Introduction: Situating the Context
The African continent has a rich and ancient history of which much has been forgotten and remains unacknowledged by the world today. With the expansion of European civilization into Africa in the 1800s (Congress of Berlin, 2000) came the assumption that Africa was a continent to be explored and exploited, having no relevant history or culture (Hegel, 1956; Kuykendall, 1993; Pakenham, 1991) and thus was a land free to be conquered and civilized. However, it is clear that Africa had a long involved, complex and cultured history with an immense diversity of ethnic groups living on a continent, complete with appropriate social, economic, and political infrastructures. In terms of governance, “Africa was probably more democratic than most other parts of the world, including Europe” (Tandon, 1996, p. 296). Kuykendall (1993) emphasizes that “customs, laws, and traditions were the constitution and these structured the society … and from these structures stability and perpetuity were maintained” (p. 579). An example of these laws and customs can be seen in the region of Africa that is now known as West Africa, which was divided into kingdoms in pre-colonial times (Ray, 1986). Life was mainly rural, with clans settling in different regions. The centre of the social system in pre-colonial West Africa was the kinship institution. Defined as “patterns of behaviour associated with relatives in a society, together with the principles of governing these behaviours” (Nukunya, 1992, p. 11), this system uplifted and supported the running of societies. It served as a way to administer rules and principles of seniority, succession, and residence patterns concerning customary law (Rattray, 1929). Within the kinship system were descent groups called clans and lineages (Busia, 1951; Nukunya, 1992). Intertwined in these systems was a religious belief system that depended heavily on the guidance and punishment by ancestors throughout life.
The Asante Kingdom had a chieftaincy system in place whereby the king (divisional level) was to administer the Division, look after the spiritual, physical, and emotional welfare of the people, maintain law and order, consult with elders, lead the army into battle, and act as mediator between ancestors and the clans (Busia, 1951). “Africa has had a long tradition of democracy based on the accountability of the rulers to the ruled … rulers were accountable to their people, to their ancestors, and to a regime of democratic principles” (Tandon, 1996, p. 296). Each king had a queen mother (biological mother or close relation) who watched the king’s behaviour, gave advice and counsel to him, and was involved in marriage considerations (Obeng, 1988). Rattray (1929) describes the role of the queen mother as “the whisper behind the Stool” (p. 88).2 She was the second-most important person in the traditional authority system. Her many roles within the community included community social welfare worker, distributor of local and governmental resources, liaison officer between people and the community support services, role model and care-giver for women and children, educationalist, guidance counsellor, and supervisor of puberty rites, to name a few (Boateng, 1982). She was and continues to be considered, along with the king, the keeper of culture and tradition. This traditional system evolved over many generations and brought stability to the different clans and communities.
These traditional social systems and mechanisms for social development already established were broken down with the colonization of Africa (Burke & Ngonyani, 2004; Kreitzer, 2004b). Colonization is a relationship between people, groups, or countries where there is a domination and oppression of one particular relationship over the other (Memmi, 1965). This oppression results in what Freire (1997) speaks of as the “culture of silence” in which a culture is so oppressed by another culture that it effectively silences the people of the oppressed culture. They no longer have a voice in the society or the world and are therefore of no importance. The effect of this invasion on Africa was a loss of identity and culture that greatly affected the psyche of the people of Africa. What is human and not human, what is civilized and primitive, were defined by European colonial discourse (Willinsky, 1998) and Africans were defined as non-human and primitive. The African continent has been a source of wealth for the growth of industrialized countries in the world (Busia, 1951; Hochschild, 1998; Sartre, 2001; Smith, 1999; Willinsky, 1998) and continues to be exploited by the more powerful countries and institutions of the present world. Through modernization, colonization favoured western expertise and attempted to ‘civilize’ Africa at the expense of its own knowledge and cultural practices (Kreitzer, 2004a; Mosha, 2000; Semali & Kincheloe, 2000; Smith, 1999; Willinsky, 1998). Today, the hegemony (a social condition in which all aspects of social reality are dominated by a certain powerful group; Mayo, 1990, p. 35) of western knowledge influences all aspects of African life. There is a strong desire to promote western knowledge, and to compete in a global world of universities that are on par with western/northern university systems (Ajayi, Goma, & Johnson, 1996). While seen as admirable, it often proceeds at the expense of traditional knowledge. Most African universities were established according to a European model and many Africans were trained in western universities in Europe, the United States, and Canada. On returning to Africa and assigned teaching positions, they “naturally emulated the practice established at the institutions where they conducted their studies” (van Wyk & Higgs, 2007, p. 68). This process promoted a dependency upon western written material and often undermined local knowledge and expertise.
