Encounters with panaceas: reading flyers and posters on ‘traditional’ healing – a reply to Kadenge and Ndlovu (2012)

Kadenge and Ndlovu [2012. “Encounters with Panaceas: Reading Flyers and Posters on ‘Traditional’ Healing in and Around Johannesburg's Central Business District.” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 30 (3): 461–482] evaluated flyers and posters that advertise traditional and alternative healing methods which they regard as viable alternatives to biomedicine that may well transmit potent knowledge and facilitate new ways of thinking. They furthermore view these flyers and posters as a demonstration of the advertisers’ ‘adaptability’ and ‘sensitivity’ towards their customers (480–481). This article is a rebuttal of the aforementioned position towards, and judgement of these advertisers. Reading these flyers and posters from a misleading advertising and Kantian perspective reveals not a demonstration of adaptability, but rather dishonesty and exploitation; rather than transmitting ancient knowledge, they reinforce superstition and fear. These advertisements, often misleadingly clad as African, do not facilitate new ways of thinking, but merely facilitate deception.