Ethnocentrism: The Historical and Modern Impact on Ghana

It is not always fun and games here in Ghana. Below is the paper I had to write for orientation in order to receive my final grade in my Culture and Society class. I will buy anyone who actually finishes this a Ghanaian chocolate bar!

        Ethnocentrism, “the belief that one’s ethnic or culture group is superior,” is a belief system that was prevalent throughout the world historically and continues to dominate the ideology of individuals today (Lecture 7/30/2011). Specifically in Ghana, ethnocentrism has played a major role in the past as well as in modern times. Colonialism and the Atlantic Slave Trade serve as strong examples of the influence of ethnocentrism in Ghana’s history. The Eurocentric beliefs accompanying these practices inhibited development and continue to have debilitating effects in modern times. Today, Ghana, and Africa in general, persists to struggle against stereotypes and the connection commonly made between Westernization and development. The image of Ghana that pervaded my mind prior to my arrival in August, centered on the topics of diversity, safety, dress, and development, has been completely shattered by my experiences abroad. I have discovered that it is necessary to take an ethnorelative view of Ghana, in which the positives and negatives of a culture are respected, and to realize that in order to progress, the country must find its own solutions to contemporary problems based on what works for the diverse population.  

            One form of ethnocentrism that played a major role in Ghana’s history is Eurocentrism, or the belief in European superiority. This established belief in European supremacy led to the formation of misleading stereotypes, destabilization, and justification for the European colonization of Africa and the growth of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Travel accounts by European traders, missionaries, and explorers depicted Africa as a “dark continent” (Oyebade 9). Since Europeans were unable to understand the complexities of African societies from their outside perspective, they attributed what they knew from their own world to the newly explored continent. Europeans described the African people as primitive, barbaric, and inferior in their accounts. These biased observations were transported back to Europe and the Americas, spread amongst the general population, and widely accepted. Since Africans were perceived as subordinates, Europeans felt that it was their obligation to teach the non-white Africans how to behave like Europeans. This idea of civilizing Africans as “A White Man’s Burden” was exploited to justify European colonialism in Africa (Kipling 304). Further, these Eurocentric beliefs played a role in defending the dominance of the Atlantic Slave Trade. Europeans commonly dehumanized the African people in order to justify their mistreatment of slaves. The ethnocentric ideology that promoted the belief that Europeans were genetically superior people eased the slave master’s conscious and played a defining role in weakening the progress of Ghana. 

During the fifteenth century, Ghanaians established their first direct trading relations with the European nation of Portugal. The Portuguese were subsequently followed by the arrival of the Dutch, the English, and multiple other European powers. Ghana was deemed the Gold Coast because of the prevalence of gold in the region. Although the European traders continued to trade manufactured goods for raw materials and minerals, the emphasis of trade shifted towards the sale of human lives. The growth in the demand for slaves resulted in debilitating political, economical, and social effects for Ghana and the entirety of West Africa.  

 As a result of the high demand for slaves in the New World for agriculture, mining, and for mass production, Africa faced major changes demographically. At least thirteen million slaves were exported out of Africa between the 1440s to the 1860s and faced brutal conditions and exploitation (Inikori 391-392). According to Joseph Inikori (394), between 1700 and 1809, “two-thirds of the total exports were from West Africa (Senegal through Cameroon), and virtually all the rest from West Central Africa (Congo-Angola).” Slave owners preferred young, healthy slaves. Males were particularly targeted because of their strength and ability to excel at manual labor. Of the thirteen million slaves transported out of Africa, “36 percent of the exports were female and 64 percent male” and the bulk of the exports were “aged 15 to 30” (Inikori 392). West African societies were redefined by the loss of human resources which created a gender imbalance and disrupted economic growth and family life. Africa’s reliance on Europe’s cheap manufactured goods “discouraged rather than stimulated agricultural and industrial production” (Inikori 396). Politically, the high demand for labor in the Americas partnered with the incentive of profit resulted in battles between African groups that “led to increased slave-raiding and to more wars being fought for the express purpose of securing slaves” (Fage 393). Slaves were captured “through warfare, trickery, banditry, and kidnapping” in the interior and were transported to the coast where they were inspected, auctioned off, branded, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean on the treacherous Middle Passage (Rodney, 231). Even native Africans participated in the slave trade as middlemen by gathering fellow Africans from the interior and dragging them to the coast for money. The Atlantic Slave Trade serves as an example of how ethnocentric beliefs played a debilitating role in Ghana’s history.

