Anika Wilson - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Anika Wilson
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2014
ing insecurity dependent for survival on criminal risk-taking in various scams and conjobs. He is... more ing insecurity dependent for survival on criminal risk-taking in various scams and conjobs. He is in time (once “tamed” by the realization that he has to play along or go back empty-handed) recruited into a scam, but is caught at the end of his first day on the job and sent to jail for two years before being repatriated. “That was my France”, he ends his narrative: “the night of walls” (137). This grim tale is offset by Mabanckou’s sardonic humour, by the wry self-knowledge of the disillusioned narrator looking back on this (mis)adventure and by the Congolese author’s charmingly lively and humorous accounts of the maintenance of country customs and sociability in the city, coexisting with the fast life of the would-be smart young set. Blue White Red is a work of social satire, but imbued with as much unspoken compassion as it is tinged with warm humour.
Western Folklore, Jul 1, 2015
An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease. By Jon D. Lee. (Logan, UT: U... more An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease. By Jon D. Lee. (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 219, acknowledgments, introduction, epilogue, index, references. 26.95paper,26.95 paper, 26.95paper,21.00 e-book.)It turns out that epidemics are a laughing matter-and also a matter of conspiracy theory and rumor. In An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stones Shape our Perceptions of Disease folklorist Jon D. Lee sets out to show how perceptions of diseases were formed through the circulation of narratives during the SARS epidemic of 2003, and how these stories affected behavior. More broadly this book describes patterned ways communities tend to respond to the news of emerging diseases. Central to Lee's project is a desire to foster better communication between lay audiences and the expert knowledge disseminators of public health, media, and academic institutions. While such experts may scoff at or dismiss popular narratives about diseases, Lee examines lay beliefs with the "experience-centered approach" (as exemplified by David Hufford) that takes seriously the observations and reasoning skills of ordinary people. Many of the narratives shared among lay observers of epidemics manifest xenophobic fears, and Lee shows that though experts may deride popular rumors they are often partially responsible for propelling problematic messages that exacerbate fear and suspicion.An Epidemic of Rumors begins with a meticulous timeline of the public health sector's, the media's, and (to a lesser extent) the medical research community's responses to SARS as they unfolded between April and July of 2003. Lee relies heavily on media sources to construct the timeline, a strategy that illuminates some processes more than others. The mass media's extraordinary ability to distill information from the scientific community for lay audiences makes them an important go-between. At the same time the media's tendencies to oversimplify, distort information, and inundate the public with sensationalist headlines created the context for public panic and the temporary collapse of the tourist industry in SARS hotspots in Asia and Canada. Thus public health reports are the building blocks of rumor and conspiracy theory spread via news media, internet, and word of mouth.The chapters that follow plunge the reader into the scholarship on and content of folk discourses of disease. Primarily the focus is on rumors and conspiracy theories about the origins and spread of diseases. Lee ranges himself among scholars of folklore and cultural studies (including Diane Goldstein, Patricia Turner, Charles Briggs, and Gary Alan Fine) and shows how SARS rumors borrow heavily from the template of other epidemic rumor cycles. The usual suspects of animal origins or "outsiders" are blamed for spreading the disease. Rumors and jokes about diseases have the power to naturalize the connection between racial categories and particular diseases. …
1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mph... more 1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mphutsi is More Fire' 5. Mgoneko
African Studies Review, Dec 1, 2014
... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassane... more ... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassanelli, and Dan Ben-Amos. This end and this beginning were made possible by your support and guidance. ... So there! Alex and Caitlin, I can't wait to see you again. ...
