Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Making Sense of the Western Encounter
- 3 Cultural Identity and Development
- 4 Political Economy and the Culture of Underdevelopment
- 5 The Culture of Politics
- 6 Ethnic Nationalism
- 7 Islam, Religious Identity, and Politics
- 8 Traditional Religions in Modern Africa
- 9 English or Englishes? The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics
- 10 Gender and Culture in Old and New Africa
- 11 Africa, the Homeland: Diasporic Cultures
- Bibliography
- Index
3 - Cultural Identity and Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 17 March 2023
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- Illustrations
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Making Sense of the Western Encounter
- 3 Cultural Identity and Development
- 4 Political Economy and the Culture of Underdevelopment
- 5 The Culture of Politics
- 6 Ethnic Nationalism
- 7 Islam, Religious Identity, and Politics
- 8 Traditional Religions in Modern Africa
- 9 English or Englishes? The Politics of Language and the Language of Politics
- 10 Gender and Culture in Old and New Africa
- 11 Africa, the Homeland: Diasporic Cultures
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
No state, not even an infant one, is willing to appear before the world as a bare political frame. Each would be clothed in a cultural garb symbolic of its aims and ideal being.
… the passion with which the native intellectuals defend the existence of their national culture may be a source of amazement, but those who condemn this exaggerated passion are strangely apt to forget that their own psyche and their own selves are conveniently sheltered behind a French or German culture which has given full proof of its existence and which is uncontested.
… development is modernization minus dependency… . African culture is central to this process of reducing dependency in the dialectic of modernization… . What is needed is more of modernity and less of “the Western spring.” A non-Western route to modernity is possible for Africa—provided African culture is fully mobilized as an ally in the enterprise.
There are two ways to lose oneself: by a walled segregation in the particular or by a dilution in the ‘universal.’
Such commonly expressed notions as “the cultural dimension of development,” “the cultural framework to guide development,” “tradition and modernity,” and “cultural development,” to mention but a few major ones, reflect the analytical and practical linkages that scholars and policymakers have attempted to establish between culture and development in order to assert that culture cannot be ignored in the discourse on development. Scholars who call into question the need for cultural retention or such evidence of the survival of tradition constitute a minority.
In Africa and elsewhere, culture shapes the perception of Self and the interaction between people and their environment. It explains habits such as why people respect old age, have many children, take care of their children, work hard, take to polygyny, and support male dominance. It justifies work ethics: for example, the desire for money without having to work for it; gender division of labor; and consumption habits and accumulative styles. It defines norms of behavior, such as inter- and intragenerational relations, codes of conduct for holders of political offices, and the difference between gift-giving and corruption.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Power of African Cultures , pp. 49 - 70Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2003