Going superstitious and blaming the invisible “other”: a linguistic appraisal of social media posts on “village people”

Abstract

In this study, we explore how superstitions and blame are weaved in the linguistic con structions and representations of “village people”, the infamous mystic villains. Using Cultural Discourse Analysis (CuDA), we examine selected social media tweets and posts in which netizens deployed a mix of linguistic humour, the traditional African belief sys tem, and quasi-religious sensibilities to project the irrational belief in supernatural infl u ences of village people. We show how discursive conceptualisations such as evilifi ca tion, enemifi cation, remote controlling and monitoring are used superstitiously to blame the imaginary “village people” for individual and personal adversities of the unfortunates. This article underscores how peculiar Nigerian socio-religiosity and shared socio-cultural background shape the instantiations of fear and the institution of potency of vicious su pernatural powers.