Witch Hunts
Culture, Patriarchy and Structural Transformation

A study of human rights violation of women and its correction through changes in beliefs, practices and adaptation in structural transformation.

Govind Kelkar (Author), Dev Nathan (Author)

9781108490511, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 29 October 2020

284 pages
23.6 x 16 x 2.1 cm, 0.51 kg

'Based on field work data on India and drawing on voluminous body of works on witchcraft and witch hunt across geography and history beyond continents and across disciplines and perspectives, Govind Kelkar and Dev Nathan lay bare general principles that produce, reinforce and weaken witch hunts in societies. This they do by brilliant engagement with three critical factors of witchcraft belief, gender struggle and socio-economic transformation by combining the lens of political economy with cultural analysis. Large in canvas, comparative in perspective and refreshing in analysis, the book will enrich anyone interested in issues of gender, witch hunts, socio-economic transformation, political economy and indigenous peoples.' Virginius Xaxa, former Professor of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics

Witch hunts are the result of gendered, cultural and socioeconomic struggles over acute structural, economic and social transformations in both the formation of gendered class societies and that of patriarchal capitalism. This book combines political economy with gender and cultural analysis to explain the articulation of cultural beliefs about women as causing harm, and struggles over patriarchy in periods of structural economic transformation. It brings in field data from India and South-East Asia and incorporates a large body of works on witch hunts across geographies and histories. Witch Hunts is a scholarly analysis of the human rights violation of women and its correction through changes in beliefs, knowledge practices and adaptation in structural transformation.

Acknowledgements
1. Introduction
Part I. Culture: 2. Culture and the epistemology of belief in witchcraft
Part II. Witch Hunts in India: 3. Witch persecutions and resistance in India
4. Factors in witch hunts
Part III. Patriarchy: 5. The connected history of patriarchy and witch hunts
6. Creating patriarchy
7. Witch hunting as women hunting in early modern Europe
Part IV. Capitalist Transformations: 8. Accumulation, dispossession and persecution
9. Witch hunts in development: policy and practice
Part V. Conclusions: 10. Articulations
11. Policies for ending witch hunts
References
Glossary
Index.

Subject Areas: Sociology: customs & traditions [JHBT], Social theory [JHBA], Sociology [JHB], Sociology & anthropology [JH], Violence in society [JFFE], Social issues & processes [JFF], Cultural studies [JFC], Society & culture: general [JF]