Cross-cultural research is like virtue—everybody is in favor of it, but there are widely differing views as to what it is and ought to be.

— N. Frijda and G. Jahoda

Cross-cultural investigation of cognition is an endeavor with its own special problems. Numerous and elusive variables to be controlled, experimental results that are frequently inconclusive or difficult to interpret, the necessity for skills in other disciplines—these are the nemeses of cross-cultural psychological researchers. Yet if psychology is to have a more universally applicable perspective on cognitive functioning than it possesses at the present time, psychologists will need to find ways to live and work with such difficulties. This paper will review some of the attempts at such research conducted by psychologists who seek to understand cognitive processes as they are manifested among African peoples.

Before the formal study of cognitive processes across cultures began, there was a long dialogue among scholars of various persuasions comparing the mental faculties of people in different cultures. While this paper is concerned primarily with a review of experimental studies of cognition, an awareness of some of these earlier philosophical/theoretical discussions provides a useful backdrop for the consideration of the formal psychological studies. Crystallized within the discussions are some of the enduring issues that have confronted cross-cultural researchers.

Often, these discussions centered around highly controversial issues. One of the major controversies of cross-cultural research is the question of whether or not the mental processes of people in nontechnological societies differ qualitatively from the mental processes of people in technological societies.

Relationships between U.S. government officials and academic specialists working on national security and foreign policy issues with respect to Africa are many and complex. They can be as informal as a phone call or passing conversation or as formalized as a consulting arrangement or research contract. Many contacts exist and there is no doubt that many in both government and the academy value these ties. There have been, however, ongoing controversies about what settings and what topics are appropriate to the government/academic interchange. National security and foreign policy-making in the U.S. is an extremely diffuse process.

This article argues that the roots of the Malawian medical brain drain lie in colonial and postcolonial historical, economic, medical, political, social, racial, and class factors. Also involved are the image and expectations of doctors themselves and the culture of medicine in Malawi. Reversing this brain drain, therefore, requires tackling factors in all these domains.

At the present time, Accra--eighty years the seat of Gold Coast administration, and fifteen years the capital of an independent Ghana--stands atop an urban system that is relatively well developed by Black African standards. In several years the municipal population will reach the million mark, notwithstanding the fact that less than 5 per cent of the labor force is employed in modern manufacturing industries. Unlike most large cities in the West which expanded in response to the needs of industry, Accra grew despite a dearth of secondary industries. Foremost among its competitive advantages during the colonial period were its traditional role as a port, its administrative importance as a political capital, and its fortuitous location vis-à-vis the earliest cocoa-producing districts. It is proposed that this latter advantage was the primary determinant of the urban growth and spatial organization of Accra during the second decade of the present century, a seminal phase in its commercial development.

In this paper I would like to discuss the impact of the early years of the cocoa trade, first, on Accra in relation to the emerging urban system and, second, on the changing pattern of commercial land use within the town. Most of the discussion refers to those years between 1908, when the first significant cocoa exports occurred, and 1921, by which time the townscape of Accra clearly displayed the impress of the cocoa trade. During this brief but eventful period the economic shock waves released by the revolutionary new crop set up a condition of disequilibrium within the colonial space-economy. Centers, such as Accra, which serviced the cocoa trade flourished, while many other languished. The paper focuses, then, on cocoa as a primary influence on the economic geography of Accra, at a time when its leadership in the urban hierarchy was being consolidated.

Paraphrasing Félix Houphouët-Boigny, Ivoirian politician Camille Aliali once said, “Democracy is a system of government for virtuous people. It seldom works even in mature countries. We must be realistic. Our people are ignorant of the problems we face. They cannot be left to choose the solutions,....” In 1990, the president and his close associates changed their minds. On May 3, 1990, the president of Côte d’Ivoire announced the legalization of opposition parties and the intent to hold multi-party elections. On October 28, Ivoirians voted in their first multi-candidate presidential election, which pitted the eighty-five year old Houphouët against long-standing critic and candidate of the “democratic left” coalition, Laurent Gbagbo.

