ABSTRACT
Scholarly studies of witchcraft follow a historical trajectory. Part 4 lays out some of those histories and theories from the British anthropology tradition that influenced the way Indian witchcraft and witch-hunting has been understood. The work of E.E. Evans-Pritchard, the ‘father of witchcraft studies’, shaped anthropological traditions for over half a century. Beginning in the 1980s there was a shift away from Evans-Pritchard’s legacy to examine witches with new methods and different theoretical perspectives. This part charts these global shifts over time from a ‘single story of witchcraft’ to understanding the social heterogeneity of witches and accusations. Indian scholarship has yet to embrace this shifting theoretical landscape and, by and large, remains stuck in a ‘single story’ of Indian witchcraft as a symptom of tribal custom and patriarchal order.
