Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa

Description

This book describes how those individuals who are often most marginalised in postcolonial societies draw on age-old, non-western knowledge systems to adapt to the hardships characteristic of unequal societies in transformation. It highlights robust indigenous pathways and resilience responses used by elders and young people in urban and rural settings in challenging Southern African settings (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland) to explain an Indigenous Psychology theory. Flocking (rather than fighting, fleeing, freezing or fainting) is explained as a default collectivist, collaborative and pragmatic social innovation to provide communal care and support when resources are constrained, and needs are par for the course. Flocking is used to address, amongst others, climate change (drought and energy use in particular), lack of household income and securing livelihoods, food and nutrition, chronic disease (specifically HIV / AIDS and tuberculosis), barriers to access services (education, healthcare, social welfare support), as well as leisure and wellbeing. The book further deliberates whether the continued use of such an entrenched socio-cultural response mollifies citizens and decision-makers into accepting inequality, or whether it could also be used to spark citizen agency and disrupt longstanding structural disparities. Front Matter ....Pages i-xviii Flocking: The First Light of the Baboon on the Back of a Motorcycle (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 1-42 For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the Morning (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 43-91 Together We Are Stronger: Building an Indigenous Psychology Theory from Case Studies (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 93-135 Being a Good Neighbour: The Interdependent Culturally Salient Beliefs and Practices of Flocking (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 137-163 When You Live, You Live with Others: The Culturally Salient Relational Dimensions of Flocking (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 165-191 Gathering Under the Mopani Tree: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of an Interdependent Resilience Pathway (Liesel Ebersöhn)....Pages 193-220