While many African countries were seeking independence in the 1950s and 1960s, the new world economic order was established and Africa again became subject to colonization tactics. Borrowing money from western lenders and international financial institutions (IFIs), these countries experienced debts that devastated their chance for growth after independence (Boahen, 1975; Konadu-Agyemang, 2000; Rimmer, 1992). “These rigid fundamentalist policies did extraordinary damage to African economics from which they have yet to recover” (Lewis, 2005). By 2003, the total debt for all of Sub-Saharan Africa stood at US$218 billion (World Bank, 2005). After the Second World War, emerging development theory favoured a modernization approach to country growth. Modernization theory assumes that economic growth alone can alleviate poverty and that all countries of the world, through certain standard economic programs, would eventually have economic and social prosperity (Prigoff, 2000; So, 1990; Wilson & Whitmore, 2000). Along with modernization, the world is experiencing the phenomenon of globalization.
For some, globalization signifies interdependence, prosperity, and progress, while others see it as an advanced stage of colonization causing poverty, fragmentation, corruption, and marginalization (Lechner & Boli, 2000; Martin, 2000; Midgley, 2000). Wilson and Whitmore (2000) identify the present form of globalization, that of globalism (ideological orientation underlying the neo-liberal agenda3) as an orientation that supports the rich becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer. Countries in Africa continue to struggle to provide for their own people in their own land under globalism. Many countries in Africa still suffer from poverty, starvation, and famine, with millions of Africans dying of HIV/AIDS each year (Bar-On, 2001; Lewis, 2005). In 1996, out of fifty-nine countries listed in the World Bank low-income category, thirty-six countries were from Africa (World Bank, 2006). In 2010, twenty-nine African countries are still at the low-income level and eleven are at the lower-middle-income level (World Bank, 2010). Poverty in Africa is chronic and rising. Africa hosts only 10 per cent of the global population, yet it is home to 30 per cent of the world’s poor (World Bank, 2007). In 2011 food insecurity is a main issue for many African countries with food riots organized to protest this trend (World Hunger, 2011), Aid has been questioned for some time now as an effective way to alleviate poverty (ASWEA, 1977; Mammo, 1999) and is now being criticized openly for its failure to alleviate poverty in Africa (Moyo, 2009). Neo-liberal economic policies have been tried and tested worldwide, and they have failed to achieve economic and social prosperity for many countries. This is still a future goal for these countries and only a concerted effort by African governments and the international community will change this situation.
The profession of social work’s role in the world
The social work profession has been affected by all of these historical factors. Not only is it struggling to be a voice in countries of Africa, but social workers are struggling to empower clients and are fighting against the negative social effects of neo-liberal economic policies including cutbacks in health, education, and welfare (Prigoff, 2000; Sewpaul, 2006). The exportation of western social work theories and knowledge has helped introduce social work to many parts of the world with the assumption that its core theory and practice is universal and transferable and that a western social work curriculum is the best in the world.
Today, this exportation continues. A good example is in Asia where Australian Schools of Social Work are exporting their programs. Midgley (2008) and Ife (2007) challenge this trend. Ife (2007) concludes that the exportation is done “regardless of the cultural, political and social differences involved and without any agonizing about the colonialist impacts of our international work” (p. 14). He continues by stating that if “there is a lack of any debate or analysis about the dangers of colonialism, there is nothing surer than that it will perpetuate such colonialism, and not be ultimately for the benefit of the countries concerned” (Ife, 2007, p. 14).
In Africa, from 1971 to 1986, there was debate concerning the relevance of western social work education in the context of the African reality. These debates were through the Association for Social Work Education in Africa (ASWEA). However, despite these debates, many social work educational programs have not critically reflected on the cultural relevance of their social work curriculum in relation to the social, political, economic, and spiritual aspects of its culture. Central to the theme of this book is why some countries have progressed more than others in changing their curriculua to their societal needs and factors that have affected producing culturally relevant social work in Africa and what are the possible ways forward in the future.
