Colonial mentality and volunteerism “How perspectives originated in the colonial era still influence present-day interaction.” A case study about the colonial mentality of volunteers and local Ghanaians and its influence on volunteer projects. M.H.W. Huisman I I “The key to understanding is to see through each other’s eyes” - From the song Great Spirits from the movie Brother Bear Colophon Title Colonial mentality and volunteerism “How perspectives originated in the colonial era still influence present-day interaction.” A case study about the colonial mentality of volunteers and local Ghanaians and its influence on volunteer projects. Author M.H.W. Huisman 0608513 [email protected] Master thesis Human Geography Globalisation, migration and development Nijmegen School of Management Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen Supervisor Dr. Lothar Smith May 2012 II III Preface Colonialism has always been a subject that I have been interested in. In my bachelor thesis I looked at a volcanic eruption in the Philippines and the reactions to it through the lens of colonialism and postcolonialism. This gave me insights in the perspectives of people that were related to their time of colonization. It has always intrigued me how views and perspectives from the colonial era still live on in the present-day world. If someone had said to me at the start of my study in Human Geography: “you are going to do research in Africa and life there for 2,5 months” I would have laughed and said: “That would be cool, we will see.” Now at the end of my study in Human Geography I have visited Morocco, Ghana and I even made a jump into Burkina Faso territory. These journeys have given me many insights into the complexity that is different cultures and people. These journeys have also shown me that Human Geography was the right study for me. Human Geography for me is everything combined: geography, sociology, history, economy, politics, environment and many other aspects, with people at the heart of the web. In February of 2010 I came in contact with the organization ICLI (Inter Cultural Learning Institute) who gave me the opportunity to do actual fieldwork research in Ghana. This gave me the chance to actually observe these perspectives from the colonial era in the behaviour and actions of people, both volunteers and local Ghanaians. I own a thank you to ICLI and Jolanda Goes for giving me the opportunity to go to Tamale in Ghana to actually conduct a research based on empirical data, instead of only a literature study, on what is now called colonial mentality. I would also like to thank all the wonderful people who I met in Ghana, from ICLI and through daily life. Thank to them I felt like I lived here for 2,5 months instead of only being a visitor for that period. They showed me a new attitude of life, one of relaxing instead of stressing about the little problems from which Western people could learn a lot. But on some occasions this attitude could also be irritating when missing the three basis needs of water, electricity and gas. But as the Ghanaians would say: “That’s Africa! Don’t stress, it will come. The pipe will open tomorrow!” This of course did not happen for another two weeks. But we learned not to stress about it because stressing would not make the water (gas or electricity) come any faster. A special thanks to my parents who kept believing in me through the whole process of writing this thesis. I want to say thanks you to my friends, especially Linda, for listening to me when I needed to talk about the writing process and telling me over and over again that I could do it. I want to thank Lothar Smith for all the time he gave during the writing process of this thesis, which has not been without difficulties, and the encouraging words he offered after each meeting about the chapters I had written. Thank you for reading this thesis. Miriam Huisman May 2012 IV V Table of contents Preface IV Table of contents VI Abstract X 1 Introduction 01 1.1 Formulation of the problem 03 1.2 Scientific relevance 05 1.3 Social relevance 06 1.4 The country Ghana 07 1.5 The actors 08 1.6 Lay-out of this thesis 09 2 Theoretical framework: theories and concepts related to colonial 11 2.1 British colonialism and imperialism 11 2.2 Neocolonialism 13 2.3 Postcolonialism 16 2.3.1 Edward Said’s Orientalism 17 2.4 Post-development theory 18 2.5 A post-development nature versus a neocolonial nature 20 2.6 Concepts from conceptual model 21 2.6.1 Colonial mentality 22 2.6.2 Discourse 24 2.6.3 Western way of knowledge 26 2.6.4 Expert role 27 2.6.5 