Witchcraft beliefs and practices in asylum adjudication. Impressions from a legal- anthropological collaboration in the framework of a judicial training

This chapter contributes to the debates on the role of anthropological expertise in legal practice from the point of view of one lawyer and one anthropologist by focusing on how judges approach fear of withcraft beliefs and practices in asylum decisions. It does so in two ways: firstly, by exploring a common range of issues in withcraft-related-violence claims from various jurisdictions, with particular attention to the (non-)use of anthropological expertise. Secondly, by making an argument for spaces of knowledge exchange between judges and anthropologists outside the framework of the actual decision-making in specific cases which is characterized by adversarial relations. To this end we provide insights from our experience of a judicial training as an alternative space for knowledge exchange and joint reflection.