Dahl 2012 - Beyond the Blame Paradigm: Rethinking Witchcraft Gossip and Stigma around HIV-Positive Children in Southeastern Botswana (original) (raw)
Related papers
Anthropology and Medicine, 2007
The importance of exploring 'indigenous' constructions of illness is vital when explanatory models of ill health differ markedly from dominant biomedical paradigms. In the Caprivi Region of Namibia, an upsurge of witchcraft accusations can be seen as a direct reaction to increasing AIDS-related illness and deaths, and to changes in socioeconomic attitudes and expectations. The mobilisation of witchcraft narratives provides a socially acceptable explanation for illness, and can positively influence decisions regarding the care and identity of the ill person. However, drawing upon data collected at kin and village level, this paper demonstrates that while witchcraft accusations can avert stigma and blame away from the ill person, they can also result in significant disruption to livelihoods, and place considerable tension upon key social capital networks at a time when the household is particularly vulnerable. Such findings have significant implications for the effectiveness of HIV prevention and AIDS mitigation initiatives, and for livelihood security.
1997
Evans-Pritchard's classical text Witchcraft, Oracles and Magic Among the Azande (1937) lay the foundations for contemporary scholarly understandings of witchcraft. Yet the author's central contention that witchcraft presents a logical explanation for misfortune has been less inspirational than his suggestion than that witchcraft accusations express regularly recurring socio-structural conflicts [2]. This idea was developed most fully by Marwick (1970) who argued that witchcraft accusations present a social "strain-gauge". This formulation is based on two closely related assumptions. First, that at a general level, the distribution of witchcraft accusations, between persons standing in various relationships, reveals tension points in the social structure. Anthropologists and historians have contended that witchcraft accusations indicate different sorts of tensions in different social contexts. Witchcraft accusations have been shown to cluster between different matrilineal segments among the Chewa of Northern Rhodesia (Marwick 1965), agnates and affines among the Zulu of South Africa (Gluckman I960), youths and elders among the Gisu of Uganda (Heald 1986), competing work parties among the Hewa of New Guinea (Steadman 1985), commoners and new state elites in Cameroon (Geschiere 1988), and between men and women in colonial Peru (Silverbladt 1987). Second, the social strain hypothesis assumes that tense relations are the prime determinants of whom the accused shall be. For example, Macfarlane argues that in sixteenth century Essex witchcraft accusations arose from quarrels over gifts and loans, rather than strange events. "Although there was sometimes an emphasis on the strangeness of an event, for instance when a woman's body was sometimes covered with lice which 'were long, and lean, and not like other lice', strangeness, in itself, was not enough to produce a suspicion of witchcraft" (Macfarlane 1970:296) [3], This article critically reexamines the relationship between social tensions and witchcraft. It draws on fieldwork conducted between 1990 and 1995 in Green Valley, a village situated in the lowveld of Mpumalanga, South Africa. In 1991 Green Valley had a population of approximately 20 000 Northern Sotho and Tsonga-speakers [4]. In the article I aim to focus on how individuals subjectively inferred the existence of witchcraft and the identity of alleged witches, rather than to explore the quantitative distribution of witchcraft accusations. From this perspective, I suggest that social tensions by themselves are less accurate predictors of witchcraft attributions and accusations than the literature may lead us to believe. Anthropologists and historians, who propose that social tensions are the prime determinants of witchcraft accusations, often view witchcraft as an idiom of social relations and processes. Questions of evidence are deemed to be peripheral. It is either assumed that proof is impossible, or alternatively, that tension is the only proof of witchcraft. They hereby downplay the views social actors have of their own situations. This is an important oversight as it is emic understandings which motivate, guide, and justify action. For believers, who regard the existence of witches as a reality, questions of i
Child Witchcraft Accusations in Southern Malawi
Child witchcraft accusations have been on the rise in various parts of Africa, resulting in untold suffering inflicted upon thousands of children including being subjected to painful and harmful exorcism rituals, abandonment, violence and murder. While child witchcraft accusations appear to be relatively new in Malawi, research undertaken in Southern Malawi reveals how deeply-rooted witchcraft beliefs are and how this translates into violations of children's rights. It appears that traditional cultural beliefs and contemporary Pentecostal evangelical influences in Nigerian religious movies are important contributing factors. Besides children, the physically impaired, the mentally disabled, and the elderly are also regularly subjected to witchcraft accusations. To attribute all these social evils to cultural factors would be a far too superficial approach, as they also represent the projection of frustration in society. Beneath the surface, an important role is played by socioeconomic factors such as rampant poverty due to low commodity prices on the world market, trade barriers, unequal distribution of wealth, corruption, and the enormous impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic which is straining the capacity of the extended family to cope with high numbers of orphans. The vulnerable in society become the scapegoats upon whom all frustration is projected. The archaic Witchcraft Act does not protect the most vulnerable in society and is also often misapplied to secure convictions. Interventions may include legislative reforms, awareness creation, human rights education and the regulation of religious practitioners. Further research is also necessary to gain better insight into this growing phenomenon in Malawi and other parts of Africa.
