ABSTRACT

Chapter 20:  Emerging Areas in Africa

            Part 1: Developing Community Psychology in Cameroon

                        Bame Nsamenang, Francis Nkwenti Fru, & Melissa Asma Browne

In Cameroon, community psychology is still a work in progress, albeit at a prenatal stage. Its root is a developmental process that is embedded in African antiquity but recognizable in four phases. First, there is an antiquated sense of community, by which members of the family and community engaged in self-supportive services and collective mutual assistance. Second, although colonialists met widespread community-based activities and processes, they sought to replace them with the ideology of developmentalism, a modernist strategy or social engineering project they touted as Europe’s civilizing contribution to ‘backward’ Africa. Third, community psychology-related practices such as outreach professional services are embedded in or are maturing out of agriculture, the health sector and development education. Finally, human services psychology is evolving as an academic discipline for community-based practices. Indigenous precepts and strands of relevant psychosocial theories can explain this developmental process.

  Part 2: Community Psychology in Ghana

              Charity Akotia and Kofi B. Barimah