Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa reconstructs the biography of an ordinary South African, Jimmy Mohale. Born in 1964, Jimmy came of age in rural South Africa during apartheid, then studied at university and worked as a teacher during the anti-apartheid struggle. In 2005, Jimmy died from an undiagnosed sickness, probably related to AIDS. Jimmy gradually came to see the unanticipated misfortune he experienced as a result of his father's witchcraft and sought remedies from diviners rather than from biomedical doctors. This study casts new light on scholarly understandings of the connections between South African politics, witchcraft and the AIDS pandemic.
• Methodologically innovative for its combination of biography and ethnography • The analysis of contemporary witchcraft illuminates several important questions, namely: continuities with earlier cosmologies in modern life; themes of material inequalities in illness and death; and the historic and ongoing role of the AIDS pandemic in South African society
Contents
1. Introduction; 2. Early experiences, initial suspicions; 3. Becoming a man; 4. 'Then I did not believe'; 5. 'My second initiation'; 6. 'I see things differently now'; 7. Seeking revenge; 8. AIDS and Oedipus; 9. Reconstructing an ideal life; 10. Last words.
Reviews
'South Africa sometimes seems to elicit the big, the overgeneralized. Isak Niehaus demonstrates the power of small, intimate, contextualized detail in this description of the life and death of one of his research assistants. The result is both moving and illuminating. By the end, witchcraft, AIDS, and the New South Africa all stand in a new light.' Donald L. Donham, University of California, Davis
'This is biography with a purpose; Niehaus makes the point that witchcraft is lived, not merely believed, and illustrates a new theoretical perspective from which to understand it. The narrative that recounts the intelligent, educated Jimmy Mohale's reluctant progress toward the conviction that his father is bewitching him is illuminated by detailed ethnography, extensive scholarship, and timely discussion. To be read at many levels.' Jean La Fontaine, London School of Economics
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