Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa
Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa
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南非的巫术、暴力和民主
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发表时间：
2005
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通讯作者：
Adam Ashforth
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作者：
Adam Ashforth
当被统治的人民坚持他们生活在一个有女巫的世界里时，民主会如何发展？如果一个受巫术折磨的民族的政府拒绝惩罚女巫，它如何避免与其人民的感知需求疏远，或者更糟的是，被视为与女巫勾结？在南非的索韦托，暴力犯罪的持续威胁、黑人社会经济不平等的加剧、艾滋病的流行以及对巫术的普遍恐惧，这些因素交织在一起，在公民中造成了普遍的不安全感，并成为政府面临的一个独特的公共政策问题。在《南非的巫术、暴力和民主》一书中，亚当·阿什福斯考察了索韦托和后种族隔离时代南非其他地区的人们如何应对他们对巫术等“邪恶力量”的恐惧。阿什福斯考察了世纪之交索韦托日常生活中的不安全动态。他发展了一个新的框架来理解神秘暴力作为一种精神不安全的形式，并记录了将机构归因于邪恶势力的新解释模式。最后，他分析了后种族隔离政府对精神不安全问题的反应，并提出这些问题如何对民主国家的合法性构成严重的长期挑战。
How does democracy fare when the people governed insist they live in a world with witches? If the government of a people afflicted by witchcraft refuses to punish witches, how does it avoid becoming alienated from the perceived needs of its people or, worse, seen as being in league with witches? In Soweto, South Africa, the constant threat of violent crime, the increase in black socio-economic inequality, the AIDS pandemic, and a widespread fear of witchcraft have converged to create a pervasive sense of insecurity among citizens and a unique public policy problem for government. In "Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa, " Adam Ashforth examines how people in Soweto and other parts of post-apartheid South Africa manage their fear of 'evil forces' such as witchcraft. Ashforth examines the dynamics of insecurity in the everyday life of Soweto at the turn of the twenty-first century. He develops a new framework for understanding occult violence as a form of spiritual insecurity and documents new patterns of interpretation attributing agency to evil forces. Finally, he analyzes the response of post-apartheid governments to issues of spiritual insecurity and suggests how these matters pose severe long-term challenges to the legitimacy of the democratic state.