Sociology Commons^™

Appropriation Of The ‘Witch’ Stigma As White Women's Self-Empowerment, Anna S. Rogers

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation uses a grounded theory perspective to uncover the process of white women who find self-empowerment in the appropriation of historically stigmatized identities and rhetoric surrounding a self-described witch identity. The sample in this study included 13 white women who self-identified as witches across varying socioeconomic and geographical lines. The four main research questions that guide this research study are: 1) what sociologically relevant factors lead women choosing to self-identify as a witch?; 2) what components does the process of choosing to identify as a witch entail?; 3) what meanings do self-identified witches attach to their and others’ depictions …