Casting the Self: Exploring the shifting identities, communities and values of witches in contemporary Britain

Against the backdrop of a resurgence in the popularity of witchcraft over the last two decades, this thesis presents rich data that explores the identities, communities and values of women who identify as witches in contemporary Britain (Aloi, 2019). Building on ideas of ‘occulture’, and sociological work on holistic milieu spiritualities, this research offers novel insights into the formation, maintenance and resourcing of witch identities by drawing on rich semi-structured interviews and participant directed photo elicitation conducted with18 women who identify as witches in the UK (Partridge, 2004; Heelas and Woodhead, 2005). Firstly, it explores witch identities across the lifecourse, identifying patterns of disengagement and reengagement with witch identities during ‘emerging adulthood’ and detailing the social pressures that resource this, before outlining the reformation of these witch identities in more established adulthood (Arnett, 2007; Schwartz et al., 2013).
It then moves to discussion of witchcraft communities, charting recent changes brought about through the popularisation of ‘WitchTok’, and offering novel insights into the drift away from Wicca and toward personalised, eclectic forms of witchcraft practice. This thesis offers new insight into ‘bricolage’ as a process, illuminating the ways in which spiritual practices are drawn on in accordance with particular moral stances.
Finally, this research contributes novel insights into how contemporary witches narrativize the past in order to relate themselves to the victims of the witch trials and ideas of a pre-Christian witch. It explores critical positions within existing scholarship, that being to do with ideas of the primacy of historical record as well as feminist critique of these processes, as well as critique emerging from and within the community. Concepts of empowerment, resistance and feminism are explored through a broader discussion of the ethical stances participants relayed.
The central argument is that contemporary witches display and navigate witch identities that go beyond the existing binary classifications of them as either ‘eco feminist activists’ or ‘neoliberal consumers’, practising an ethics of care that begins with the healing and empowerment of the self, but can then be expanded more widely to encompass social or environmental causes.