Undifferentiated Potency and Chiefly Punishment: A Phenomenological Analysis of Flogging in Botswana

In light of recent controversies surrounding judicial flogging in the customary courts of Botswana, this article surveys journalistic coverage of the issue and seeks to establish an account of flogging as a cultural practice. Drawing on legal, sociocultural, and phenomenological perspectives, it argues that flogging is deeply embedded in social hierarchies of age, rank, and morafe membership, and can be interpreted as a disciplinary practice aimed primarily at unruly youths. Morafe elders teach proper modes of public comportment that involve managing thoughts and behaviors, a practice termed here bodily modulation. Through bodily modulation, individuals convey an understanding of botho, or ‘humanness,’ expressing their existential interdependence with others and cultivating the social relationships that sustain their personhood. Flogging and its enmeshment with other aspects of Tswana life point to the theme of undifferentiated potency in Tswana thought, of which law is only one instantiation among others.