How States and Institutions Confront Witchcraft (original) (raw)
Related papers
2019
The analysis of African occult belief systems provides a unique example for demonstrating that seemingly outdated and exotic African modes of thought, such as the belief in magic and witchcraft, are modern and have significant impact on social, economic and political structures. Official approaches, designed to cope with the problems of witchcraft violence in Africa, have since the advent of colonial rule been based on eurocentric views and colonial jurisdiction, legitimised by Western social science. These answers are inadequate; in fact, they constitute part of the problem itself. African religions could provide a framework for valuable indigenous solutions to actual problems of contemporary life, including the problem of witchcraft violence. Besides, they might, under certain conditions, provide the outside world with an inspiring new dimension of philosophic thought and emancipative action, for example, within the realm of conflict resolution and reconciliation. However, even in...
Witchcraft and Statecraft: Liberal Democracy in Africa
96 Georgetown Law Journal 183 (2007)This Article addresses the prospects of liberal democracy in non-Western societies. It focuses on South Africa, one of the newest and most admired liberal democracies, and in particular on its efforts to recognize indigenous African traditions surrounding witchcraft and related occult practices. In 2004, Parliament passed a law that purports to regulate certain occult practitioners called traditional healers. Today, lawmakers are under pressure to go further and criminalize the practice of witchcraft itself. This Article presses two arguments. First, it contends that the 2004 statute is compatible with liberal principles of equal citizenship and the rule of law. Second, it warns against outlawing witchcraft as such. Subjecting suspected sorcerers to criminal punishment based on governmental determinations of guilt that many will perceive to be unprincipled would work too much damage to individual autonomy and national unity, among other values. Th...
HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 2020
What are the current trends in the study of witchcraft in Africa? Twenty years ago, the “modernity of witchcraft” approach was very influential. Although key texts from that framework are still often cited, its heyday seems to have passed. This overview of scholarly debates about witchcraft in Africa after 2010 shows three trends: the attempt to explain witchcraft, which stands in a long anthropological history; the focus on human rights, mainly by authors from fields beyond anthropology; and, influenced by the ontological turn, efforts to take witchcraft seriously. The article gives a critical overview of these current trends in the study of witchcraft in Africa, placing them in the context of theoretical perspectives that have preceded them, as well as looking to the future.
Witchcraft, Justice, and Human Rights in Africa: Cases from Malawi
African Studies Review, 2015
The human rights approach to witchcraft accusations denies their validity and forecloses the possibility of a trial, fair or otherwise. While there is much to be said for a bracing rationalism in all aspects of life, evidence from Africa over the past couple of centuries shows no sign that witchcraft narratives lose their plausibility as a result of people being told that witches do not exist.
Recent anthropological and religious, especially Christian, discourses on African witchcraft normalize the witchcraft imagination on the continent by failing to show how damaging the imagination has been to Africa's move toward modernization. While anthropologists normalize it by studying the phenomenon ahistorically and by rationalizing and reinterpreting it, scholars and preachers of African Christianity see it as the context necessary for the growth of Christianity on the continent. However, this normalization of the witchcraft imagination stifles the African imagination because it does not encourage Africans to think in scientifijic ways that may be more helpful in the transformation of the continent in our modern world. This article is an attempt to liberate the African imagination by critiquing the witchcraft imagination from a rational and theological perspective. It also proposes policies that need to be taken in order to overcome this ruinous imagination and facilitate Africa's dignifijied participation in the modern world.
Witchcraft and the State in South Africa
A state commission has criticized the present Witchcraft Suppression Act as a relic of the days of white supremacy. As the majority of South Africans believe in the existence of witchcraft, the new legislator should acknowledge this fact and make witchcraft a criminal offence. By prosecuting witches legally and bringing them to jail, the administration might - as the commission argues - check the rampant mob justice which is claiming hundreds of lives. It is, however, doubtful whether the new ANC-led administration would de-escalate conflicts, given the fact that ANC members, especially youth-wingers, instigated many of the witch-hunts of the 1980s and '90s.
