Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa [1st ed.] 978-3-030-16434-8;978-3-030-16435-5

Table of contents :
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

Citation preview

Liesel Ebersöhn

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

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

Liesel Ebersöhn

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

123

Liesel Ebersöhn Centre for the Study of Resilience University of Pretoria Pretoria, Gauteng, South Africa

ISBN 978-3-030-16434-8 ISBN 978-3-030-16435-5 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5

(eBook)

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword: The Virtues of Old Resources

Here now, approaching the third decade of the twenty-first century, we are in the deep grip of modernity. We are now, once more, going through an epochal transfiguration of the forces at work in modernity. In this transfiguration, the dynamics—the forces—inside of modernity have changed tempo, rhythm and perhaps even their internal logics. The intensity of everything about it has magnified. And so, this most recent phase of it is proving to be extremely challenging. Our popular cultures, almost everywhere, are overdetermined by the unwieldy power of social media. Our knowledge communities, both academic and professional, are held in thrall by the technological advances of block chain, the fourth Industrial Revolution, artificial intelligence, machine learning and big data. There is now nearly no part of the globe that has not been drawn into the great drama of the technological. It has become possible to interact with others beyond the constraints and limitations of the immediate social contexts in which people find themselves. In the process, tradition (as the framing cast within which interaction took place) found itself everywhere subject to intense weakening. It is this idea which Liesel Ebersöhn’s book, Flocking Together, seeks to engage. It is here, at this compelling ontological moment in our modern history, that Flocking Together presents itself as a critical intervention in both our scholarship and our practice of managing our ways in the current period—forwards into the future, backwards into history and sideways into the present. Ebersöhn shows in this book (at least in a southern setting such as that of Southern Africa) that the evidence is by no means so clear that ontological individuation is the world’s predestined endpoint. Our ontological make-ups, with all the many urges, desires, repulsions and just sheer preferences and habits we are composed of, still have a significant space for doing things in the traditional way. Tradition remains in the lives of many in the Southern African space, as they do, actually, in the daily lives of many who think of themselves as ‘advanced’, not just as a set of quaint and interesting habits and cultural practices. They play a role in how people make their way through the world.

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It is against the individualisation of our ontologies that psychological concepts such as resilience have a special significance. The resilience field is, undoubtedly, a field alive with debate and disagreement. This debate and disagreement is stimulating. It has much to teach everybody. Circulating, however, within it is the imperative, as contemporary reviewers of the field, Fletcher and Sarkar (2013: 12) emphasise, of the ‘capacitated’ individual—the individual who works with, manages, his or her immediate environment. The research is focused on individual adaptation, how the individual develops capacities to cope with both the minutiae of the everyday, and the large seemingly unfathomable questions of the world. What resources must the individual acquire and cultivate to withstand the shocks and stresses of his or her environment? What does he or she need to do to be able to emerge from whatever the adversity he or she is confronted with relatively intact and still able to exercise discernment, judgement and the will to act, agency, in deliberative and thoughtful ways. It is important to be clear about this sense of who is ‘in’ and who not in the discussion. The point to emphasise here, in response to the mainstream of resilience thinking, is that the sociology of the contemporary moment is immensely complex, and it is this complexity to which the important field of resilience needs to realistically pay attention. Important about the mainstream resilience discussion are concepts such as context. Fletcher and Sarkar (2013:12), for example, emphasise critical concepts such as awareness of life’s phenomena from minor ‘daily hassles to major life events’, to the interactive nature of the material and psychological worlds of the individual. These are all important staples of the mainstream discussion. They are, however, grounded in a sociological context which is largely based on the experience of ‘white’, middle-class and largely European/Northern societies. Their empirical substrate is largely a restricted segment of the population, even in the countries in which they are set. This substrate provides the informational base and point of departure of which much theorising proceeds. Of course, a great deal of work focuses on the poor and the marginalised in these contexts. But, by and large, the empirical substrate provides the normative framework for how experience is presented and analysed. This is an important insight which Ebersöhn seeks to bring to the literature. The point is simple. These segments of the world are not representative. They do not stand in and for the rest of humanity. They offer us, in their interpreters’ representations of them, deeply interesting insights. We learn from them and their interpreters. But they do not begin to represent, much less exhaust, the complexity of who we are as constantly evolving individuals and groups of people. It is a critique which hearkens back to critiques of major theorists, psychologists and sociologists, such as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Jean Piaget, Pierre Bourdieu and Giddens who would have undertaken their ethnographic fact-finding in very restricted social settings.

