The Sex Thieves: The Anthropology of a Rumor
Julien Bonhomme
The conference and debate with anthropologist Julien Bonhomme was held on Tuesday, May 9th, 2023.
Strangers are accused of stealing or shrinking people’s genitals during ordinary encounters in public spaces: a rumor that leads to violent reactions that can go as far as public lynching of the accused. The sex thieves rumor first appeared in the 70’s in Nigeria, before sporadically spreading for a period of 30 years in about 20 countries in West and Central Africa. In his book The Sex Thieves: The Anthropology of a Rumor, Julien Bonhomme shows how, with the sex thieves rumor, witchcraft stops being a local hearsay and becomes an urban, modern, and transnational rumor.
To understand such a phenomenon, the author sheds light on the very ordinary concerns on which rumor is based. He details the accusations and incidents as well as the various protagonists of “genital theft” cases: the alleged victims, mostly men; the accused, strangers or even foreigners who sometimes confess the theft to avoid public lynching; the crowd within which violent acts can emerge; and local authorities who try to restore public order as quickly as possible and avoid mob justice.
How and why does a rumor spread? Where is it discussed? How is it seen by different people? To explain how rumor appears, spreads, and disappears, the author analyses the mechanics of social communication and cultural transmission. He reveals the polyphonic nature of rumors, which create beliefs, raise doubts, and generate criticism. The anthropologist analyses the role played by the media, which documents the cases and labels them (as mystical events or as a crimes), but also spreads the rumor.
To cite this content :
Julien Bonhomme, “The Sex Thieves: The Anthropology of a Rumor”, 9 mai 2023, URL : https://msf-crash.org/en/conferences-debates/sex-thieves-anthropology-rumor
If you want to criticize or develop this content, you can find us on twitter or directly on our site.
ContributePast events
Conference
Another approach to well-being at work
12/09/2021 - 05:30 PM 07:30 PMThe members of the Crash were very happy to welcome you all to this new conference-debate with occupational psychologists Yves Clot and Jean-Yves Bonnefond, two of the authors of “Le prix du travail bien fait – La coopération conflictuelle dans les organisations” (Paris, La Découverte, 2021 ; co-written with Antoine Bonnemain and Mylène Zittoun).
msf
Conference
Book launch event - Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie
11/17/2021 - 05:30 PM 07:30 PMWe were very happy to welcome two authors of the book: sociologist (CNRS) and Crash scientific committee member Claudine Vidal, and Jean-Hervé Bradol, doctor, former President of the French section of MSF and current director studies at the Crash, for the launching event of the newly-published book “Violences extrêmes. Enquêter, secourir, juger République démocratique du Congo, Rwanda, Syrie” (Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l’homme, Paris 2021). The event was hosted by Rony Brauman.
Conference
Asylum and exile. A history of the distinction between migrants / refugees
04/12/2021 - 04:30 PM 06:30 PMOn April 12 2021 we had the great pleasure of hosting a virtual CRASH conference with political scientist and sociologist Karen Akoka, fresh from her publication in November of “Asylum and Exile. A History of the Refugee/Migrant Distinction" (La Découverte, 2020). The author described and analyzed the trajectory of OFPRA, the French institution founded in 1952 and responsible for granting refugee status; she provided an insight into how the history of the distinction between migrants and refugees was established in France.
Conference
Clinical trials, between science and financial and academic interests
10/08/2020 - 04:00 PM 06:00 PMPierre Chirac, pharmacist and editor of the journal Prescrire, presented his analysis of the pharmaceutical industry's influence strategies and the special interests of university hospital researchers, their consequences on the reliability of drug information and the means now required to rectify a harmful situation.
Conference
The quantification of needs
12/10/2020 - 05:00 PM 07:00 PMCombining historical research and ethnographic investigations, the Africanist historian Joël Glasman plunges us into the factory of the homo humanitarianus, the average individual, on the basis of which "needs" and aid projects today are assessed. This conversation took place on December 10th 2020, during a conference-debate at Crash.
Conference
Territories: the illusion of identity
12/16/2019 - 05:00 PM 07:00 PMConference-debate on Monday 16 December 2019, 6-8pm in the 1st floor meeting room at MSF, 14-34 avenue Jean Jaurès 75019 Paris. Streaming and simultaneous translation into English available.
Can we talk about the specificities of the Middle East, Iran or the Mediterranean without reducing these territories to a culture or religion? On December 16, 2019, the CRASH team organised a conference-debate with Jean-François Bayart, a French political scientist who has devoted his work to the sociology of the State and identity illusions.