Culture and Development: The Future of African Integration in an Environment of Cultural Heteregoneity

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A famous African scholar once said, over fifty years ago before the independence of African countries, that “cultural imperialism is the bolt of economic imperialism” (Diop 1954). The central theme of his thesis was that African need to unite in order to promote development and that this unity would only be achieved if they came to realize that they share the same culture. Recently, the renewed impetus to move towards greater African integration by setting up regulatory frameworks as well as establishing various partnerships such as the New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) encourage us into examining the historical and contemporary relation between culture and development.
Today, we might not talk of imperialism as such; however, since the integration of the continent’s numerous countries seems to be ever elusive (Harsh 2002), there is a need to look at culture as the missing link in promoting the integration, and hence, the development of these countries. The establishment of economic and political ties does not simply challenge existing institutional and powerbase, but it has direct implications on local communities’ interrelationships dynamics, meaning that they are often constraint to re-evaluate their languages, values and traditions creating a set of identity crisis. Based on what is called a ‘relational’ approach to development (Mosse 2007) and using cases studies from Senegal, the paper analyses the opportunities, challenges and difficulties inherent within the processes of social integration that ultimately have some economic repercussions. This has both practical and theoretical implications having consequences for our understanding of multiculturalism.
In developing the argument, the paper focuses on the interactive experiences of students from a private business school, which has over 24 nationalities on as well as an urban community of Dakar (the capital city) where there has been recently an influx of migrant workers.

Stream: Cultural Sustainability

Paper: A paper has not yet been submitted.

I am currently a lecturer at a state university in Senegal. I obtained my bachelor and Master degrees in Finance at Suffolk University in the US and my PhD in Development politics at the University of Manchester in England.
Since coming back home last year, I have worked for a private business school where I developed and coordinated the PhD programme. I have started working at the University of Bambey since May 2008. Since then, I have developed a curriculum for the professional training programme and a business plan to raise money for such a programme. I currently give lectures on financial statement analysis, development policy and management as well as introduction to marketing. I am quite interested in development work and in anything related to promoting the development of African countries and reducing poverty.