Unit Two: Studying Africa through the Social Studies

Module Eight: Culture and Society in Africa

Teacher's Edition

Teacher's Notes to Lesson Eight

Culture is a very broad and inclusive concept. In its broadest cast, everything human can be viewed as culture. Consequently, students often have difficulty coming to terms with culture as a concept.

For purposes of our middle school curriculum, we would like to distinguish three components of culture. To be sure the boundaries between these components are porous and malleable, but through separation, we hope to more adequately address the rich cultures of Africa.

However, prior to addressing these three areas of culture there are three important cautions to keep in mind. These caveats relate to concerns which we have articulated in the teacher's notes for the first lesson, Why Study Africa?

African cultures are dynamic. There is a widely held perception in Europe and North America that often gets transferred into school texts and curricula that represents African cultures as traditional. That is, authentic African cultures are perceived as pre-colonial. We want to challenge the understanding of culture as static and sedimented in time (never changing) and space (located at a specific place). African cultures, in their many articulations, have throughout history been dynamic, malleable, plastic. Consequently, we will be careful not to represent African cultures as unchanging or to assert that specific cultural characteristics are uniquely African, or unique to specific ethnic or national groups in Africa. Instead, we would like to emphasize that a great deal of heterogeneity and diversity exists within these commonly used categories and classifications.

African cultures, like cultures elsewhere, are historically and environmentally contingent. Culture is not an independent category or concept that can be separated from history, economic practice, politics, social practice, and the environment. Beliefs, values, cultural practices, and expressions certainly impact history, how we as humans do politics, economics, and organize ourselves (in social institutions), and how we interact with the environment. However, beliefs, values, cultural practices, and artistic expression also reflect economic and political practices and the physical environment in which they are located. A quick example of how this symbiotic relationship works can be seen in the clothes people wear. Clothes not only reflect cultural beliefs, but they also reflect climate (hot, humid, cold) and the economic resources (availability of materials, i.e. cotton, wool, etc, trade patterns and costs) and history (impact of outside influence, i.e. introduction of Islam or colonialism on dress).

Cultural practices are human/social inventions that often reflect power relationships. While this may be a more difficult concept for middle school students to grasp, we believe that it is important for students to begin to understand that culture is a social construction, or invention. As such, beliefs, values, rituals, and expressions are sometimes purposefully created and benefit selected groups or individuals.

The three components of culture we would like to emphasize in this module are as follows:

1. Culture as system of beliefs, values, and "world view".

Unlike other animals, human beings are distinguished in part by the ability to think, to conceptualize, and to form systems of values and beliefs. Values, when coalesced into systems, form specific ways of sanctioning behavior and of interpreting and viewing the world. Social scientists often define these particular systems of interpreting and acting in the world as cultures. However, cultures, so defined, are not in any sense permanent. Rather, they are constantly challenged and changing.

In the realm of beliefs and values, religion is perhaps one of the most common forms of cultural articulation in Africa. In a separate module, we will introduce the importance of religion throughout the history and across the great diversity of African societies. We designate an entire module to looking at religion in Africa, including a wide diversity of traditional religious beliefs and practices, Islam, and Christianity. In dealing with "borrowed" systems of thought, such as religion, it is important to sensitize our students to an understanding that these external cultural artifacts, whether imposed or freely accepted, were changed as a result of their interaction with existing African cultural systems. Hence, Islam, as practiced in West and East Africa, is often articulated differently than, say, in western Asia. Similarly, Christianity has been impacted by its contact with Africa.

2. Culture as human practice-ritual

As indicated above, culture, understood as a system of values, beliefs, and perceptions, not only influences the distinctive ways we view the world, but also informs distinctive human behavior, particularly the way we organize ourselves in social institutions. Consequently, while many African societies share similarities, there are particular ways that institutions are articulated. In this sense, we can identify cultures of family, cultures of education, cultures of work, cultures of consumption (what people eat/don't eat, wear as clothing), and even cultures of governance, all of which take distinctive forms throughout Africa.

In addition, particular cultural beliefs and values often lead to ritualistic behavior. Some attention will be paid to special cultural ritual in African societies.

Please note that although it is common in U.S. textbooks to do so, we will not conflate ethnicity (tribe) with culture, given the concerns raised in the caveats above. That is, for example, we will not identify the Zulu people of South Africa, or the Akan peoples in Ghana, as cultures.

3. Culture as human expression: art, architecture, clothing, language (literature), music, performance, film.

Culture is also the arena of human expression. This module can only introduce the wonderful diversity of artistic expression in Africa. One of the most egregious misconceptions of cultural expression in Africa is that it is static or traditional and that real African cultural expression was interrupted, or destroyed, by colonialism. While colonialism often had a very deleterious impact on African culture, it did not destroy or co-opt the creative spirit of African artists and cultures. African cultural expression is very dynamic.

We will, in subsequent modules, address in more detail the following areas of cultural expression in Africa.

Art and architecture. Special attention will be paid to the interconnection between the aesthetic and functional orientation of art in Africa.

Literatures of Africa.

Music. We will emphasize the rich diversity and dynamic nature of musical expression in Africa.

Performance and drama. These are very important in many African societies.

Clothing. Given American students' interests in clothing, the study of clothing and its relationship to culture, environment, and historical context, may capture students' attention.

Activities 1-4

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