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The Cosmology of Economy: West African Witchcraft, Finance and the Futures Market

Parish, Jane

Authors



Abstract

In this article, the relationship between cosmology and financial transactions via the sacred and deeply secret discourses of West African traditional priests in Europe is explored, who believe that they can spiritually manipulate the monetary pricing of stocks and shares. Of particular interest is how West African witchcraft discourses, while still embedded in kinship relationships, become symbolically caught up in the economy and in the volatile movement of industrial commodity indexes. In analysing the financial imaginary and constant reconfiguration of the marketplace by different networks of stakeholders, Ghanaian fetish priests allow for a fiscal elasticity and material distorting of monetary flows such that the incoherence and uncertainty of global financial practices and the fictious pricing and purchase of unstable commodities are shaped and magnified through a thick Akan cosmology.

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Dec 6, 2017
Publication Date Mar 1, 2018
Publicly Available Date Mar 28, 2024
Journal Culture and Religion
Print ISSN 1475-5610
Publisher Routledge
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 19
Issue 1
Pages 113-126
DOI https://doi.org/10.1080/14755610.2017.1416646
Keywords Akan cosmology, witchcraft, commodity market, finance
Publisher URL http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14755610.2017.1416646