Overview of the book
Many of the ideas and thoughts that are presented in this book originated from a research project I facilitated from 2002 to 2003 concerning social work curriculum in Ghana. The research group consisted of ten people who had been involved in the social work curriculum over the years, plus a cultural advisor. We spent one year looking at the relevance of social work curriculum in Ghana, in light of the historical and current factors of colonization, modernization, and globalization as they relate to social work education and practice. The research methodology used for the project was Participatory Action Research (PAR). The reasons behind using PAR were: 1) only Ghanaians can critically look at and decide on a culturally appropriate curriculum for themselves; 2) Ghana is a society in which consensus was and is still used in decision-making processes (Gyekye, 1996; Sackey, 2001; Sutherland-Addy, 2003). PAR uses a dialogical consensus approach to generating knowledge; 3) African universities have isolated themselves from the needs of local society but are now recognizing the need to change (Tettey & Puplampu, 2000). Many African social workers have not had a part in the process of defining their professional and educational needs (Osei-Hwedie, 1993). This PAR project used social work practitioners, academics, students, and community persons interested in social work education; 4) PAR has been successful when examining situations of domination and exploitation (Fals Borda, 2001; Reason, 1994; Tandon, 1981). The domination of western social work knowledge was part of the attempt to modernize social work education in Africa and to promote the western way of knowing. This thinking is still predominant in many universities in Africa today; and 5) PAR is not new to the everyday life of Ghanaians. Many PAR examples can be found in the areas of agriculture (Dakubo, 2001; FAO, 2001), girls’ education (Ministry of Education of Ghana, 2000), self-help activities in the informal sector (Schneider-Barthold, 1997), and gender studies (King & Oppong, 2001). However this type of participatory action research is not reflected in the university setting.
Dzobo (1981) identifies truth and knowledge as the key elements in indigenous African society. By examining the languages of two ethnic cultures in Ghana, Ewe and Akan, he identifies important aspects of acquiring knowledge. The four ways of knowing, in the Ewe language, are 1) Nyatsiname (oral tradition, knowledge passed down from generation to generation); 2) Susununya (the act of reflection, listening to others and reflecting on what others have said); 3) Nusronya (academic knowledge); and 4) Sidzedze (knowledge gained as a result of many years of living, self-awareness, wisdom, knowing yourself, how you interact with your environment and situations in life and your knowledge of your own past). These elements of knowledge-gathering, indigenous to Ghana, fit quite well within the philosophy and structure of PAR.
The original questions for the research were as follows: 1) how did the historical dominance of western knowledge and in particular western social work thinking emerge and how has it preserved itself? 2) how and to what extent has western social work thinking been replaced by indigenized approaches in social work in non-western countries? 3) how has the experience of the PAR process facilitated the creation of new knowledge? (Kreitzer, 2004a). These questions were presented to the research group at the initial stages of the process. Over time, two main topics emerging from these research questions were: 1) How did social work evolve in Africa; and 2) What is African culture? Through these two questions, the group was able to critically examine social work education and practice in Ghana. Our main data-collecting techniques were inviting appropriate people to dialogue with the group about a particular topic, group discussions, document analysis, and journal writing. Data analysis was a continual process through the group meetings and individual themizing. At the end of ten months, action plans were initiated that have played an important part in changing certain aspects of social work education in Ghana. For more details of this project, see Kreitzer (2004a), and Kreitzer, Abukari, Antonio, Mensah & Kwaku (2009).
The question of why an outsider had to come and do this project was discussed on various occasions. The group felt that sometimes someone from the outside is able to see things differently than insiders and can challenge them to think outside the box. Sometimes people need to be challenged to think about these issues, and a trigger can be used to do this. I was the trigger to the social work curriculum issue.
This book has been written with the hope that it will challenge African social workers and schools of social work to critically look at their curriculum and to continually evaluate this curriculum in light of the social, political, economic, and spiritual aspects of African life (Ife, 2007). It is time to cut the umbilical cord4 with western theory and practice and create new theories and methods that are culturally relevant to the current African context. This book invites the reader to reflect on, explore, critically evaluate, and take action on the thoughts and ideas expressed here. My hope is that readers will take away new ideas and be challenged to think about the book’s content; in other words, explore what has been written. To explore is to investigate, open up and discover new knowledge that challenges old assumptions. Foucault (1980) talks about the archaeology of knowledge as a way to get beneath the surface of an idea or structure. An archaeologist digs underneath the ground to find the layers of different eras in the world. Social archaeologists dig beneath the structures that we make in order to find out where they originate. In this case the structure is African education and in particular social work education. Questions that the research group contemplated were: 1) what is below the surface of education? 2) what are the circumstances or context behind the educational system? 3) whose perspectives or points of view influenced the educational system? 4) who is in control of the system; and 5) what are we actually trying to achieve by exposing the truths of these questions? In exploring ideas in this book I hope that new knowledge will be uncovered and questioned and that change will come about as a result of this exploration.
