Jealousy, witchcraft, and the fragility of success: cultural beliefs, kinship dynamics, and social pressures on African breadwinners

The success and authority of breadwinners in African communities are undermined by the covert but powerful social forces of jealousy and witchcraft beliefs, as this article explores.  In many contexts, the breadwinner, typically the male or female head of the household, is expected to meet social and spiritual demands from family and the community in addition to providing material support.  However, achievement can lead to jealousy or charges of occult meddling, undermining the breadwinner's authority and leadership skills. This work employs a critical interpretive methodology to trace the ways in which family members or peers in the community mobilize narratives of witchcraft (and more generally supernatural causality) against economically successful individuals. It draws on published qualitative ethnographies, historical analyses, and comparative studies from Sub-Saharan Africa. The following are some of the main conclusions: (1) success is unstable and socially contested, claims or hints of “witchcraft” are used as a means of challenging or undermining legitimate authority; (2) jealousy, both overt and covert, is entangled with witchcraft discourses and becomes a socially acceptable way to challenge authority; and (3) family and kin relationships are two-edged: they may provide material support for the breadwinner but also act as a site for suspicion, rivalry, and spiritual challenge.  According to theoretical ramifications, wealth or upward mobility in these situations must be viewed in light of the community's moral, spiritual, and relational orders rather than just in terms of economics. The article makes the case for culturally sensitive interventions that strengthen intra-family communication, acknowledge belief systems, and provide alternative non-occult frameworks for conflict resolution in order to improve policy and social support. Future ethnographic research that could empirically validate these dynamics is indicated by the study.