Writing belief, reading belief: Adam Ashforth's Madumo: a man bewitched and Witchcraft, violence and democracy in South Africa

Abstract

This article is impelled by the question: how do we as academics write (about) religious or spiritual belief? In a country like South Africa, and many other postcolonial societies, this is a question which demands address, as religious and spiritual discourses pervade public and private life in ways that they may not in more secularized European contexts. In particular, how do we write credibly, sympathetically, and yet critically, about beliefs which we may not share (in the case of this article belief systems referred to in official discourse as “traditional African”, and often more colloquially as “witchcraft”), but which constitute the day-to-day realities of life for so many people – in which issues ranging from love relationships, to employment, housing, families, sport, health and security are mediated through a complex system of spiritual practices, which often emerge in public discourse generally only in their negative or sensational aspects. And in so doing, how do we rethink, reread and rewrite the larger issue of the place of the religious or spiritual in postcolonial modernities. I take as my case study two fascinating texts by Adam Ashforth on the subject of “witchcraft” in Soweto: Madumo: a man bewitched (2000); and Witchcraft, violence and democracy in South Africa (2005).