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Flocking Together, in its grasp of the significance of our complexity, brings to the empirical base evidence to show how in the globally significant space of material deprivation marginalised groups adapt to adversity. In this space, contrary to the Giddensian analysis, tradition not only lives on, but is a living arena of social practice and social innovation. Its form in this space of the marginalised in Southern Africa is Ubuntu collectivism—what Ebersöhn denotes as flocking. Distinctive about this flocking is the salience (not just convenience, it is a social wisdom) about being in modernity. It is about the wisdom and social assessment individuals and groups make of the virtues of interdependence—in contrast to the sociological inevitability of an egocentric individualism attributed to modernity by many commentators. Ebersöhn’s subjects tell her that an ‘interdependent Ubuntu resilience… (provides) better than expected outcomes for many’. They explain to her that ‘the collective needs of families, neighbourhoods, villages and communities surpass individual needs’. Flocking, as rooted in Ubuntu, is based on the sense people have of being connected to one another. They take the ontological view that that meaning in life proceeds from social connectedness to one another and to their ancestors and to nature—‘it is unimaginable to exist in independent or isolated ways—disconnected and isolated from each other’. The pressure in these contexts is away from individualistic ways of adapting. The stress people place on working with adversity is on the collective—collective identities. The nature of life—the ontological puzzle—begins with the profound existential insight that ‘a person is needed when they are born…’. In terms of this perspective, people come into the world to be with others. Being in need is not, therefore, an existential universal of ‘being in despair’. Interdependence is a good: ‘good neighbourliness…’. Interdependence implies that relationships and mutual group habits determine the self. In collectivist fashion, Ubuntu provides that interaction with others makes it possible for an individual to be whole, complete: ‘In the absence of the collective, there is no self’. Of course, as Ebersöhn convincingly cautions in the text, one can romanticise and essentialise these Southern African perspectives. But they provide a counter to the unproblematised essentialising impetus of mainstream psychological thinking about resilience. Essentialising ontologises the self in largely egocentric ways. In the view of the world which Ebersöhn brings to our attention, competence is not reduced to what an individual gains mastery over. It is what exists, as a resource, in the broader social environment. Out of it comes what she describes as ‘relationship-resourced resilience’. Collective self-esteem rather than individuated senses of worth is what matters. This resilience is social rather than individual. In bringing this brief contribution to a close, it is important to acknowledge how significantly Flocking Together contributes to what has come to be called the decolonial turn. Available now, coming out of this, is not an alternative truth. It is not, in comparison with mainstream ways of explaining resilience, a new universal. It is simply a supplement to the larger picture, just as what parades in the mainstream as the explanation for who we are as human beings confronting adversity is

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a supplement. Each brings to the discussion ways of seeing which are in their own right valuable. The value of Ebersöhn’s contribution is to enlarge what we need to work with when seeking to understand our capacities in coping with adversity. Her work calls for our serious engagement. Crain Soudien Chief Executive Officer Human Sciences Research Council Emeritus Professor, University of Cape Town Distinguished Honorary Professor University of Pretoria Cape Town, South Africa

Reference Fletcher, D., & Sarkar, S. (2013). Psychological resilience: a review and critique of definitions, concepts and theory. European Psychologist, 18(1), 12–23.

Preface

In this book, I describe an interdependent, indigenous knowledge framework to establish, maintain, monitor and evaluate collaboration, networking and partnerships aimed at resilience-enabling social support: a social technology that operationalises a supply chain of social resources. I explain how the relationship-resourced resilience theory proposes flocking as an interdependent pathway to resilience in a context of inequality. I posit flocking as a social support pathway with social innovations to manage resource distribution and promote better-than-expected outcomes for a collective. A premise is that chronic structural constraints in a highly unequal context informed the intergenerational development of flocking as resilience-enabling interdependent socio-ecological process. Culturally marginalised interdependent beliefs and practices inform resilience responses to buffer against structural marginalisation. Such culturally salient interdependent values predispose the choice of flocking as relational pathway to resilience. Flocking requires culturally salient socio-emotional competence and emotion regulation to maintain culturally valued relationships and retain access to this pathway to resilience. Structural disparity implies power bases that perpetuate unequal resources distribution and suppression of particular cultural knowledge—be it due to globalisation, postcolonialism or forced migration. Such structural constraints necessitate pragmatic socio-ecological responses at citizen-level to buffer against widespread vulnerability due to cumulative and chronic health and well-being risks. In addition, the suppression of indigenous cultural resources (indigenous knowledge systems) implies a cultural mismatch between life worlds of people with alternative perspectives to Euro-Western views and powerful epistemologies that drive policies and practices of resource distribution, including health and well-being services. Predictably, cultural mismatch implies higher probability for negative health and well-being outcomes for those with worldviews different to that prominent in power bases. Cultural beliefs and practices are robust. Thus, despite the marginalisation of people and perspectives that differ from Euro-Western, and Global North perspectives, non-mainstream worldviews are powerful and inform socio-ecological ix

