Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa

Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa. By Adam Ashforth. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005. Pp. xx, 386; 9 illustrations. $62.50 cloth, $25.00/£17.50 paper.

In this book Adam Ashforth argues that the future of democracy in South Africa may well depend on how the government deals with witchcraft. In places like Soweto, where the state cannot provide security or justice, disparities of wealth are increasing, and disease strikes down the young, fear of the occult is a routine fact of life. Will the government confront the problem or try to ignore it?

Ashforth spent considerable time living in Soweto. He weaves together evocative stories about friends and acquaintances with material culled from existing ethnographic accounts, government documents, newspaper articles, and recent survey data. The book gives ample consideration to gossip and jokes; practices (including feasts honoring ancestors, tending relatives' graves, and consultation with traditional healers); and the meanings attached to material objects, such as photographs.

Central to the author's analysis is the notion of "spiritual insecurity." We learn that, since the 1990s, discrepancies of wealth and opportunity have widened in...