When the state constructs the witch: Stigma and power in women’s TRRC testimonies from 2008-2009 in The Gambia

Women’s testimonies before The Gambia’s Truth, Reconciliation and Reparations Commission (TRRC) provide insight into how the 2008-2009 witch hunts were experienced and narrated as gendered state violence during former president Yahya Jammeh’s rule. The aim of this thesis is to analyse how women describe their lived experiences of witchcraft accusation, how they articulate state responsibility, and how stigma and disciplinary power are constructed in their testimonies. Methodologically, the study is based on women’s TRRC testimonies and applies critical discourse analysis, using Fairclough’s (1992/2014) three-dimensional framework of text, discursive practice, and social practice. The theoretical framework draws on Foucault’s (1975/1977) concepts of disciplinary and sovereign power, together with stigma theory developed by Goffman (1963/2021) and Link and Phelan (2001). The findings indicate that women narrated the witch hunts as experiences marked by forced removal, public accusation, coerced ingestion of concoctions, bodily humiliation, illness, fear, and long-term consequences for health, work, and everyday life. Their testimonies further situate this violence to state authority, referring to Yahya Jammeh, state-linked actors, threats, prepared lists, and practices of enforced compliance. Furthermore, the label “witch” is constructed as a stigmatizing classification that produced shame, damaged reputations, family distress, social avoidance, and exclusion after the immediate violence had ended. Ultimately, the thesis concludes that the Gambian witch hunts should be understood not as isolated cultural accusations, but as gendered human rights violations shaped by state power, disciplinary classification, and social stigma.