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resilience processes. Structural constraints merit deliberate consideration of cultural enablers of resilience—especially in spaces where the culture of a majority may historically be marginalised. I suggest that cultural beliefs and practices, and in particular relational dimensions of an interdependent cultural perspective, are significant resilience-enablers in a highly unequal space. I argue that flocking shows the resilience-enabling merit of the relational dimensions of an interdependent cultural worldview. I suggest that the interdependent cultural–relational beliefs of marginalised people direct collective decision-making to opt for flocking as preferred pathway to resilience which bolsters unpredicted health and well-being outcomes for many despite inequality. I substantiate these claims by leveraging the case of indigenous pathways to resilience in Southern Africa, where interdependence denotes an Afrocentric perspective and where inequality is signified by a postcolonial and Global South history. With the relationship-resourced resilience theory, I propose that betterthan-expected outcomes are possible for many despite chronic and cumulative challenges because of flocking, rather than fight, flight, freeze, faint, or swarm. The ‘superpower’ of flocking is not that it annihilates poverty. The superpower of flocking is that it clothes those made vulnerable systematically over ages of systemic exclusion with the benefits of cultural beliefs of communal agency to buffer the collective. Flocking buffers against eons of socially engineered inequality. Flocking is an intergenerationally tried and tested pathway to leverage culture for unpredicted outcomes when context fails to provide structural support. As social support pathway to resilience, flocking constitutes a range of social technologies of collaboration and networking to lobby for, mobilise and distribute social resources. These collaborative social technologies developed over time (given structural and cultural constraints and enablers) have finesse in their execution and remain robust in their everyday use by men and women from different ages in urban and remote Southern African settings. The relationship-resourced resilience theory heralds the significance of an underplayed indigenous, Afrocentric worldview for resilience knowledge. Consequently, cultural propositions matter for flocking as adaptive socio-ecological process. The theory proposes that resilience-enabling processes are driven by respect, rather than shame, associated with vulnerability. The theory posits that interdependent beliefs and practices imply acceptance of the normativity of existential support as flipside of existential need. The theory explains that collective adaptive processes are directed by norms of communal benefit, collective investment, expected social innovation, agency rather than chronic dependence, and adherence to conform to social expectations in order to benefit from social group affiliation. Acknowledging cultural resources as resilience-enabling is not enough. Nor is it sufficient to pay lip service to rhetoric in resilience thinking that give a nod to cultural resources that are not normative in Western, European or Global North spaces. In this book, I theorise how such acknowledged cultural resources play out in socio-ecological processes that are resilience-enabling. I suggest that an Afrocentric, interdependent worldview implies the presence of refined

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resilience-enabling structures in the social fabric of life. These social structures are resilience-enabling as they coordinate socio-ecological processes of adaptation. The age-old structures of decision-making enable platforms of consultation and consensus. Generationally honed female-driven structures provide a sophisticated social resource supply chain management system to identity and validate the merit of need against cultural and contextual criteria, source required resources, distribute these resources, monitor and evaluate the use of resources, and enforce accountability standards. I also propose that another resilience-enabler is the relational dimensions of an interdependent worldview. I suggest that the prominence of a relational dimension of flocking merits due consideration to knowledge on social connectedness and considering relationships as fonts of social resources. The implied web of social links promises benefits of sociocultural beliefs and structures. Social connectedness implies resilience-enabling inclusion, solidarity, and access to social resources. Living on the outside of such social connectedness however excludes and isolates individuals, families and communities from being beneficiaries of social support. Consequently, considering what would be culturally appropriate socio-emotional competence becomes a crucial survival commodity. The consequences of limited social adeptness are dire if social support is the only recourse given unequally distributed services and resources. As pathway to resilience, flocking is delimited to in-group affiliation. This has negative consequences for displaced people—a growing global phenomenon. The absence of government-resourced social structures that provide support and services to the most marginalised is not common to only postcolonial and Global South spaces. The implication in a highly unequal society is that you are a newcomer in space where people are used to counting on each other, rather than state-governed support. As an outsider you do not have a social passport to access these life-sustaining fibres of social support. You are disconnected, isolated and excluded from both formal and informal pathways to bolster resilience. The same principles hold for those who do not conform to sociocultural norms, or potentially for those for whom, necessarily, the contours of place and connectedness gradually change given access to alternative opportunities and social mobility. The trajectory of flocking as social support pathway may change. Flocking may become less necessary as democracy affords more equal structures and less need for essential services of social support. Flocking is not just a manifestation of acquiescence to an unjust system. After all, flocking emerged as Ghandi-like silent and pragmatic protest to lobby functional solidarity, coexist with unjust structures and serve to mark injustices. Flocking enables collective agency and opportunity for better-than-expected communal outcomes. It resists imperatives to oppress. Yet, herein lies a dilemma. Because, as social support, flocking may perpetuate acceptance of limited recourse, flocking is engrained as trusted way to access assistance and bolster outcomes. Flocking is hardened. It remains to be seen if the grain of the grit of that which is flocking can change. How adaptive are the contours of flocking to use social support to disrupt inequality? Could principles of consultation, consensus, social structures of resource management, and social

