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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]