Beyond Positive Sciences : an Anthropological Approach to Market Analysis in North-Western Ghana

• Main Author: Dessein, JPG.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Presses Agronomiques de Gembloux 2000-01-01
• Series: Tropicultura
• Subjects: North; western Ghana; Market analysis; Science; Anthropology; Multidisciplinarity; Cultural relativism; Lobi; Wala
• Online Access: http://www.tropicultura.org/text/v18n1/14.pdf

Western science has often been thought of as an universally applicable, dominant and neutral knowledge system. Recently this view has been challenged by various scientists, who try to revalue the subjugated knowledge systems of local people by appreciating its characteristics. But this upgrading of endogenous knowledge often is but another example of the hegemonie position of Western science : it evaluates local situations with Western criteria, neglecting the cultural paradigms of the people involved. This article is a plea for a new multidisciplinary and intercultural research approach which takes as its foundation an understanding of the local culture and paradigms on which selected topics can be analysed, rather than a traditional disciplinary approach in which, afterwards, a foreign cultural component is being inscribed. This appeal is supported by material from a local market in North-western Ghana, where the Lobi peasants sell their harvest to the Wala traders.