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Nov 15, 2013
Western Folklore, Apr 1, 2012
INTRODUCTIONIn southern Malawi in 2004, a local research assistant told me the story of a man who... more INTRODUCTIONIn southern Malawi in 2004, a local research assistant told me the story of a man who traveled great distances by magic to get home to his wife every night. According to the story, the woman became pregnant while her husband was in South Africa. His relatives began to question her: How is it that you are pregnant and your husband is far away in South Africa?1 Whose child is this? The woman protested by saying that the child belonged to her husband. She claimed that every night after working in South Africa, he flew back home magically in a witch basket.2 His activities were a secret she was not supposed to talk about. The relatives scoffed and claimed that the woman had cheated on her husband, but the woman said she could prove her husband was visiting her. One night when the husband was home, his wife meddled with his traveling charms to keep him there long enough for his relatives to see him. Though skeptical of her story, his family gathered to catch a glimpse of the husband. When they saw the man, they cried out in wonder. Indeed, she was telling the truth! The husband, upon discovering that he had been sighted, turned on his wife in anger demanding, "Woman, what have you done?" He was unable to return to South Africa again.This article juxtaposes Malawian rumors about two types of medicine: traditional medicine used to promote success in long-distance labor migration vithumwaf and medicine used by women to curtail men's mobility and infidelity (temwanani mankhwala). Male labor migration has been a staple of Malawian strategies for income generation and material accumulation since the end of the nineteenth century. In recent decades, however, formal migration opportunities have declined and the position of Malawian migrants abroad has become increasingly informal and precarious. Men rely upon vithumwa medicine to deal with the dangerous contingencies of migration. According to informal narratives, one of the main risks of mobility is that it causes travelers to forget their families. This risk is multiplied when migrants rely upon travel charms. The physical loss of medicine through forgetfulness, carelessness, or theft is believed to cause family members at home to die. By contrast stories about love potions for controlling men's extramarital mobility warn that an unintended consequence of this medicine is that it renders men totally immobile in male-dominated employment realms. Like the man in the above story, this article asks why a wife would cast a spell that ultimately immobilizes her husband. Why would a labor migrant be compelled to seek magic that allows him to travel great distances in the blink of an eye? What dangers and opportunities lay therein? What oppositional desires threaten to disrupt families and fragile systems of circular labor migration in contemporary Malawi? The answers to these questions provide insights into the gendered nature of mobility, the role of migration in families, and the dubious status of magic for securing reasonable life goals.In this article, I draw on Luise White's interpretive framework for analyzing rumor and gossip in order to contribute to the modernity of witchcraft debates. Studying rumor and gossip, whether in fragments or whole narrative form, is a way to gauge collective anxieties and perceptions of structural tension. This article is divided into five sections: Methods and Theory; Malawian Labor Migration, which presents relevant history; Witch Baskets, where narratives of travel magic are presented and analyzed; Love Potions, where narratives of love medicine are presented and analyzed; and the Discussion section. I argue that ambivalence surrounding the use of travel medicine or love potions is lodged in the fact that what may look like witchcraft closely tracks with normally proportioned desires and a sense of family obligation. It is not excessive desire but rather the extraordinary difficulty of providing for a family that necessitates use of travel medicine. …
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History
The status, rights, and roles of women in Malawi have been in constant flux since at the least th... more The status, rights, and roles of women in Malawi have been in constant flux since at the least the mid-19th century. In the pre-colonial period, principles of matriliny organized social structures within many communities in Malawi, affording women rights to land, property, products of labor, and children, and influence in group decision-making. The mid-19th century ushered in a period of disturbances and social transformations that led to changes in economic, political, religious, and familial practices. Changes in key institutions impacted women’s access to land and their influence in governance. Women in Malawi were excluded from new commercial and political opportunities as long-distance commerce increased in the region. Increasing commodification of people endangered women within intensified trade and military conflict. Patterns of increasing exclusion and endangerment of women continued beyond the mid-19th century after the slave trade was challenged. In the period immediately ...
Folklore, Gender, and Aids in Malawi, 2013
During my first week in the Rumphi District of Malawi, I met Patricia. She and two other women we... more During my first week in the Rumphi District of Malawi, I met Patricia. She and two other women were laughingly commiserating about marital problems as Catherine and I tagged along. Patricia, a woman in her 30s, was complaining about her husband, who had been missing for eleven days. She had heard and believed that he was with his girlfriend in a nearby shantytown. Her friends murmured their sympathy, and we piled into a car and drove to a convenience store, where she continued to complain as we waited in the parking lot for one of the women to emerge from the store. Patricia turned to me, eyes gleaming through the shadows, and said with a laugh, “Marriage is one way to get AIDS. The man—even if he’s fine at first—he changes. Though you don’t move around. He’ll just bring it to you as a gift and you will just receive it—happily—open arms and open legs!” (Wilson fieldnotes, November 27, 2005) We all laughed in that moment, but I could still remember her frustrated tears from the afternoon when the women had gathered around her in her home. That conversation, occurring within the first weeks of my arrival in Malawi, compelled me to ask: What prevention strategies do wives in Malawi employ when they feel at risk of contracting AIDS from their husbands, and what role does the commiseration and counsel of others, especially women, play in devising those tactics?
... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassane... more ... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassanelli, and Dan Ben-Amos. This end and this beginning were made possible by your support and guidance. ... So there! Alex and Caitlin, I can't wait to see you again. ...
As in many places around the world, in Malawi stories about marital conflicts and sex scandals pr... more As in many places around the world, in Malawi stories about marital conflicts and sex scandals provide engaging and entertaining topics of conversation. Despite the universality of the topic, however, these stories are shaped by locally and regionally distinctive concerns, plot structures, imagery, and motifs. Indeed, some stories may be said to fall into patterned narrative genres. Such is the case with accounts in Malawi of a woman fighting another woman about a man with whom both claim a sexually intimate relationship. The woman against woman fight story genre provides a framework not only for recounting such struggles but also for interpreting them. In this chapter, I present narratives of wives challenging sexual rivals as a way to explore the logic and impact of woman -against-woman aggressive strategies, and also interrogate the role that oral narratives play in these dramas.
In 2008 rumors of a new sexually transmitted disease called mphutsi emerged and quickly died away... more In 2008 rumors of a new sexually transmitted disease called mphutsi emerged and quickly died away in Malawi. Though short-lived, stories of mphutsi shed light on evolving attitudes about AIDS in a time when drug treatment is more widely available than ever. In contrast to HIV, which is hidden by a prolonged incubation period and then obscured with medicine, mphutsi provokes both a sense of terror and relief. The ability to easily diagnosis the disease and identify categories of diseased or at risk groups is a rarity in a society where one of the most deadly diseases is generalized and obscured from view. The chapter also confirms the notion put forth by some that HIV/AIDS has been established as a fact of life, a new norm to which societies have adjusted. Furthermore, mphutsi rumors reflect a continuing uneasiness about changes in womens mobility and sexuality as impacted by modernity and outside forces. On one level mphutsi tales function as indictments of mobile women who are...
During the dry, dusty winter of 2008, a rumor caught fire in Malawi but quickly burned out. It wa... more During the dry, dusty winter of 2008, a rumor caught fire in Malawi but quickly burned out. It was said that in the Southern district of Zomba, a new sexually transmitted disease was spreading. This disease, called mphutsi, meaning maggots, reportedly infected the genitals of its victims. Those with the disease would die rapidly—within a week or month—if they were not treated with the liver of a cow. Fear of the disease spread beyond the immediate environs of Zomba, the area believed to be at the epicenter of mphutsi infection. According to rumor, a group of men in the centrally located capital city, Lilongwe, had begun publically shouting at and tearing the clothes off prostitutes there, accusing them of spreading the disease.
Journal of Modern African Studies, 2018
1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mph... more 1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mphutsi is More Fire' 5. Mgoneko
Folklore, Gender, and Aids in Malawi, 2013
It was Spring of 2006 and I was in Northern Malawi taking a break from my round of interviews. I ... more It was Spring of 2006 and I was in Northern Malawi taking a break from my round of interviews. I had been invited to attend a conference for students being held by a Christian student organization in a town about an hour from my research site. I accepted the invitation and sat in the back of a large auditorium filled with hundreds of teenagers and the kind of energy you get only by pulling together so many youthful people. The students were asked to fill out slips of paper with questions or issues they wanted to voice and have answered. One of the organization’s leaders stood on stage with a microphone in hand ready to respond. Some of the questions related to religious perspectives on sexuality. One student wanted to know whether it was proper for women to wear trousers. “It depends,” replied the leader on stage, “on the cultural context.” Another student said that they were concerned about what had taken place in the Ekwendeni Girls Secondary School dormitories. According to media reports, the girls there had recently been attacked in their sleep by a witch or Satanist who through magic had sex with all of them. Was it possible that these girls could be infected with HIV by these magical, sexual predators? I sat with baited breath to hear how he would reassure the students. Instead the man told the student that it was unclear whether someone could be infected in this way. The reason, he said, is that when the young women wake in the morning they find some fluids there so perhaps, as we know HIV is spread through the exchange of fluids, there is some danger there. He moved on from that question after this equivocal response.
