Witchcraft as subtext: deep knowledge and the South African public sphere

Anthropologists have documented pervasive discourses about witchcraft in South Africa. The issue of witchcraft gained prominence during the latter years of apartheid when youths called ‘Comrades’ sought to cleanse rural villages in the north‐eastern provinces of witches. However, after apartheid witchcraft has only made a few brief incursions into the South African public sphere. I suggest that the absence of witchcraft in formal political discussions is not only due to censorship by a modernist government. It is also a product of the popular status of witchcraft as ‘deep knowledge’ or as a ‘subtext’ to social interaction in village and township settings. Accusations of witchcraft occur largely in private domestic spaces. Moreover, the ontological status of witchcraft as a mystical reality that transcends ordinary perception implies that it cannot meet standards of proof demanded by courts of law.