The nature of the post-apartheid society is very much on the agenda. In the multitude of publications, conferences and debates on this agenda, the bulk of the attention is given to the need for—and the possible characteristics of—a non-racial political system. Much less attention is given to the nature of the post-apartheid economic system, and to the structural changes necessary to synchronize it with the new political system and to ensure that it will have the fiscal capacity to sustain a truly democratic parliamentary system.

A literary scholar runs a certain risk when he ventures into the troubled waters of African politics. But a poet—whether it is Shakespeare carefully plotting his historical plays to conform to and support the Tudor position on the Wars of the Roses or Wordsworth confusing the atmosphere of the French Revolution with the air of heaven or Ginsberg howling with rage and existential despair at the sight of democracy betrayed—makes political statements. Sometimes these statements are only subtly and indirectly political; at other times they are specific and topical. In either case, they are part of the milieu in which a political culture flourishes. They are, in fact, part of the political culture itself.

I want to examine several of the ways in which indigenous poets of West Africa have functioned as part of the developing political culture. And I want to address myself specifically to political culture—a term of some exactness which nevertheless allows considerable latitude for analysis and speculation. The political culture of a society might be described as the political system internalized in the perceptions, judgments, feelings, and attitudes of its people. In their important study, Civic Culture, Almond and Verba (1966: 15-16) have this to say about the “orientation” which constitutes political culture:

Prophecy is one of the simplest ways for an historian to destroy his credit and reputation. Having been persuaded to take this risk, I shall partly cover it with one small insurance policy: I shall set forth what seem to me to be the relevant facts, but not be too dogmatic about the conclusions to be drawn from them.

Where will South Africa stand twenty-five years from now? What will have happened during those years? In theory there are, I think, only four possibilities: (i) that the status quo will remain essentially unchanged; (ii) that radical changes, involving or at least leading to the abolition of all racial discrimination, will come about peacefully, by constitutional means; (iii) that the regime will be overthrown by invading foreign forces; and (iv) that it will be overthrown by revolution within the country, with or without foreign support. As there are strong reasons for believing that none of these alternatives is really possible, some factor seems to have been overlooked. Perhaps it will appear as the four alternatives are examined.

The euphoria greeting the election of Barack Hussein Obama as the forty-fourth president of the United States seized the popular imagination in Africa, much as it did in the U. S. There was hope and enormous goodwill on the continent, derived from President Obama's special tie to Africa—the dreams from his father that he has translated so eloquently. There was hope that the Obama administration would initiate new policies based on mutual respect, multilateral collaboration, and an awareness that there will be no security unless there is common security—and also that security must be broadly defined, extending beyond the military to include the environment, the economy, and health, as well as political and social rights. Yet as many anticipated, given the enormous and wide-ranging problems confronting the new administration, Africa has not been front and center on its agenda. Although President Obama visited Egypt in June and Ghana in July 2009, only a few months into his presidency, Africa has not become a centerpiece of his foreign policy.

In his much-publicized speech in Accra, President Obama lauded Ghana for its “repeated peaceful transfers of power,” declared that “development depends on good governance,” and urged Africans to take responsibility for their continent: “to hold [their] leaders accountable, and to build institutions that serve the people.” He pledged that the United States would support their efforts and committed his administration to opening the doors to African goods and services in ways that previous administrations have not. He pledged $63 billion to a new, comprehensive global health strategy that would promote public health systems and combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, polio, and other devastating diseases. In the months that followed, he pledged to double American foreign aid to $50 billion a year and to develop a multilateral program to combat hunger.

Ga proverbial wisdom holds that “hate has no medicine,” but there is a sacred court in Accra where people can calm the animosity that emerges from social conflicts. A unique form of vernacular jurisprudence has emerged at the Nae We Shrine Tribunal, which manages the consequences of civil, criminal, and supernatural crimes without raising the ire of human rights activists. Using records from this shrine court, the authors of this article demonstrate how the Tribunal offers social and spiritual wellbeing in a manner that cannot be provided by the chiefly and state judicial systems.