Advancing Folkloristics, 2021
African Studies Review, 2014
Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 2014
ing insecurity dependent for survival on criminal risk-taking in various scams and conjobs. He is... more ing insecurity dependent for survival on criminal risk-taking in various scams and conjobs. He is in time (once “tamed” by the realization that he has to play along or go back empty-handed) recruited into a scam, but is caught at the end of his first day on the job and sent to jail for two years before being repatriated. “That was my France”, he ends his narrative: “the night of walls” (137). This grim tale is offset by Mabanckou’s sardonic humour, by the wry self-knowledge of the disillusioned narrator looking back on this (mis)adventure and by the Congolese author’s charmingly lively and humorous accounts of the maintenance of country customs and sociability in the city, coexisting with the fast life of the would-be smart young set. Blue White Red is a work of social satire, but imbued with as much unspoken compassion as it is tinged with warm humour.
Western Folklore, Jul 1, 2015
An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease. By Jon D. Lee. (Logan, UT: U... more An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stories Shape Our Perceptions of Disease. By Jon D. Lee. (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2014. Pp. xi + 219, acknowledgments, introduction, epilogue, index, references. 26.95paper,26.95 paper, 26.95paper,21.00 e-book.)It turns out that epidemics are a laughing matter-and also a matter of conspiracy theory and rumor. In An Epidemic of Rumors: How Stones Shape our Perceptions of Disease folklorist Jon D. Lee sets out to show how perceptions of diseases were formed through the circulation of narratives during the SARS epidemic of 2003, and how these stories affected behavior. More broadly this book describes patterned ways communities tend to respond to the news of emerging diseases. Central to Lee's project is a desire to foster better communication between lay audiences and the expert knowledge disseminators of public health, media, and academic institutions. While such experts may scoff at or dismiss popular narratives about diseases, Lee examines lay beliefs with the "experience-centered approach" (as exemplified by David Hufford) that takes seriously the observations and reasoning skills of ordinary people. Many of the narratives shared among lay observers of epidemics manifest xenophobic fears, and Lee shows that though experts may deride popular rumors they are often partially responsible for propelling problematic messages that exacerbate fear and suspicion.An Epidemic of Rumors begins with a meticulous timeline of the public health sector's, the media's, and (to a lesser extent) the medical research community's responses to SARS as they unfolded between April and July of 2003. Lee relies heavily on media sources to construct the timeline, a strategy that illuminates some processes more than others. The mass media's extraordinary ability to distill information from the scientific community for lay audiences makes them an important go-between. At the same time the media's tendencies to oversimplify, distort information, and inundate the public with sensationalist headlines created the context for public panic and the temporary collapse of the tourist industry in SARS hotspots in Asia and Canada. Thus public health reports are the building blocks of rumor and conspiracy theory spread via news media, internet, and word of mouth.The chapters that follow plunge the reader into the scholarship on and content of folk discourses of disease. Primarily the focus is on rumors and conspiracy theories about the origins and spread of diseases. Lee ranges himself among scholars of folklore and cultural studies (including Diane Goldstein, Patricia Turner, Charles Briggs, and Gary Alan Fine) and shows how SARS rumors borrow heavily from the template of other epidemic rumor cycles. The usual suspects of animal origins or "outsiders" are blamed for spreading the disease. Rumors and jokes about diseases have the power to naturalize the connection between racial categories and particular diseases. …
1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mph... more 1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mphutsi is More Fire' 5. Mgoneko
African Studies Review, Dec 1, 2014
... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassane... more ... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassanelli, and Dan Ben-Amos. This end and this beginning were made possible by your support and guidance. ... So there! Alex and Caitlin, I can't wait to see you again. ...