Today, Ghana continues to struggle against stereotypes that have developed due to ethnocentrism. Before my own journey across the Atlantic Ocean, I readily accepted some of these very stereotypes without questioning where the source of the information derived from. My time in Ghana has completely changed my perspective of these misconceptions and has awakened me to the dangerousness of the “us versus them” mentality.

A.K. Awedoba writes in Culture and Development in Africa that it is necessary to educate university students about Africa because of the “existence and persistence of negative perceptions and stereotypes about the continent and its people” (Awedoba 1). For example, individuals across the globe continue to believe that “Africans worship idols, engage in infanticide, sexual promiscuity, and a host of other deplorable acts and habits” (Awedoba 1). Before my departure for Ghana I was faced with multiple questions and statements that reflect the lack of knowledge Americans have for the continent of Africa. Friends asked me “will you be living in a mud hut in a village?” “Will you be safe with all the lions around?” My personal favorite questions were the ones pertaining to language. I cannot count the number of times I had to explain to a relative or friend that a sizable portion of the Ghanaian population communicates using English. However, not all of these thoughts were far off from what I had been wondering. A few of the key misconceptions I held before I came here relate to the diversity of Africa, safety, dress, and development.

 While I was still living in the United States, I often used the word Ghana interchangeably with Africa as if they were one and the same. According to Awedoba, “both Africans themselves and non-Africans have been guilty of what may be called the fallacy of homogeneity” (Awedoba 21). For example, in the United States, Americans have a tendency to talk about the continent of Africa as if it is one country. Further, people tend to generalize what the culture is like as well as the climate. However, I have discovered that not only is Africa diverse, but Ghana itself is extremely complex. Although it is difficult to provide a definitive number, scholars have stated that there are between forty-five to fifty different languages spoken in Ghana (Awedoba 65). The vast number of languages reflects the even larger number of ethnic groups that span through the ten regions of Ghana. As a result, Ghana is composed of multiple cultures that widely differ from one another. Thus, the belief in homogeny throughout Africa has completely been discounted through my experiences of the substantial diversity in Ghana.      

One of the greatest concerns that my parents held about my adventures in Ghana was safety. Grandpa Larry would send me emails about the disruptions in the Ivory Coast and often cited this violence as a reason for why I should switch my program. Also, my father sat me down in a chair and questioned me about crime rates and whether my light skin would make me a prime target for theft or violence. Sure, there is crime in Ghana. But isn’t there crime in every other country in the world? Just as in many other urban settings, crime is more prevalent in the capital of Accra than in rural settings. While my mind was focused on safety before I arrived in Ghana, my time in Legon has been composed of nothing but positive experiences thus far. The people are genuine, helpful, and incredibly hospitable. When I was at the Cape Coast Festival one woman grabbed my hand and said “Please hold your bag so you don’t get picked.” If anything, I feel like Ghanaians would work together to defend me if any harm were to come my way. I now question whether my parents were worried due to the fact that I was travelling in general, or if it was specifically because I was travelling in Africa. Either way, my experiences here have enabled me to spread the word back home that I honestly feel safer here than back in the States and that Ghanaians are some of the friendliest people I have ever come into contact with.

