2008. Negotiating Difference: Discourses of Indigenous Knowledge and Development in Ghana. Political and Legal Anthropology Review 31(2): 224-242 (original) (raw)
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Indigenous Knowledge and the Development Debate in Africa
This research employs Bourdieu's theory of habitus to explain the disposition of the donor community to integrate indigenous knowledge systems and practices into development projects. The theory's objectivist perspective specifies the mechanism that links structural conditioning to social practice and regularities. It holds that power is culturally and symbolically created, and it is constantly re-legitimized through the interplay of agency and structure. This facilitates an analysis of the development field as social space characterized by indigenous and donor power relations. It argues that the reinforcement of indigenous knowledge as the main channel for development will generate transferable local capacities and set new energies in motion in Africa that will greatly reduce the prevailing inequalities on the continent.
The discourse of governance on the continent of Africa focuses primarily on achieving and imbibing Western values and ideals. Africans on the other hand, are highly invested in their indigenous culture, socially, so what is the relationship between indigenous culture and contemporary governance. This study focuses on the nature and to what extent indigenous culture influences governing practices in contemporary Africa using Ayittey’s (1991) summary of the features of the African indigenous political system. Using a mixed methods approach participants in the study were asked to fill out a semi-structured survey of indicator questions corresponding to the features of the African indigenous political system. The participants of the study comprised of Members of Parliament, a traditional Chief, and citizenry. The results indicate that Ghana’s current political dispensation lacks real incorporation of indigenous governance, specifically as it relates to citizens’ influence on government, decentralization of the polity, decision-making by consensus and effective participatory democracy. On the basis of the results, it is recommended that; first Ghana’s legislature be decentralized through regional parliamentary sessions, secondly, the powers of the executive be reduced, thirdly creating a constitution that is built on indigenous governing principles and finally building an indigenous political system.
2007
By the mid-1990s Ghanaian ethnic groups were (re)discovering chieftaincy on a wide front and looking to traditional 'chiefly' structures as part of a move towards more extensive political indulgence. In this paper, the author examines the discussion of traditional authority in anthropological literature, examines the emerging political discourse on 'chiefs' within Ghana, and comments on its contemporary political significance. The author looks at the following: Konkombas, described here as "Bigmen" and traditional chiefs in post-colonial society, and contestable issues of land, marriages, extortions in traditional judicial courts, and 'taxation'; as they impact the coexistence of the ethnic groups in the Northern Region of Ghana. It remains to be seen whether the clamour for traditional leadership by so-called 'stateless' groups, represents a permanent change in the nature of Ghana's political system, or whether it is primarily philosophical and semantic in nature.
Cultures of Development and Indigenous Knowledge: The Erosion of Traditional Boundaries
Africa Today, 2003
In this article, I contest the view that there is a strong dichotomy between development and indigenousness and/or authenticity. From years of participation in developmentrelated meetings and interviews in Zimbabwe, I examine how meetings and workshops have been sites for learning, argument, engagement, and planning about and doing "development." I examine two cases: the Mid-Zambezi Rural Development Project and the nationally based waterreform program. I present materials from two meetings in which the engagement in development is clear on both sides: the project and its government implementers, and proposed benefi ciaries. How development can and should be achieved is at stake. These meetings are sites where governmental and ministerial directives are transmitted and translated to local populations while local populations forcefully state their understandings and desires. I suggest that the organizational structures created by donors, national governments, and nongovernmental grassroots organizations have changed the terrain of debate, discussion, and representations and practice of African cultures.
Since around the 1980s, the aspect of indigenous knowledge (IK) has attracted the attention of a number of experts, including culturists, politicians and information scientists. This has seen the mushrooming of literature on the subject matter from the afore-mentioned practitioners and specialists, with each discipline witnessing a certain “discourse”. This has also witnessed almost everyone in these disciplines glorifying African IK. Against this background, this chapter discusses the IK discourses in Africa, highlighting some of the significant trends and relationships among practitioners and scholars in the fields of culture, politics and information science that are driven by shared philosophies of IK. This paper is theoretical in nature and draws from the literature on IK to explain and demonstrate what the author calls the “IK discourses and “IK frenzy”, and explains the point of intersection by culturists, politicians and information science practitioners.
Engaging the religiocultural quest in development: An African indigenous perspective
HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies, 2016
The intertwining nature of African life and livelihood is a considerable challenge to the discourse of development. In as much as the view on unlocking both the spiritual and physical dimensions of life in developmental endeavours is frowned upon, contemporary exploration into indigenous knowledge systems as an alternative discourse of development does not simply transform the dialogue but posits it as a discourse of power. This article examines the interplay between indigenous beliefs and knowledge systems and the discourse of development, with a focus on the Nankani in the Upper East Region of Ghana.