Hexerei, Selbstjustiz und Rechtspluralismus in Benin

The paper analyzes a witchcraft case in rural Benin: a man, accused of having acted as a witch, was firstly violently evicted from his village, and later on slain. Although state adminstrators and the traditional chief of the village tried to solve the conflict and to protect the man from violent self-justice, the act of violence could not be hindered. The paper attempts to to make the events plausible, thematizing the weakness of state and traditional institutions vis-a-vis self-justice. It is argued that the frequently-observed partial retreat of state power at the local lewel, after the democratisation of Benin 1989/90 is partly responsible for the increase of cases of self-justice. This article concludes that analyses of the state from local-level perspective often underestimate the potential of self-justice and violence of "civil society". It is argued that the violence is not arbitrary, but takes place within limits set by the state.