The influence of the Educational program 28 2.6.6 Dependent / independent nature of the projects 28 2.6.7 Effectiveness 29 3 Methodology of this thesis 31 3.1 Research methods 31 3.1.1 Different contexts in the research 32 3.2 Field work research methods 33 3.2.1 Cases 37 3.3 Data analysis research methods 37 3.3.1 Grounded theory 38 3.3.2 Content analysis 39 3.4 Reflections on research 39 VI 4 The influence of the colonial era on Ghana – a historical overview 41 4.1 The Ghana Empire and migration – Pre-colonization 41 4.2 The Gold Coast colony – The Era of colonization (1471 – 1957) 42 4.2.1 1471 – Trade with the Gold Coast by different European powers 43 4.2.2 British strive to take over the Gold Coast (from early 19th century) 45 4.2.3 Formal colonization of Ghana 1901 – 1957 for the Northern Territories 51 4.3 The move towards an independent Ghana 53 4.3.1 The Northern Territories and independence 53 4.4 Ghana after independence 55 5 Influences of the colonial era on Ghana - present-day overview 57 5.1 The Ghanaian economy and development 57 5.1.1 The economy of Northern Ghana 59 5.2 The educational system in Ghana 60 5.2.1 Education in Northern Ghana 62 5.3 Religion 64 5.4 Culture and social life 64 6 Preparation of both volunteers and local Ghanaians: first interaction between two different cultures 67 6.1 The Educational program of ICLI 67 6.1.1 Observations during the Educational program 69 6.2 Postcolonial / Post-development nature or neocolonial nature 76 6.3 Influence of the Educational Program on the behaviour of volunteers and Ghanaians 77 6.4 Reflections on Educational program 78 6.5 Preparation/introduction programs of other volunteers and local Ghanaians 81 7 Interactions during the work at the volunteer projects 83 7.1 The different cases visited for observations 83 7.2 Expert role 85 7.3 Western way of knowledge versus Ghanaian way of knowledge 89 7.3.1 Teaching methods in primary schools 91 7.4 Influence of the volunteers/researches presence 94 7.5 Dependent / independent nature of the project 99 7.6 Postcolonial/post-development nature or neocolonial nature 100 8 Interactions between volunteers and local Ghanaians in daily life 103 8.1 Expert role 104 8.2 Western way of knowing versus Ghanaian way of knowing 105 8.3 Perspectives on the Western world of the Ghanaians 108 8.4 Perspectives on the Ghanaian world of the volunteers 110 8.5 Relationship between volunteers and local Ghanaians 112 VII 9 Conclusions 115 9.1 Colonial mentality of the volunteers and the local Ghanaians 115 9.1.1 Volunteers 115 9.1.2 Local Ghanaians 117 9.2 Answering the central question 119 9.3 Recommendations 121 9.4 Scope for future research 122 Appendix 1 Questionnaire Educational program 125 Appendix 2 Questionnaires Teachers 127 Appendix 3 Timetable ICLI Educational program 129 Literature 133 VIII IX Abstract On the global scale it are always the Western countries in power who tell the other countries of the world how to do things the ‘right’ way, according to democratic and capitalistic principles. The behaviour of these Western countries that the West is superior to all the other countries can be traced back to the colonial era in which many Western countries were the rulers of colonies in Asia and Africa. In these colonies, rules and principles were implemented according to Western ways without the concern if these rules and principles were even applicable to these countries that often had a different culture and a different set of moral and values. The people in the colonies had no chance to protest and over the years they may have started to believe that the Western way is indeed superior to their own way. This thesis researches if this perspective of superiority of the Western ways can also be found on a smaller and more local scale. In this case in volunteer projects in Tamale, Ghana. The behaviour and interactions of volunteers and local Ghanaians are observed to see if these perspectives are still present and if the Western volunteers see themselves as superior to the local Ghanaians and if the local Ghanaians indeed believe that the Western ways are better than their own. These perspectives can be related to the colonial mentality of the volunteers and local Ghanaians. Colonial mentality is defined as “the perspectives of present day people that have their origin in a historical colonial context and are apparent in the attitude and interaction towards others.” A question that arises is if these perspectives, a person’s colonial mentality, influence the effectiveness of the volunteer projects both actors work in.