Creative Destruction and Sorcery of Construction. Power, Hope and Suspicion in Post-War Mozambique

This article addresses the historic transformations occurring in Mozambique over the past decade, including political and economic liberalization, the cessation of armed conflict, and the staging of national elections. Drawing on fieldwork conducted among the predominantly Makonde-speaking communities of the Mueda plateau in the country's northern province of Cabo Delgado, the author argues that recent historical events have been met with ambivalence and suspicion. The article focuses on the use made by Muedans of the interpretive schema of sorcery to navigate what they experience locally as a disorderly new order. The author suggests that the discourses produced and sustained by Muedans in the context of historical change offer a salient critique of modernization and the individuals and institutions which capture its agenda.