Becoming a Sakawa Boy: Magic and Modernity in Ghana

Abstract

Sakawa boys are young internet scammers in Ghana who believe “juju” or magic helps to manipulate their victims into giving them large sums of money. Sakawa boys are recruited primarily from the urban poor and their principal targets are Westerners via the internet. Economic insecurity and entrenched poverty resulting from government corruption, as well as neocolonial global development initiatives, all contribute to a setting where occult economies thrive. The promise of great wealth to be gained through occult sits alongside fear that “juju” turns its users into zombies and can ultimately lead to death. This paper explores the structure and logic of poverty that makes becoming a Sakawa boy ..