9 "he then beCame a lIon": wItChCraFt aCCusatIons In rural moZambIque
AFRICAN SUN MeDIA Stellenbosch, South Africa, 2018
The aim of this study is to contribute in the understanding of witchcraft accusations in rural Mozambique. Though it focuses on the contemporary Mozambique, it deals with an ancient institution from pre-colonial times that evolved adapting and readapting to the ever changing political, cultural, social and economic environment. The independence of Mozambique, celebrated with euphoria in June 1975, marked another repression of traditional and religious practices, a repression that had begun with colonial domination. In 1977 the Front of National Liberation (FRELIMO) that fought for the independence adopted Marxism-Leninism and it banned them formally creating thus a space for them to work in the “underground.” At the same time a civil war irrupted and devastated the country for 16 years. By the mid of 1980s while the conflict escalated the Program of Economic Adjustment brought another hardships to Mozambicans including droughts and floods. But, even with this official ban the accusations did not disappear and the local strategies to counter sorcery also flourished. The formalization of Association of Traditional Healers (AMETRAMO) in 1991 is, partly, a realization of the vitality of traditional and religious practices. Preliminary evidence shows that to understand these accusations one needs to mobilize a “cocktail” of cultural, social, economic and political factors. They also shows that in difficult situations the accusation tend to increase as well as their counter strategies. Keywords: witchcraft, accusations, Mozambique, traditional, religion, counter strate
African Journal of AIDS Research, 2003
This article investigates emic accounts of the AIDS deaths that have occurred in a village in the Bushbuckridge district of the South African lowveld. I argue that whilst AIDS was publicly hidden and shrouded in secrecy, private gossip created moral scripts about those suspected of having died of AIDS. Details of 47 AIDS deaths revealed that young women and relatively wealthy, sometimes powerful men were vulnerable to AIDS. I suggest that AIDS constitutes a moral crisis; peoples' sexual secrets and desires for commodities and sex featured prominently in local AIDS discourses. The article explores the similarity between AIDS and witchcraft as a metaphorical analogy. Both were highly secretive, and subjective, and circumstantial evidence identified witches and AIDS victims. AIDS and witchcraft were also concerned with the problem of unnatural and uncontrolled desire. The article explores these themes with regard to men and women's experiences respectively. Young 'beautiful women' who used sex to acquire wealth were said to 'buy their own coffins' (die of AIDS), yet relationships with wealthy men ensured household survival. Relatively affluent men were labelled incorrigible 'womanisers' who spread AIDS. Discourses of masculine sexuality focussed on men's lack of agency in sexual decision making. The article points to the tendency to ignore men's vulnerability and its implications for AIDS prevention.
Nombre de Tanzaniens ont une façon commune de voir le surnaturel comme une force de changement dans le monde visible. Toutefois, dans le même temps, les notions du surnaturel se caractérisent par la nature indéterminée de leur signification, ce qui permet des interprétations multiples de certains e ´vénements. Cet article examine diverses interprétations de deux incidents précis survenus l'un et l'autre dans une banlieue d'Iringa, dans le centre du sud de la Tanzanie. Tout d'abord un pasteur luthérien a commencé a ` souffrir d'une e ´paule paralysée et, quelques semaines plus tard, une vieille femme a e ´té retrouvée nue et couchée par terre devant la maison de ce dernier au milieu de la nuit. Bien que ces deux incidents aient e ´té attribués par beaucoup a ` la sorcellerie, l'article montre que certaines interprétations e ´taient ancrées dans un climat micropolitique dense, caractérisé par différentes sortes de tension, des inégalités sociales, des soupçons de corruption et par le pluralisme et la concurrence religieux et médicaux, et qu'elles traduisaient ce climat. Cet article soutient que le caractère opaque et incertain même des connaissances en sorcellerie a permis a ` une variété d'acteurs ayant différents intérêts de revendiquer la vérité, le statut spirituel et l'identité morale. Abstract Many Tanzanians share a basic understanding of the occult as a moving force in the visible world. But at the same time, notions of the occult are characterised by indeterminacies in meaning, thereby allowing for multiple interpretations of particular events. This article explores various readings of two particular incidents that both occurred within a suburb of the city of Iringa in South-central Tanzania. First a Lutheran pastor started suffering from a paralyzed shoulder and a few weeks later an old woman was found lying naked outside of his home in the middle of the night. While both incidents were widely ascribed to witchcraft the article shows how particular interpretations were embedded in and reflective of a dense social climate, characterised by different kinds of tension, inequalities, suspicions of corruption and by religious and medical pluralism and competition. The article argues that the very opaqueness and uncertainty of witchcraft knowledge enabled a variety of actors with different stakes to make claims to truth, spiritual status and moral identity.
Religious Concubinage, COVID-19 and the Moral Economy of Witchcraft in Kenya
European journal of social sciences, 2020
In contemporary times, one might well say that the traditional public spaces are irreversibly shrinking and collapsing. Even more so, they argue that the loss of traditional ‘form’ secular engagement, are a consequence of globalisation. However, many Africans are increasingly invoking indigenous constructions of illness to offer explanatory models of ill health as opposed to dominant biomedical paradigms. In the wake of COVID-19 pandemic, an upsurge numerous deaths happens to be linked directly to witchcraft. COVID-19 has once again exposed the shortcoming of Western medical practices in African cosmology. In this paper, we examine the concept of disease, health, and healing in the context of changing economic, cultural, and political relations in Kenya. We will pay attention to social/public responses to disease, questions of power, agency, and controversies surrounding COVID-19. We examine how both the sacred and secular spaces as sites of conflict: conflicting memories, conflicti...