Definición y características generales

After individuals’ views regarding their traumatic events were solicited, they were also asked to comment on the general cultural beliefs as indicated by their cultural leaders. A quote to illustrate a response from an individual:

“Umm, putting my fathers’ incidence aside, those events may occur on several grounds. In Dagbon here we have do’s and don’ts. It is belief that if you do some of the don’ts you could invoke the anger of our ancestors or of the gods. For instance, for a very long time we were not supposed to go to the farm on Friday and people who go to farm on Fridays could suffer bad yields or could get good harvest but before the farm produce are taken from the farm, a devastating fire could come to finish everything. These were happening. We have a situation where a beautiful girl gets married, a member in the family is not happy with their marriage. Usually, if that member of the family is somebody who have sacrifice for the girl, the girl may never give birth or the girl may never be happy in that house. So sometimes some of these things happen. It is believed that if the auntie, the mother or uncle who is not happy with the marriage have never

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sacrifice anything for you, it cannot follow you or using the literal English “it cannot catch you” but if you are somebody who have suffered to bring up the child and against it, we have instances, example: the couples will be fertile but cannot give birth although they are declared fit by doctors and many more. We even have em a belief that actually works. When

somebody have hatred can do something demonic to make something either go worse or make someone die instantly or any other thing. All these beliefs exist in us and we see it sometimes. There are instances where somebody dies and you cannot explain it or just as I stated, you go to the hospital, doctors do their examination and say “oh you can give birth, you are fertile” but you are not giving birth. This calls for more explanation and we point a figure to such issues. Once science cannot explain it and it is happening, then we have to look elsewhere for a better explanation or there are more workable explanation”.

This view was similar to most of the comments gathered from individuals regarding the Mole-Dagbon cultural views. It seems clear that for many individuals there was a preference for scientific explanations, but that traditional beliefs were incorporated to explain the unexplainable. What is also evident in the quotation above is that there does not seem to exist a strong dichotomous thinking. Individuals that expressed views similar to the above were quite comfortable in using what may be seen as two quite contrasting systems of explanation in understanding traumatic events. Many individuals also used anecdotal evidence or personal experience to support the veracity of the mechanisms

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explained by the focus group. What did seem to be different is that with individuals there seemed to be a clear preference for ‘scientific’ explanation with traditional beliefs acting as a backup explanatory framework. It must be remembered that the individuals were sampled via a local psychologist and had attended a ‘Western’ medical facility – they may have therefore been predisposed to favour ‘scientific’ explanations. There were also quite clearly a number of individuals that outright dismissed the cultural explanations offered by the focus groups. A quote from one such respondent is presented below:

“Yes, some are there like that, witchcrafts, curses, gods and all that but through my upbringing and religion, I don’t think of any of these and will not attach any spiritual meaning and what the spiritual leaders think. Normally it is those who think badly are those who will attach these meaning and I have seen some people go through what I experienced and they point hands on these beliefs”.

This individual acknowledges that cultural beliefs exist and are practiced. However, her exposure (upbringing and religion) forbids her to incorporate these cultural beliefs. And she also seems quite happy to forego these beliefs in her own understanding of traumatic events. The religion that she is referring to here is monotheistic and generally speaking monotheistic religions may preclude the inclusion of other explanatory

frameworks because of the primacy afforded to a single omnipotent deity. The acceptance of one framework therefore precludes the inclusion of others. This is somewhat in contrast with the first example where there seemed to be a relatively easy co-existence between

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quite disparate systems of attribution. What this may mean for traumatic symptomology is equivocal. One the one hand, having a very fixed attribution system may make meaning making easier and efficient, but on the other hand, having a range of explanations available may increase the range of explanations available to make sense of a traumatic event. What is quite clear however, is that in the current sample, the idea of culture refers not only to the traditional culture of the Mole-Dagbon, but also to the competing systems of

understanding that is brought into the equation by Western thinking as well as religious (monotheistic) thinking.

Although there are differences as to how traditional cultural values are incorporated by individuals, it seems most of the Mole-Dagbon are aware of these traditional

interpretations. One group of individuals seem to incorporate these values when science fails, but another seems to disregard the explanatory framework altogether (this latter group is marked by strong beliefs in monotheistic realities). In the current sample the second group was present, but definitely a minority. Mole-Dagbon individuals mostly seem to incorporate traditional cultural beliefs irrespective of primary systems of belief and attribution. In few instances individuals disregarded the traditional cultural

explanatory frameworks, but they did not dispute the existence and effectiveness of the cultural elements. Individuals’ dynamics in attributing and explaining causalities (natural, supernatural and manmade) very much paralleled and were embedded in normative

cultural understandings. Information gathered from both the focus groups and individuals, portrayed that there was not a particular pattern but a range of possible attributions

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(supernatural). These were usually reserved for unpredictable and otherwise unexplained events of personal injury and death. There were also predictable factors that were

considered to have stimulated the works of the supernatural. A noticeable aspect of these predictable factors are that they often contained elements that are contrary to the central values of a collectivist/interdependent culture (e,g. the intra-tribal conflict was seen as related to selfish self-promotion above others). This was evident in both the focus groups as well as the individual interviews. This is quite thought provoking. In the researchers’ view most Ghanaians lean more towards a collectivist/interdependent culture. For the generally more traditional Mole-Dagbon to have engaged in such decidedly un-collectivist activity might make one wonder about possible triggers for this ‘deviation’. Some of the focus group members suggested outside political influence as contributing to the unrest, but from other data factors such as exposure to other cultural elements (monotheism) or more individualistic/independent western thinking may have also contributed to the turmoil.

Individual’s responses to cultural perceptions were similar to that of the findings by other authors elsewhere (Barnes, 2015; Herbert & Forman, 2010; Wilson, 2005).

Although in most instances individuals were uncertain about the causes and frequently speculated, they appear to have included normative cultural elements in their interpretive behaviour. It is of course difficult to say what the effect of the above descriptions may be, but possible implications are offered below.

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