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Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa
This thesis represents a typically boundary-crossing ethnographic experience and an unconventional anthropological study, its fieldwork grounded in the author's personal experience of ukuthwasa - initiation, training and graduation - to become a sangoma, a practitioner of traditional African medicin...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Social Anthropology
2015
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| _version_ | 1867614045178167296 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Wreford, Jo Thobeka |
| author2 | Sichone, Owen |
| author_browse | Sichone, Owen Wreford, Jo Thobeka |
| author_facet | Sichone, Owen Wreford, Jo Thobeka |
| author_sort | Wreford, Jo Thobeka |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This thesis represents a typically boundary-crossing ethnographic experience and an unconventional anthropological study, its fieldwork grounded in the author's personal experience of ukuthwasa - initiation, training and graduation - to become a sangoma, a practitioner of traditional African medicine, in contemporary South Africa. The study is contextualized within the contemporary health dispensation in South Africa in which two major paradigms, traditional African healing, considered within the spiritual environment of sangoma, and biomedicine, operate at best in parallel, but more often at odds with one another. Given the unprecedented challenge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the country, the thesis suggests that this situation is unhelpful and proposes first, that a more collaborative relationship between medical sectors is vital. Secondly, the thesis suggests that anthropologists can play an important role in achieving an improved dialogue, by producing research grounded in the spiritual aetiology of sangoma but comprehensible to academic science and applicable within collaborative medical interventions. The thesis introduces 'sacred pragmatics' to embody the disarmingly matter-of-fact quality of sangoma healing which is nevertheless always underpinned by the authority of ancestral spirit solicited in terms that are reverent. Ancestral authority in sangoma is advanced as a credible near equivalent to Jung's 'collective unconscious', and the contemporary phenomenon of white sangoma is proposed as a potential source of social and political healing. In the light of the spiritual foundation of sangoma, the absence of spirituality in biomedicine is discussed and its effect on relationships between medical sectors analysed. The umbilical and ambiguous connection of sangoma and witchcraft is acknowledged, a relationship theorised as having transformative potential within kin and community. The theoretical arguments are set against the evidence of fieldwork which is characterised as experiential and described reflexively. The thesis constitutes a start in what the author hopes will develop into an ongoing conversation between traditional African healing, academe and biomedicine in South Africa. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14073 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:45:47.846Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2015 |
| publishDateRange | 2015 |
| publishDateSort | 2015 |
| publisher | Social Anthropology |
| publisherStr | Social Anthropology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/14073 Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa Wreford, Jo Thobeka Sichone, Owen Field, Sean Social Anthopology This thesis represents a typically boundary-crossing ethnographic experience and an unconventional anthropological study, its fieldwork grounded in the author's personal experience of ukuthwasa - initiation, training and graduation - to become a sangoma, a practitioner of traditional African medicine, in contemporary South Africa. The study is contextualized within the contemporary health dispensation in South Africa in which two major paradigms, traditional African healing, considered within the spiritual environment of sangoma, and biomedicine, operate at best in parallel, but more often at odds with one another. Given the unprecedented challenge of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in the country, the thesis suggests that this situation is unhelpful and proposes first, that a more collaborative relationship between medical sectors is vital. Secondly, the thesis suggests that anthropologists can play an important role in achieving an improved dialogue, by producing research grounded in the spiritual aetiology of sangoma but comprehensible to academic science and applicable within collaborative medical interventions. The thesis introduces 'sacred pragmatics' to embody the disarmingly matter-of-fact quality of sangoma healing which is nevertheless always underpinned by the authority of ancestral spirit solicited in terms that are reverent. Ancestral authority in sangoma is advanced as a credible near equivalent to Jung's 'collective unconscious', and the contemporary phenomenon of white sangoma is proposed as a potential source of social and political healing. In the light of the spiritual foundation of sangoma, the absence of spirituality in biomedicine is discussed and its effect on relationships between medical sectors analysed. The umbilical and ambiguous connection of sangoma and witchcraft is acknowledged, a relationship theorised as having transformative potential within kin and community. The theoretical arguments are set against the evidence of fieldwork which is characterised as experiential and described reflexively. The thesis constitutes a start in what the author hopes will develop into an ongoing conversation between traditional African healing, academe and biomedicine in South Africa. 2015-09-25T07:17:28Z 2015-09-25T07:17:28Z 2005 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14073 eng application/pdf Social Anthropology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Social Anthopology Wreford, Jo Thobeka Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| title_full | Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| title_fullStr | Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| title_full_unstemmed | Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| title_short | Ukusebenza nethongo (Working with Spirit): the role of sangoma in contemporary South Africa |
| title_sort | ukusebenza nethongo working with spirit the role of sangoma in contemporary south africa |
| topic | Social Anthopology |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/14073 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT wrefordjothobeka ukusebenzanethongoworkingwithspirittheroleofsangomaincontemporarysouthafrica |