Witch Talk: Redirected Trauma Responses to State Violence in the Dominican Republic

In Batey Liberty, a sugarcane settlement located in the northwest region of the Dominican Republic, community conversations about witches abound. The witch is perceived as a corporeal and ephemeral figure that transcends dimensions of time and space. Residents of Batey Libertad differently articulate their relationship to varied iterations of the witch, which in turn inform their everyday lives. This article interrogates what I call “witch talk” to draw attention to the correlation between disclosures of witch encounters and specific occurrences of state violence through the act of immigration raids. It argues that the discourse surrounding the witch is a trauma response to the ongoing and increasing persecution of people of Haitian descent in the Dominican Republic. An analysis of witch talk reveals that the witch is a proxy for the unnamed state. However, a reorientated examination of the witch offers decolonial possibilities for what her presence could signify.