Divination: Epistemology, Agency, and Identity in Contemporary Urban West Africa

Based on fieldwork in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, undertaken in 1997 and 2009, as well as residence in the country in periods that spanned two decades, this study of contemporary urban divination in West Africa shows that it thrives even in the ethnically heterogeneous and religiously plural city. In stark contrast to the stereotypical view that African traditions are unable to offer a viable challenge to the influx of ‘world’ religions and their attendant values of modernity, divination demonstrates their vitality. The practices of divination rest on basic premises so widely shared as to constitute an overarching epistemology, at once trans‐ethnic and authentically West African. By recasting contemporary problems into the familiar idioms of the ‘traditional’ worldview, divination enables practitioners to gain leverage over real and pressing concerns, affirming personal agency. It underscores a communal identity, not dependent on territorial or ethnic affiliation or precarious and contested definitions of citizenship.