Fetishism as social creativity

Originally, the term ‘fetishes’ was used by European merchants to refer to objects employed in West Africa to make and enforce agreements, often between people with almost nothing in common. They thus provide an interesting window on the problem of social creativity - especially since in classic Marxist terms they were surprisingly little fetishized. Starting with an appreciation and critique of William Pietz’s classic work on the subject, and reconsidering classic cases of Tiv spheres of exchange and BaKongo sculpture, this article aims to reimagine African fetishes, and fetishes in general, as ways of creating new social relations.