The Pattern of Ethnicity in Ghana: a Research Note

Abstract

In almost any analysis of contemporary African society, ethnic affiliation is an important independent variable. A wide range of behaviour, particularly of a political nature, has been explained and understood in terms of presumed intra-tribal solidarity and inter-tribal tension. Most of the evidence of ethnically-oriented behaviour is drawn from the actions and public rhetoric of political and journalistic élites or, if concerned with the phenomenon on a mass level, is indirect – e.g. inferences from patterns of voting behaviour. There is relatively little in the way of‘hard’ data on the ethnically oriented perceptions of Africans, and it is important that we collect direct evidence of their existence, so as to confirm our inferences based on indirect and impressionistic methodological techniques. One method of obtaining such evidence is by survey research.