African World-View and the Challenge of Witchcraft
Research on Humanities and Social Sciences, 2012
In this paper, we shall study the spiritual and socio framework of traditional African wo rooted in African cosmology, or a mere superstition. The study will expose the destructive impact of witchcraft on human and social development and the need for a reorientation phenomenon constitutes the greatest threat in the life of an African. We cannot continue to argue over the existence or reality of witchcraft when many people have openly confessed involvement in witchcraf Key words: African worldview; witchcraft in Africa; epistemology of witchcraft; psychology of witchcraft; Introduction Witchcraft is a constant problem in Africa. Africans of all classes, poor and rich, illiterates and the educated classes all have one or two bad experiences to say about witchcraft as a nefarious and destructive spirit that is hindering human and social development in the continent. Africans have unconsciously developed witchcraft mentality-which is a permanent condition of living helpl insecurity. Witchcraft has not only weakened the social bond, but it has forced the African to embrace pseudo spirituality and diabolic religious rituals. Spiritual vigilance and protection against vital aspect of socialization in Africa. The average African child grows with the fear of witchcraft. It cannot be denied that witchcraft accusation has led to breakdown of marriages, communal warfare and irreconcilable enmit between siblings, families and communities. The success of the witchcraft scourge in Africa is traceable to the spiritualistic nature of the African world view. The highest ambition of the African is to develop his or her spiritual capabilities to the ma and usage of spiritual power for good and evil is the highest achievement in the African world world-view is not only a religious phenomenon, but is characterized by the quest for spiritual power. Africans are specialists in the manipulation and control of cosmic forces. Mbiti (1969) writes: There is mystical power which causes people to walk on fire, to lie on thorns or nails, to send curses or harm, including death, from a distance, to change into animals (lycanthropy) power to stupefy thieves so that they can be caught red inanimate objects turn into biologically living creatures... (197,198). Even with the pervasive influence of witchcraft problem is far below the magnitude of the problem. Some scholars dismiss belief in witchcraft as mere superstition. In this paper, we shall demonstrate that belief in witchcraft in Africa is a reality. people are suffering in various ways from spiritual vulnerability that is associated with witchcraft oppression. Even though witchcraft is not a peculiar African experience, Africans have every right to expose any problem that is life threatening. All over the continent, Africans do many things to avert witchcraft attack and bondage, "…they wear charms, eat 'medicines' or get them rubbed into their bodies; they consult experts, especially the diviners and medicine men to count it is, it is a reality and one with which African people's have to reckon. Everyone is directly or indirectly affected, for better or for worse... (Mbiti 1969: 197,198). AFRICAN WORLD-VIEW African world-view is predominantly a religious phenomenon. It involves a re history to the supernatural (Hesselgrave, 1978: 151). There is a spiritual view of life and almost everything is given a religious interpretation. Imasogie (1986) has given a good picture of spiritual vulnerability in the Africa world "In light of our contention that the African world man….The African tenaciously holds and demons. These spiritual forces interact with human mediums for the purpose of carrying out their nefarious desires... the African lives in fear of those demonic forces and corroborated this view thus:
An Expository Study of Witchcraft among the Basoga of Uganda
International Journal of Humanities Social Sciences and Education, 2019
The concept of witchcraft has been defined by many scholars from the fields of anthropology, religion, sociology and cultural studies. Many times, there have been generalized arguments that witchcraft presents itself in the same way in all societies. Several authors have described witchcraft as a symbol of evil and that those who practise it have no place in society as they suffer constant witch hunt and possible death whenever discovered. To accept such generalized views that witchcraft was never tolerated in any African society points to a narrower conception of witchcraft as it also brings suspicion of ‘othering’ in society. Earlier writings beginning with colonial officials to Evans-Pritchard, Peter Geschierre, Peter Pels and others have conceptualized witchcraft as a ‘deviant behavior’ causing harm. They believe that this harm distorts societal order, and that witches are ever hunted down in those societies they happen to exist. Through interviews with traditional healers and lay members in Busoga, it is established that witchcraft is not entirely dreaded by this society since there are “tolerable acts of witchcraft”. The glorification of witches and condemnation of witchcraft victims in Busoga society disproves previous theoretical conceptions of witchcraft in several African societies. This paper, therefore, addresses the specific ways in which Busoga society conceives witchcraft with specific interest in those aspects that make the Basoga glorify witches and condemn their victims. The paper argues that Busoga society’s determination of ‘acts of witchcraft’ depends on the intention. Besides, some of these acts are legitimate with community approval. It is high time that we thought to re-examine witchcraft as not entirely deviant in itself but instead used as a legitimate weapon against deviant behavior