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| Title: | Reflections on Spiritual Insecurity in a Modern African City (Soweto) |
| Author: | Ashforth, Adam |
| Year: | 1998 |
| Periodical: | African Studies Review |
| Volume: | 41 |
| Issue: | 3 |
| Period: | December |
| Pages: | 39-67 |
| Language: | English |
| Geographic term: | South Africa |
| Subjects: | mental disorders patronage popular beliefs Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Religion and Witchcraft Urbanization and Migration |
| External link: | https://www.jstor.org/stable/525353 |
| Abstract: | Opening with an account of an incident in July 1998 when warnings were circulated in a shack settlement outside Soweto (South Africa) that a giant snake known as 'Inkosi ya Manzi' (King of the Waters) was angry and threatening to destroy the settlements, this paper examines questions of spiritual insecurity in a context of widespread poverty, hardship, and violence. What are the factors that militate against interpretive confidence in relation to unseen powers and, hence, might serve to heighten anxiety in the face of powers deemed worthy of fear? Five sources of epistemic anxiety are identified (ignorance, indeterminacy, privacy, secrecy, and mystery), along with three distinct frames of interpretive authority (tradition, 'white' science, and the Christian churches). The paper suggests that the relative intensity of spiritual insecurity in contemporary Soweto derives in large part from the fact that no one framework of interpretation enjoys dominance. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. (Also published in French in: Politique africaine, no. 77 (2000), p. 143-169). |
