Browsing by Subject "African Science"
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- ItemRestrictedMuthi, Medicine and Witchcraft: Regulating 'African Science' in Post-Apartheid South Africa?(Taylor & Francis, 2005) Ashforth, AdamThis paper comprises extracts from Adam Ashworth's book: Witchcraft, Violence and Democracy in South Africa (Chicago University Press, 2005) . It argues that the distinction between witchcraft and healing is essentially a moral one (healers and witches use supernatural forces supposedly for different ends) and that both activities fall under the rubric of 'African science '. Whereas proponents of 'Indigenous Knowledge Systems ' attempt, as part of a broader cultural project, to provide 'traditional' African healing with scientific status, others - starting with Montana's 1988 call to 'stop romanticizing the evil depredations of the sangoma' in order to Fee patients from the 'tyranny of superstition ' - emphasise the incommensurability of traditional healing practices with science. The paper concludes with a discussion of how such incommensurability makes it very difficult, if not impossible,for the post-apartheid state to regulate 'African science '.