Conjuring power: The politics of culture and democratization in post-apartheid South Africa

My research confronts the puzzle of why state-driven projects intended to encourage participatory democracy and the demand for greater accountability from locally elected leaders fail to spark expected forms of civic engagement. I argue that the active refashioning of participatory forms of politics via the simultaneous erasure of traditional culture and the promulgation of liberal subjectivity enacts a degree of epistemic violence reminiscent of the colonial exercise of power in South Africa. In examining how the liberal canon of democratization runs up against assertions of cultural recognition, I allege that the attempt to engineer "modern" political subjectivity towards promoting liberal forms of participatory democracy reenacts the logic of the civilizing mission of colonialism.;In this study, I analyze the confrontation between a state-driven project of participatory democracy and practices of traditionalist culture by examining the implications of three different culturally informed manifestations of power: the presence of witchcraft within communities, the resilience of traditional leadership, and gendered expressions of agency. Essentially, I want to unsettle the script of democratization by arguing that the expectations of political subjectivity embedded within the liberal gaze are blind to the significant kinds of culturally mediated forms of agency and power to the detriment of the South African polity.;Also, I argue that for participatory projects of democracy to be viable, they have to take into account the hybrid forms of power that circulate through South African social relations. Indeed, multiple myths and realities are at work in this post-apartheid reconstruction period; the projected desires and aspirations of the culturally diverse groups that fall into the category "South African citizen" are contesting the terms through which this state establishes a relationship of participatory democracy between the state and civil society. In this study, I explore how the heterogeneity of political subjectivities in South Africa demands the shattering of the liberal mold of democratic systems.