An Epidemic of Witchcraft? The Implications of Aids for the Post-Apartheid State
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2137497 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Adam Ashforth (corresponding author) |
| Year | 2002 |
| Volume | 61 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 121-143 |
| Publication date | 2002-07-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | African Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0002-0184 • E-ISSN: 1469-2872 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/00020180220140109 |
| OpenAlex | W2171082480 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 71 |
| References cited | 21 |
In this paper I shall begin by outlining some of the political dimensions of the crisis understood in the conventional discourses of public health policy. Then I shall inquire as to how these dimensions might be complicated by the question of witchcraft. My method here will be somewhat abstract and hypothetical. Rather than an ethnographic description of AIDS and in concrete circumstances I shall outline a general framework of presumptions and hypotheses within which discussion of matters relating to occult powers typically take place. Given certain elementary propositions concerning the nature and action of invisible power that I shall call the witchcraft paradigm (which I shall stress is by no means irrationality or superstition) I shall suggest that it is entirely plausible for people suffering from diseases related to AIDS to interpret their afflictions as a form of witchcraft. I shall examine some of the ways in which HIV/AIDS can in fact be interpreted as and shall present preliminary evidence to suggest that many people actually do interpret their illness this way. Following this we shall be in a position to begin investigating possible social and political implications of such modes of interpretation. (excerpt
Ancient history · Development economics · Economics · Ethnology · Geography · Political science · Sociology · State (computer science · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health · Food Security and Health in Diverse Populations · Gender Studies · History · HIV/AIDS Impact and Responses
Talking it Through
Demons, Nature, or God? Witchcraft Accusations and the French Disease in Early Modern Venice
We Are All Going to Die
Explaining and Solving Practical Problems Supernaturally
Aids, Politics, and Music in South Africa
Bewitchment, Biology, or Both
An Invisible Universe of Evil
Making and unmaking bonds
Why does intellectuality weaken faith and sometimes foster it
The perils of polycentric governance of infectious disease in South Africa
Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa
The Forgotten Compass of Death
Poverty and Witch Killing
Local perceptions of causes of death in rural South Africa
Sorcery and the Moral Economy of Agency
Four decades of HIV/Aids in Tanzania
Sometimes it is not about men’
If the doctors see that they don't know how to cure the disease, they say it's Aids’
Confronting Aids-related loss and grief
The young, the rich, and the beautiful
An exposition of humanistic- existential social work in light of ubuntu philosophy
Aids Conspiracy Beliefs and Unsafe Sex in Cape Town
Superstition, witchcraft and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa
She was bewitched and caught an illness similar to Aids’
It means there is doubt in the house’
Musicking in applied theatre
Maternal perceptions of infant's body weight and childhood obesity in South Africa
Sincedisa – We Can Help!’ A Literature Review of Current Practice Involving Traditional African Healers in Biomedical HIV/Aids Interventions in South Africa
Exclusionary inclusion and the normalization of biomedical culture
We have finished them’
The (possible) Cognitive Naturalness of Witchcraft Beliefs
Santu Mofokeng
Race, Sex, and the Neglected Risks for Women and Girls in Sub-Saharan Africa
Stigmatizing attitudes of the community towards people living with HIV/Aids
How Indigenous Belief Systems Guide Help-seeking Behavior for Psychosocial and Medical Problems
Bush Doctors and Wild Medicine”
Reconciling the Irreconcilable? HIV/Aids and the Potential for Middle Ground Between the Traditional and Biomedical Healthcare Sectors in South Africa
Responding to Aids-Related Bereavement in the South African Context
Witchcraft beliefs and the erosion of social capital
They ‘don't cure old age’
Dissemination as Intervention”
Dr. Wouter Basson, Americans, and Wild Beasts
Children As Caregivers
The Regulation of Witchcraft and Sorcery Practices and Beliefs
Aids, Intimacy and Care in Rural KwaZulu-Natal
Power, Politics, and the Supernatural
The Role of Expert Witnesses in the Adjudication of Religious and Culture-based Asylum Claims in the United Kingdom
Beyond the Blame Paradigm
From Liverpool to Freetown
The power of Aids
Narratives of Death in Rural Malawi in the Time of Aids
Witchcraft, Envy, and Norm Enforcement in Mauritius
Missing Each Other
Fighting Ebola in the Shadow of Conspiracy Theories and Sorcery Suspicions
A better life for all', social cohesion and the governance of life in post-apartheid South Africa
Beyond Bare Life
From object to subject
The Anthropology of Life After Aids
Concepts and Folk Theories
Routines, Hope, and Antiretroviral Treatment among Men and Women in Uganda
Understanding the origins and prevalence of Aids conspiracy beliefs in the United States and South Africa
Sanguma and scepticism
I am also a human being!' Antiretroviral treatment in local moral worlds
Indigenous Narratives of HIV/Aids
Treatment Literacy, Therapeutic Efficacy, and Antiretroviral Drugs
Global Aids Medicines in East African Health Institutions
Contestations Over "Tradition" and "Culture" in a Time of Aids
Amaoti and Pumwani
The aetiology of diseases in central Mozambique
Everyday policing and the occult
Forgetting Apartheid
Rationality and relativism
Reconstituting the State in Africa
Reaction to conquest
Modernity and its malcontents
Zulu Thought-Patterns and Symbolism
Aids and Accusation
Witchcraft Confessions and Accusations
Magical Interpretations, Material Realities
Health transition review
Government Responses to HIV/Aids in South Africa as Reported in the Media, 1983–1994
Underreaction to Aids in Sub-Saharan Africa
Rethinking the African Aids Epidemic
The Social Context of Aids in sub-Saharan Africa
The Healer-Prophet in Afro-Christian Churches
Zion and Pentecost
Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in the New South Africa
Heroes, villains and the state in South Africa's witchcraft zone
| Unique citing works | 71 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3,09 |
| Citation span | 2003 - 2024 (22) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 68 |