Čarovništvo – diskurz ali praksa?

Abstract

This paper challenges a generally accepted view that witchcraft is always a matter of discourse, and the witch a fictitious person who is ascribed bewitchment but, in fact, performed none. It discusses the hints that point to bewitchments being, at least occasionally, a matter of practice and reality, and a “witch” indeed a practitioner of acts, perceived as harmful. It also challenges the etic difference between the “natural” and “supernatural” acts in the context of witchcraft accusations and argues that there is no clear difference between the former and the latter for people thinking within a witchcraft discourse.

The lived experiences of elderly women accused of witchcraft in a rural community in South Africa

“…The context, in which accusations of witchcraft are made, are associated with demographic, socioeconomic, psychological, and cultural factors [10]. Factors, such as economic wellbeing and strained relationships among community members, also play a major role in accusing elderly women witches [7,11]. When such tragedies appear in the community, the suspects are often "first and foremost sought among those neighbours, with whom victims had already been in problematic relationships before the misfortune occurred" [11].…”