Displayed on the front cover of my travel book is a vibrantly dressed African woman with a red headdress on. Filling the pages of my photography book documenting Ghanaian life are images of festivals and weddings where all of the participants are wearing traditional African wear. Naturally, I was quite surprised when I found myself on the University of Ghana campus surrounded by individuals wearing blue jeans, tight tank tops, and collared shirts. True, Ghanaians do wear African apparel on Fridays and some sport it during the week, but I was shocked to discover that the younger generations dress almost exactly the same as American college students. At one point in the orientation I asked one of our student guides where he purchased his clothes from. I was astonished to learn that he has purchased most of his clothes from the United States and had them shipped overseas. Another female student guide confirmed his statement. Why could this be? I came to the conclusion that globalization has led to the adoption of Western styles of dress in Ghana. This proves that Ghana is more connected to the global web than I ever anticipated. Thus, opposed to the images that accompanied the information I was reading on Ghana that showed Ghanaians in purely traditional dress, I have learned that many Ghanaians dress in Western styles similar to people in the United States.

One of the final areas where I had held misconceptions of Ghana is development. Honestly, before travelling overseas I knew very little about the infrastructure of Ghana and therefore had a hard time imagining what to expect. When we flew into Accra airport the view from my window awakened me to the notion that Ghana has come a long way since its march to independence in 1957. In other words, Ghana is far more developed than I ever anticipated. There are two sides to this story, however. Initially, I was surprised at the level of development because Accra has high rise buildings and the streets are bustling with Hondas, Mercedes, and automobiles similar to those in America. The International Students Hostel that I was originally provided accommodations in not only had running water and electricity, but also access to the Internet. Both the young and old walk around using cell phones- iphones seem to be equally popular in Ghana as in the United States. Yet, when our University of California group travelled to other cities, such as Kumasi and the Cape Coast, I started to see the gap between urban areas and the rural countryside. It became quite apparent that the villages and towns between cities live a slower paced life with less of the luxuries of the cities. I feel that the poverty I saw outside of the cities was more what I expected for the entirety of Ghana. However, once again I realized that Ghana is a country full of complexities and diverse lifestyles. Either way, I feel that Ghana is more developed than I anticipated as well as more connected to the global network.

The orientation lecture on ethnocentrism, the reading of Culture and Development in Africa, and my firsthand experiences in Ghana awakened me to the problems of how Westerners, including myself, view Africa. Historic and modern Westerners impose “Western models and blue prints for development on African peoples without discrimination and regardless of the suitability of these models to the experiences of the peoples on the receiving end.” (Awedoba 2) I have discovered that to equate development with Westernization is a grave mistake. What works in the Western world may not be fitting in Ghana because it is a different country with its own unique cultures. Further, distinctions used in America between “‘developed’, ‘developing’, ‘undeveloped’, ‘under-developed’ as applied to nations and regions of the world remain questionable and may be justly compared to earlier distinctions between ‘civilized’, ‘uncivilized’, ‘primitive’, ‘barbarian’, ‘savage’”  used in the past (Awedoba 15). In fact, every country is still developing in one regard or another but it may be at a different speed or along a unique path. Instead of using an ethnocentric mode of thinking, people should switch to an ethnorelative perspective when viewing a new culture. According to this model, an individual should take in the entirety of a culture, including both positive and negative aspects. By using this mentality I feel that I have been able to submerge myself in the Ghanaian culture more fully and discover that in order to progress as a nation, Ghana must reexamine and apply “indigenous ideas in the search for solutions to contemporary problems,” as well as seek methods that bridge the gap between the diverse peoples and cultures. Ghana is not a part of the Western world and viewing it in such a way blinds one to the complexity of the country.

Ethnocentrism played a prominent role in the history of Ghana as well as in the country’s current struggles with development. The Eurocentric belief in European superiority justified colonialism and the Atlantic Slave Trade. These processes stand as symbols of the destruction an ethnocentric mindset caused historically. Today, my own experiences in Ghana have highlighted how an ethnocentric view continues to dominate Western ideology. Stereotypes continue to plague the Western mind and destroy the reality of life in Africa. One major issue is the association between Westernization and development. Ghana is fully capable of developing using its own model that is suitable to the diverse population and culture. Unique solutions to problems could develop which might be shared in the global system. If humanity were to shift to an ethnorelative perspective, I feel that there would be less prejudice in the world and in its place, a major opportunity for positive cross cultural interactions between differing nations.