Studies of neoliberalism in Africa, and recognitions of its fracturing effects, commonly remain at the level of socioeconomics. In this paper it is argued that psychologies are also an important area of study, not only for revealing the challenges that the neoliberal “culture of change” (Ntarangwi 2009) poses to African Selves and societies, but also in regard to moving discussions on locally-derived strategies for survival forward. Critiques of the unsuitability of neoliberal individualism to African contexts are not new, and are often framed (sometimes quite reductively) in terms of ‘modern’ versus ‘traditional’ cultures clashing (Mwenda 2000; Frankenberg et al. 2014). However, behavioural insights from USA are increasingly indicative of individualism as not just being a matter of culture, but how it is connected to privilege, in that interdependence in lower socio-economic groups is an adaptive psychological strategy in conditions of scarcity (Stephens et al. 2011). Furthermore, their evidence shows how communications focused on empowerment through independence (e.g. being unique, standing apart) in fact have the opposite effect on youth who prioritise interdependence (e.g. fitting in and having strong relationships), instead having demoralising and disempowering effects (Stephens et al. 2012). Through dialogical analyses (Markova 2003; Gillespie 2008) of fifteen focus group discussions with urban-poor youth and university students in urban Tanzania, this paper provides insights into how young people who have received (individualist) ‘life skills’ and empowerment trainings, negotiate local-global knowledges in making sense of their lives and (gendered) agencies to act within them. The results do indeed show how notions of empowerment through choice and education are marked by youth as ‘not-for-us’, instead being associated with the ‘privileged West’. Yet the different groups of youth too give insights into how the combined experiences of poverty and neoliberal globalisation have also had fracturing effects on more long-standing localised interdependent forms of empowerment, relating to social recognition, support, and trust in relationships. Consequently, whilst youth maintain interdependent notions of Self, they are deprived of its benefits (i.e. distributed networks of support), as relationships become the site at which competitive battles for survival and marketized forms of recognition are played out. The paper contextualises these findings through discussion on how empowerment interventions, in their reliance on individualist human rights, and according pervasive neglect of the insecurities for Self and society caused by the local-global interrelations of poverty and neoliberalism, contribute to further marginalising the very people that they are trying to help. Efforts that work to restore social support networks, and which facilitate discussions on potentials for decolonial forms of social recognition, that simultaneously expose the silent (and moralising) clashes between independent and interdependent selves, are therefore called for.
References
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Gillespie, A. (2008) “Social Representations, Alternative Representations and Semantic Barriers” in Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 38(4):375-391.
Markova, I. (2003) “Dialogicality and Social Representations: The Dynamics of Mind”. Cambridge University Press, UK.
Mwanda, K.K. (2000) “"Deconstructing the concept of human rights in Africa" in Alternative Law Journal 25(6):295.
Ntarangwi, M. (2009) “East African hip hop: Youth culture and globalization.” Vol. 57. University of Illinois Press, USA.
Stephens, N.M., Fryberg, S.A. and Markus, H.R. (2011) “When Choice Does Not Equal Freedom: A Sociocultural Analysis of Agency in Working Class American Contexts” in Social Psychological and Personality Science 2:33-41.
Stephens, N.M., Townsend, S.S.M., Markus, H.R. and Phillips, L.T. (2012) “A Cultural Mismatch: Independent Cultural Norms Produce Greater Increases in Cortisol and More Negative Emotions Among First-Generation College Students” in Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 48:1389-1393.