Palgrave Macmillan eBooks, Nov 15, 2013
Western Folklore, Apr 1, 2012
INTRODUCTIONIn southern Malawi in 2004, a local research assistant told me the story of a man who... more INTRODUCTIONIn southern Malawi in 2004, a local research assistant told me the story of a man who traveled great distances by magic to get home to his wife every night. According to the story, the woman became pregnant while her husband was in South Africa. His relatives began to question her: How is it that you are pregnant and your husband is far away in South Africa?1 Whose child is this? The woman protested by saying that the child belonged to her husband. She claimed that every night after working in South Africa, he flew back home magically in a witch basket.2 His activities were a secret she was not supposed to talk about. The relatives scoffed and claimed that the woman had cheated on her husband, but the woman said she could prove her husband was visiting her. One night when the husband was home, his wife meddled with his traveling charms to keep him there long enough for his relatives to see him. Though skeptical of her story, his family gathered to catch a glimpse of the husband. When they saw the man, they cried out in wonder. Indeed, she was telling the truth! The husband, upon discovering that he had been sighted, turned on his wife in anger demanding, "Woman, what have you done?" He was unable to return to South Africa again.This article juxtaposes Malawian rumors about two types of medicine: traditional medicine used to promote success in long-distance labor migration vithumwaf and medicine used by women to curtail men's mobility and infidelity (temwanani mankhwala). Male labor migration has been a staple of Malawian strategies for income generation and material accumulation since the end of the nineteenth century. In recent decades, however, formal migration opportunities have declined and the position of Malawian migrants abroad has become increasingly informal and precarious. Men rely upon vithumwa medicine to deal with the dangerous contingencies of migration. According to informal narratives, one of the main risks of mobility is that it causes travelers to forget their families. This risk is multiplied when migrants rely upon travel charms. The physical loss of medicine through forgetfulness, carelessness, or theft is believed to cause family members at home to die. By contrast stories about love potions for controlling men's extramarital mobility warn that an unintended consequence of this medicine is that it renders men totally immobile in male-dominated employment realms. Like the man in the above story, this article asks why a wife would cast a spell that ultimately immobilizes her husband. Why would a labor migrant be compelled to seek magic that allows him to travel great distances in the blink of an eye? What dangers and opportunities lay therein? What oppositional desires threaten to disrupt families and fragile systems of circular labor migration in contemporary Malawi? The answers to these questions provide insights into the gendered nature of mobility, the role of migration in families, and the dubious status of magic for securing reasonable life goals.In this article, I draw on Luise White's interpretive framework for analyzing rumor and gossip in order to contribute to the modernity of witchcraft debates. Studying rumor and gossip, whether in fragments or whole narrative form, is a way to gauge collective anxieties and perceptions of structural tension. This article is divided into five sections: Methods and Theory; Malawian Labor Migration, which presents relevant history; Witch Baskets, where narratives of travel magic are presented and analyzed; Love Potions, where narratives of love medicine are presented and analyzed; and the Discussion section. I argue that ambivalence surrounding the use of travel medicine or love potions is lodged in the fact that what may look like witchcraft closely tracks with normally proportioned desires and a sense of family obligation. It is not excessive desire but rather the extraordinary difficulty of providing for a family that necessitates use of travel medicine. …
Oxford Research Encyclopedia of African History
The status, rights, and roles of women in Malawi have been in constant flux since at the least th... more The status, rights, and roles of women in Malawi have been in constant flux since at the least the mid-19th century. In the pre-colonial period, principles of matriliny organized social structures within many communities in Malawi, affording women rights to land, property, products of labor, and children, and influence in group decision-making. The mid-19th century ushered in a period of disturbances and social transformations that led to changes in economic, political, religious, and familial practices. Changes in key institutions impacted women’s access to land and their influence in governance. Women in Malawi were excluded from new commercial and political opportunities as long-distance commerce increased in the region. Increasing commodification of people endangered women within intensified trade and military conflict. Patterns of increasing exclusion and endangerment of women continued beyond the mid-19th century after the slave trade was challenged. In the period immediately ...
Folklore, Gender, and Aids in Malawi, 2013
During my first week in the Rumphi District of Malawi, I met Patricia. She and two other women we... more During my first week in the Rumphi District of Malawi, I met Patricia. She and two other women were laughingly commiserating about marital problems as Catherine and I tagged along. Patricia, a woman in her 30s, was complaining about her husband, who had been missing for eleven days. She had heard and believed that he was with his girlfriend in a nearby shantytown. Her friends murmured their sympathy, and we piled into a car and drove to a convenience store, where she continued to complain as we waited in the parking lot for one of the women to emerge from the store. Patricia turned to me, eyes gleaming through the shadows, and said with a laugh, “Marriage is one way to get AIDS. The man—even if he’s fine at first—he changes. Though you don’t move around. He’ll just bring it to you as a gift and you will just receive it—happily—open arms and open legs!” (Wilson fieldnotes, November 27, 2005) We all laughed in that moment, but I could still remember her frustrated tears from the afternoon when the women had gathered around her in her home. That conversation, occurring within the first weeks of my arrival in Malawi, compelled me to ask: What prevention strategies do wives in Malawi employ when they feel at risk of contracting AIDS from their husbands, and what role does the commiseration and counsel of others, especially women, play in devising those tactics?
... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassane... more ... A give special praise to my dissertation committee: David Hufford, Susan Watkins, Lee Cassanelli, and Dan Ben-Amos. This end and this beginning were made possible by your support and guidance. ... So there! Alex and Caitlin, I can't wait to see you again. ...
As in many places around the world, in Malawi stories about marital conflicts and sex scandals pr... more As in many places around the world, in Malawi stories about marital conflicts and sex scandals provide engaging and entertaining topics of conversation. Despite the universality of the topic, however, these stories are shaped by locally and regionally distinctive concerns, plot structures, imagery, and motifs. Indeed, some stories may be said to fall into patterned narrative genres. Such is the case with accounts in Malawi of a woman fighting another woman about a man with whom both claim a sexually intimate relationship. The woman against woman fight story genre provides a framework not only for recounting such struggles but also for interpreting them. In this chapter, I present narratives of wives challenging sexual rivals as a way to explore the logic and impact of woman -against-woman aggressive strategies, and also interrogate the role that oral narratives play in these dramas.
In 2008 rumors of a new sexually transmitted disease called mphutsi emerged and quickly died away... more In 2008 rumors of a new sexually transmitted disease called mphutsi emerged and quickly died away in Malawi. Though short-lived, stories of mphutsi shed light on evolving attitudes about AIDS in a time when drug treatment is more widely available than ever. In contrast to HIV, which is hidden by a prolonged incubation period and then obscured with medicine, mphutsi provokes both a sense of terror and relief. The ability to easily diagnosis the disease and identify categories of diseased or at risk groups is a rarity in a society where one of the most deadly diseases is generalized and obscured from view. The chapter also confirms the notion put forth by some that HIV/AIDS has been established as a fact of life, a new norm to which societies have adjusted. Furthermore, mphutsi rumors reflect a continuing uneasiness about changes in womens mobility and sexuality as impacted by modernity and outside forces. On one level mphutsi tales function as indictments of mobile women who are...
During the dry, dusty winter of 2008, a rumor caught fire in Malawi but quickly burned out. It wa... more During the dry, dusty winter of 2008, a rumor caught fire in Malawi but quickly burned out. It was said that in the Southern district of Zomba, a new sexually transmitted disease was spreading. This disease, called mphutsi, meaning maggots, reportedly infected the genitals of its victims. Those with the disease would die rapidly—within a week or month—if they were not treated with the liver of a cow. Fear of the disease spread beyond the immediate environs of Zomba, the area believed to be at the epicenter of mphutsi infection. According to rumor, a group of men in the centrally located capital city, Lilongwe, had begun publically shouting at and tearing the clothes off prostitutes there, accusing them of spreading the disease.
Journal of Modern African Studies, 2018
1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mph... more 1. Introduction 2. Advice is Good Medicine 3. Funny, Yet Sorrowful 4. 'Nobody Fears AIDS, Mphutsi is More Fire' 5. Mgoneko
Folklore, Gender, and Aids in Malawi, 2013
It was Spring of 2006 and I was in Northern Malawi taking a break from my round of interviews. I ... more It was Spring of 2006 and I was in Northern Malawi taking a break from my round of interviews. I had been invited to attend a conference for students being held by a Christian student organization in a town about an hour from my research site. I accepted the invitation and sat in the back of a large auditorium filled with hundreds of teenagers and the kind of energy you get only by pulling together so many youthful people. The students were asked to fill out slips of paper with questions or issues they wanted to voice and have answered. One of the organization’s leaders stood on stage with a microphone in hand ready to respond. Some of the questions related to religious perspectives on sexuality. One student wanted to know whether it was proper for women to wear trousers. “It depends,” replied the leader on stage, “on the cultural context.” Another student said that they were concerned about what had taken place in the Ekwendeni Girls Secondary School dormitories. According to media reports, the girls there had recently been attacked in their sleep by a witch or Satanist who through magic had sex with all of them. Was it possible that these girls could be infected with HIV by these magical, sexual predators? I sat with baited breath to hear how he would reassure the students. Instead the man told the student that it was unclear whether someone could be infected in this way. The reason, he said, is that when the young women wake in the morning they find some fluids there so perhaps, as we know HIV is spread through the exchange of fluids, there is some danger there. He moved on from that question after this equivocal response.
Advancing Folkloristics, 2021
African Studies Review, 2014