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.
