Witchcraft as more-than-human Ontology and Decolonial Practice

A person grinds dry herbs in a mortar. Preparation of a mixture of dried herbs for making tea, medicines, tinctures.

The IAS presents a Research Spotlight for 2026-27, Witchcraft as more-than-human Ontology and Decolonial Practice, which is led by Dr Rachael Grew (SSH) & Dr Anais Carlton-Parada (LUL).

While there is a recent surge in research on witchcraft across multiple disciplines (Chowdhury and Ward, 2025, Mitchell and Venditozzi, 2025, Petherbridge, 2018), and increased exploration of the more-than-human world from a transdisciplinary perspective (Barad 2003, Tallbear 2017), little has been done to bring these two streams together. We see this as a major gap in transdisciplinary praxis that hopes to engage concepts of relationality, towards more sustainable and ecologically sound futures. 

Witchcraft’s intimate relationship with the more-than-human through spell craft, ritual, and everyday practice, as well as its significance as a historically syncretic practice, make it a primary space for exploring novel post-human methodologies and engaging with pluriversalism. Witchcraft is not only an othered onto-epistemology, but a potential means of unsettling colonial hierarchies, capitalist (tech) solutionism, and binarism that dominates a Western one-world ontology. This project therefore builds on calls to bridge theory, for example, across new materialism and Indigenous Knowledge (Rosiek et al 2020). Yet it also challenges established discourse like the separation between Enlightenment era rationality and occultism (Sheedy 2003). In so doing, we will create a community of researchers at the forefront of the re-enchantment turn in posthumanism, fostering a dynamic research dialogue amongst an international group of researchers and practitioners. 

We also propose a need to engage a broader swath of thinkers, including practicing witches, in public space (e.g. Treadwell’s bookshop) and PhD colleagues who may already be engaging in speculative methodologies. This is particularly significant as the figure of the witch continues to be crucial during periods of social and political upheaval (Sempruch, 2008, Kosmina 2023). The aim of the showcase is to sow seeds to develop new future outputs and potential collaborations in this cutting-edge area of research activity.

Featuring confirmed IAS Visiting Fellows - 

Events and Booking Links

This IAS Research Spotlight will take place during the week commencing 21st September 2026. The event programme is currently being finalised, once complete, we will add further details and booking links here.