A Matter of Time: Spirit Possession and the Temporalities of School in Niger

In Niger, mass possession incidents among schoolgirls have increased over the past decade, with vengeful spirits voicing grievances tied to women's education. During exorcisms, spirits recount losing their homes when trees were cut to build schools, reflecting a sacred landscape disrupted by farmland expansion, private property, and urban growth. This essay examines narratives of loss, displacement, and appropriation, arguing that possession events serve as temporal tactics—subversive ways to retrieve forgotten histories and reframe the present and future in relation to an evolving past. Schools become sites for historical reckoning, where memory work challenges dominant accounts.

Study at a glance

Abstract

Abstract:The past decade has witnessed a proliferation of incidents of mass possession among schoolgirls in Niger. Possession by revengeful spirits dramatizes the controversies surrounding women's education. During exorcism, possessing spirits speak of the homes they lost when trees were cut to build schools. Spirits were part of a sacred topography disrupted by the transformation of bushland into farmland, the shift toward individual property, and urban expansion. This essay centers on narratives of loss, displacement, subjection, and appropriation and the claims to knowledge about the past that these narratives authorize. By focusing on schools as staging grounds for historical reckoning, I consider how the possession of schoolgirls by vindictive spirits and the memory work sparked by these unsettling events constitute temporal tactics—subversive modes of unfolding time so as to retrieve forgotten histories while also reframing the present (and, by implication, the future) in relation to a past that continues to evolve.