Suchergebnisse

In March 2009, in a small town in Malawi, a nurse at the local hospital was accused of teaching witchcraft to children. Amid swirling rumors, "Mrs. K." tried to defend her reputation, but the community nevertheless grew increasingly hostile. The legal, social, and psychological trials that she endured in the struggle to clear her name left her life in shambles, and she died a few years later. In "The Trials of Mrs. K.", Adam Ashforth studies this and similar stories of witchcraft that continue to circulate in Malawi. At the heart of the book is Ashforth's desire to understand how claims to truth, the pursuit of justice, and demands for security work in contemporary Africa, where stories of witchcraft can be terrifying. Guiding us through the history of legal customs and their interactions with the court of public opinion, Ashforth asks challenging questions about responsibility, occult forces, and the imperfect but vital mechanisms of law. ---Back cover

This essay anatomizes the postelection violence in Kenya in 2007 to identify the different forms of ethnic conflict so as to analyze their implications for the future stability of a democratic regime in the country. It argues that five types of ethnic conflict marked the aftermath of the elections: ethnically targeted state repression, targeting of local ethnic proxies for national political figures, ethnic vigilantism, opportunistic criminal violence, and ethnic cleansing by Kalenjin ethnonationalists. The essay also argues that while there are good prospects for reconciliation, Kalenjin ethnonationalism poses a serious challenge to long-term stability.

This paper comprises extracts from Adam Ashworth's book: Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago University Press, 2005) . It argues that the distinction between witchcraft and healing is essentially a moral one (healers and witches use supernatural forces supposedly for different ends) and that both activities fall under the rubric of 'African science '. Whereas proponents of 'Indigenous Knowledge Systems ' attempt, as part of a broader cultural project, to provide 'traditional' African healing with scientific status, others - starting with Montana's 1988 call to 'stop romanticizing the evil depredations of the sangoma' in order to Fee patients from the 'tyranny of superstition ' - emphasise the incommensurability of traditional healing practices with science. The paper concludes with a discussion of how such incommensurability makes it very difficult, if not impossible,for the post-apartheid state to regulate 'African science '.

Cet article traite des aspects de l'insécurité spirituelle dans un contexte de pauvreté, de difficultés et de violence générales, en étudiant les questions d'épistémologie relatives aux modes de compréhension de l'action des forces de l'invisible sur les fortunes et malheurs de la vie quotidienne. Il suggère que l'intensité actuelle de l'insécurité spirituelle à Soweto provient en grande partie de l'absence d'un cadre d'interprétation dominant.

Der Autor schildert an einem Beispiel Ausmaß und Hintergründe von Aberglauben in Soweto. In einem Flugblatt wurde 1998 vor einer großen Gefahr gewarnt und zum Verlassen des Ortes aufgefordert. In zahlreichen Gesprächen mit Bewohnern des Ortes wird dies als Zeichen für die Macht des Übernatürlichen interpretiert, wobei die Bedrohung v.a. deshalb so stark empfunden wird, da die Bevölkerung geistig-emotional und hinsichtlich ihres Glaubens zerrissen ist. (DÜI-Wgm)

As a step towards framing an understanding of the politics of the South African transition and the prospects for democracy in that country, this paper asks the question: what kind of state is it that is being transformed? It offers the argument that we should conceptualize the history of state formation within the territory that is presently called South Africa in terms of three inter‐related trajectories: imperial, national, and urban. By doing this, it is argued, the dimensions of key obstacles in the path of democratic national governance understood as 'legacies of apartheid' become clearer as the new leadership of the state strives to establish new forms of rule. Understanding the history of the imperial state system, as well as stressing the distinctiveness of the urban domain, adds to the well‐attested story of racial exclusion in the national state and enables a clearer appreciation of matters such as the status of women, the mobilization of ethnic nationalism, problems of crime and civil disorder, and the new forms of politics that are emerging as local ANC notables become agents of the state in black townships and rural areas.