These chapters reflect the themes from this research as well as international, national, and local conferences, various articles read, and my own thinking and writing concerning African social work since the research.
• Chapter I provides an historical overview of influences, both foreign and local, that have made social work what it is today in Africa. This includes a brief history of the evolution of Sub-Saharan universities in Africa.
• Chapter II discusses the concept of cultural identity and its important influence on Africans and African social work in light of its current state in African society.
• Chapter III discusses the role that western knowledge has played in the development of Africa and in particular social work training. The role of traditional knowledge in this development is discussed.
• Chapter IV highlights the effect that neo-liberal thinking and economic systems have played in regards to social development and in turn the social work profession.
• Chapter V discusses development and aid in Africa and its influence on social development. Welfare institutions of the past are examined and questions surrounding who social workers are accountable to are discussed. The roles of professional associations are also discussed.
• Chapter VI offers practical ways to initiate a more culturally appropriate social work curriculum in Africa. Details of the research group findings and action plans will be elaborated upon. Suggestions for ways forward with social work curriculum will be discussed.
• Chapter VII offers concluding remarks concerning ways forward in creating African social work curricula that works for Africa.
There are five important issues concerning the content of this book.
1. Firstly, without the insights and critical thinking of the Ghanaian research group,5 this book could not be written. I therefore, again acknowledge the research group, including the guest speakers, as the key contributors in this process. However, over the past years I have continued to develop some of the themes and tested them at various conferences against the different experiences of Africans at these conferences and have expanded them. Therefore, as much as I have tried to stay faithful to the reflections of the research group, it is important to acknowledge that some of the ideas I have developed may not be the ideas and reflections of the research group.
2. Secondly, the themes and questions in this book relate to the African context and in particular this work was focused in an anglophone West African country. To generalize for all of Africa would not be appropriate considering that the research was facilitated in a specific time, place, and cultural context. I am also aware of the different history that South Africa had in comparison with other African countries and the complexity of different ethnic groups there. However, I have used social work literature from other parts of Africa as well as my own experience of working in North America, Europe, Africa, and Armenia, to support different themes of the book so that some generalization can be made. Meredith (2006) points out that “although Africa is a continent of great diversity, African states have much in common, not only their origins as colonial territories, but the similar hazards and difficulties they have faced” (p. 14). Particularly, other countries with a colonial history may find the concepts and ideas useful. Readers from outside Africa must judge how these issues relate to their own cultural and social realities. What is relevant should be considered and what is not applicable can be noted.
3. Thirdly, I am not a French speaker and therefore un-translated francophone African literature on social work education and practice has not been included.
4. Fourthly, students, practitioners, and academics from the western world will find this book useful in thinking about localizing their own curriculum. Faculty and students embarking on faculty and student exchanges in Africa will find the contents helpful.
5. Finally, when quoting from the research project using direct quotes from the participants I have kept to the original transcripts. Therefore, some of the wordings in the quotes are what people said and I have not changed the grammar or words. This causes some anxiety for people quoted as what we say may not be as grammatically accurate as we would like it to be. Some of the quotes were written into my PhD research thesis and in those instances I have referenced my thesis instead of the person.
Summary
There have been many historical and current factors that have influenced how the profession of social work has emerged in Africa. From a continent with a long and complex history made up of micro-nations (Maathai, 2009) to a continent that was colonized and is continuing to modernize, it has experienced more than its share of political, economic, and social challenges (Yimam, 1990). The profession of social work has been influenced by these factors, including a dependency on western social work education and practice. The challenge started back in the 1970s with the ASWEA conferences, to critically think through what social work education means in an African context and this was just the beginning. This issue continues today and is more relevant than ever. This book is written mainly for African social workers and academics in hopes that, through reading this book, a spark of revolutionary thinking is ignited as to what kind of social work education and practice would be most useful and practical for Africa in the twenty-first century. Mobilizing relevant people in order to go through this process of examining assumptions, critiquing and building culturally relevant social work curriculum is both difficult and creative. To remove one’s self from western knowledge that has been deemed “the best,” and held in high esteem, is to ask a culture to remove itself from its parent and start a new life on its own. Taking the best of the western theory and practice and balancing it with African indigenous knowledge and traditions is an important step in this process. This is the only way that African social work can be a creative and revolutionary force in Africa and in social work worldwide (ASWEA, 1974c, p. 32).