Witchcraft and a Life in the New South Africa

Isak Niehaus is currently Lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at Brunel University. He is the author of Witchcraft, Power and Politics: Exploring the Occult in the South African Lowveld (2001) and Magic! AIDS Review 2009 with Fraser G. McNeill. He is a member of the council of the Royal Anthropological Institute. Niehaus has done extensive fieldwork in South African rural areas.

• 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.

'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