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991022287146303411.Pdf Copyright Undertaking This thesis is protected by copyright, with all rights reserved. By reading and using the thesis, the reader understands and agrees to the following terms: 1. The reader will abide by the rules and legal ordinances governing copyright regarding the use of the thesis. 2. The reader will use the thesis for the purpose of research or private study only and not for distribution or further reproduction or any other purpose. 3. The reader agrees to indemnify and hold the University harmless from and against any loss, damage, cost, liability or expenses arising from copyright infringement or unauthorized usage. IMPORTANT If you have reasons to believe that any materials in this thesis are deemed not suitable to be distributed in this form, or a copyright owner having difficulty with the material being included in our database, please contact [email protected] providing details. The Library will look into your claim and consider taking remedial action upon receipt of the written requests. Pao Yue-kong Library, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong http://www.lib.polyu.edu.hk CHILDHOODS IN GHANA: UNDERSTANDING THE WORK OF NGOs AS CULTURAL BROKERS AND TRANSLATORS IN CHILDHOOD CONSTRUCTION SAMPSON ADDO YEBOAH PhD The Hong Kong Polytechnic University 2019 The Hong Kong Polytechnic University Department of Applied Social Sciences CHILDHOODS IN GHANA: UNDERSTANDING THE WORK OF NGOS AS CULTURAL BROKERS AND TRANSLATORS IN CHILDHOOD CONSTRUCTION Sampson Addo Yeboah A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy May 2019 CERTIFICATE OF ORIGINALITY I hereby declare that this thesis is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written, nor material that has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. ___________________ (Signed) Sampson Addo Yeboah (Name of student) DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my family, and the participating NGO and cocoa farmers I worked with. My interactions and involvement in your lives have inspired my interest to understand planned interventions and development projects better! Abstract Child protection is an important issue in Ghana. The country was the first in the world to ratify the United Nations Conventions of the Right of the Child (UNCRC). There is also a whole government ministry dedicated to child protection. As such, a vast amount of energy and funding are devoted to generating the right policy, models, and interventions, which are in line with international standards or global text such as the UNCRC to protect children. However, little attention is given to the relationship between these models and policy, and the actual practices the implementations are expected to legitimise. Using an actor-oriented approach, this study follows the network of a child-focus NGO during the implementation of an intervention to prevent child labour and encourage schooling in a rural cocoa growing area of Ghana. The study uses ethnographic method to get into the lifeworld of NGO field officers tasked to implement the intervention and reveals that practices on the field are uniquely different from the intervention prescriptions. NGO officials, however, spend the best part of their energies on maintaining coherent presentation of their efforts as a consequence of prescribed policies and models and to achieve measurable success, to meet expectations of higher administrators, safeguard their jobs and to ensure funding. The study concludes that in doing so, NGO officials as victims of the wider development narrative, block the opportunity to learn from the real challenges that make childhood intervention successful beyond measurable and visible achievements. Keywords: Cultural Brokers; UNCRC; Development Aid; Ghana; Child-focus NGOs Acknowledgement I want to thank the following organisation and people for the enormous help they offered in the completion of this doctoral study and dissertation. Foremost I am grateful to The Department of Applied Social Science (APSS), Hong Kong Polytechnic University (HKPU) for funding this study. Extra thanks to the Graduate Research Office of HKPU for awarding me a grant for attachment training at the Department of Health Promotion and Development University of Bergen (UiB), Norway. The findings, conclusions, opinions, and recommendations expressed in this dissertation are my contribution to academia; there is no conflict of interest to be declared. I want to express my sincere gratitude to my principal supervisor Dr David Kurt Herold for his direction. The administrators of APSS also helped and provided resources in various ways; special thanks to Ms Fanny Cheng, executive officer of APSS. I will also like to thank the Ministry of Gender Children and Social Protection Ghana for granting permission and resources. Special thanks to the participation NGO whose name I am unable to mention for anonymity purposes, and all the welcoming NGO field officers and smiling Cocoa Farmers who accommodated my presence for the duration of data collection. Their valuable time and responses made this dissertation possible. I am also grateful to my family members and all my friends for the encouragement and support. Special thanks to Marguerite Daniel (PhD) for her encouragement and positive talk. Table of contents Chapter One: Introduction ............................................................................................................... 1 1.0 Emergence of NGOs as cultural brokers ............................................................................... 1 1.1.1 A cultural and post-structural critique of child-focus NGOs .................................... 6 1.1.2 Reasons for studying child-focus NGOs..................................................................... 12 1.2 Outline of the thesis ............................................................................................................... 17 1.2.1 Chapter summary ............................................................................................................... 19 Chapter Two: Literature review and theoretical framework ...................................................... 21 2. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 21 2.1 The normative global child: its origin and reach ............................................................. 22 2.1.1 Possible reasons for Ghana's adoption of the UNCRC............................................. 26 2.1.2 Diffusion of UNCRC into Ghana’s local law on children .......................................... 29 2.1.3 Constructing Ghanaian childhood as envisioned by UNCRC .................................. 30 2.3 Profile of Ghana .................................................................................................................... 37 2.3.1 History of child rights in Ghana .................................................................................. 41 2.3.2 Childhood cultural practices in Ghana ......................................................................... 47 2.3.4 Some specific childhood customs in Ghana ................................................................ 54 2.4 Point of departure ................................................................................................................ 60 2.4.1 Aim and research objectives ........................................................................................ 60 2.5 Analytical framework: Study of Science, Technology, and Society (STS)........................ 61 2.5.1 Theoretical framework: actor oriented approach ....................................................... 64 2.5.2 Actor Network Theory (ANT) ..................................................................................... 65 2.5.3 Critique of Actor Network Theory (ANT) .................................................................... 68 2.5.4 A model on Actor Network or operationalisation ...................................................... 70 2.5.5 Chapter summary ............................................................................................................... 72 Chapter Three: Research Methodology ......................................................................................... 74 3. Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 74 3.1 Ethnography: theory and historical underpinnings ..................................................... 75 3.1.1 Reflexivity and ethnography ........................................................................................ 80 3.1.2 My ethnographic story (why I chose ethnography) ................................................... 82 3.1.3 Ethnography and the study of child-focus NGOs ...................................................... 86 3.2 Duration of fieldwork and tools for development ethnography ........................................ 87 3.2.1 Tools for data collection .............................................................................................. 88 3.2.2 Data management and dialogical analysis .................................................................. 96 3.3 Ethics and positionality ....................................................................................................
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