argue that these stories depict popular discontent over inequality, but also Nigerians' ambivalence about and critical awareness of their own role in maintaining patron‐clientism. [Nigeria, patronage, inequality, witchcraft]

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