ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses what happens when there is an absence of spaces to address a particular harm, namely witchcraft. People understand there to be a failure in the legal-justice terrain, and some turn to vigilantism. There is a disconnect in harm naming as the law rejects the harm of witchcraft and instead subjects witchcraft accusations to legal categories, while other sources of justice do not feel equipped to deal with such a dangerous issue. In this context, popular justice has emerged to fill the void. Despite widespread preference for reconciliation for most everyday harms, acts of witchcraft elicit calls for violence and punishment to protect the community. I argue that this is still a component of emergent hybrid legality because it develops out of the encounter between liberal legalism, which plays a key role in defining witchcraft as outside the purview of state law, and local worldviews, which encompass beliefs in witchcraft and its possible negative side effects.