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technologies characteristic of flocking be used in a transforming society where there are, theoretically at least, more spaces for civic participation? Social movements amongst student groups and civic resistance to adhere to policy where there was limited consultation appear to demonstrate that flocking could also manifest as solidarity to problematise rather than coexist with inequality. To challenge or not to challenge structural disparity? That remains a question for resilience-enabling thinking in an unequal space where dominant worldviews are taking centre stage. Considering knowledge of flocking as a resilience pathway of choice may have meaning from a psychological well-being perspectives in similar spaces of inequality and with people with a comparable interdependent heritage. Psychological assessment and intervention can capitalise on the premise that one may expect to find relational buffering against hardship when partnering with individuals, families and groups who subscribe to interdependent beliefs and practices. Similarly, flocking suggests which salient socio-emotional competences to look out for and strengthen in psychological interventions to promote access to available communal social support structures. Where interventions indicate the need for collaboration and networking, flocking provides a knowledge system of salient interdependent beliefs and practices that directly support interventions, plausible collaborative social technologies that support health, education and livelihood outcomes, and processes of a partnership chain that benefit a collective when resources are scarce. My intent to signify the relationship-resourced resilience theory as an indigenous psychology theory is deliberate. I intentionally position it as a contextual and sociocultural complement to mainstream psychology theory which tends towards perspectives of the west and north. Postcolonialism, migration and globalisation usually appropriate Western and Global North epistemologies of power. This holds true for scenarios of majority indigenous populations in postcolonial settings, for displaced people due to forced migration, or for the practice of science in Global South spaces. In research, policy and practice, it is an epistemological and structural constraint not to leverage diverse cultural epistemologies. Development is constrained when the views of Global majorities are not central in knowledge generation, policy and practice in a global space. As indigenous psychology theory, the relationship-resourced resilience theory adds pluralism to the mix of dominant Global North discourses on resilience. The theory offers a Global South perspective on that which is resilience-enabling from an interdependent, and specifically Afrocentric, stance nested in spaces of atrocious inequality where not only are the majority vulnerable, but where customarily, given geopolitical trajectories, the heritage of a majority is often suppressed. Pretoria, South Africa

Liesel Ebersöhn

Acknowledgements

I am thankful to all who root me in knowledge of a heritage in the South.

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Contents

1 Flocking: The First Light of the Baboon on the Back of a Motorcycle . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.1 The First Light of the Baboon . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.2 Goats, Gardening and Water: Flocking as Instrumental Social Support that Mobilises Social Capital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.3 A Society of Five Rands: Societies as Collective Resource to Administer Social Support Processes of Flocking . . . . . . . . . . 1.4 Borrowing, Lending and Reciprocal Donation: Social Resources as Explicit Social Support to Address Limited Basic Services and Infrastructure Needs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.5 ‘First She Works for Me, but Slowly, Slowly She Can Try and also Help Other People on Other Side’: Smart Partnerships to Mobilise Economic Resources During Flocking . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6 ‘It Depends What Kind of Help Our Neighbour Needs’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support to Adapt Positively to Chronic and Cumulative Risk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.1 ‘You’ll Find a Dish and a Spoon, no School Books’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Food and Nutrition Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.2 ‘We Would Clean in Order to Give Her Some Comfort’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Objective Health and Wellbeing Outcomes . . 1.6.3 ‘Love Must Begin from Families Until to the Church’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Subjective Health and Wellbeing Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.6.4 The School Belongs to the Community—Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Education Outcomes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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1.7 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1.8 Way Forward . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the Morning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.1 A (Partial) Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.3 Indigenous . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.4 Culture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.5 Indigenous Knowledge Systems—Useful Commemoration or Romantic Nostalgia . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6 The Context as Reason for the Storytelling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.6.1 Inequality in the Global South as Structural Risk that Requires Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7 The Ways in Which We Gained Understanding of the World of Indigenous Psychology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7.1 Interpretivism and Indigenous Psychology Research . . 2.7.2 Participatory Methodology and Indigenous Psychology Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7.3 Theorising from Case Study Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.7.4 Cases of Indigenous Pathways to Resilience in Challenged Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2.8 A Beadwork Bricolage Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Together We Are Stronger: Building an Indigenous Psychology Theory from Case Studies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.2 What We Learned at Schools—A Honeycomb and Chicken Wire of Support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.3 What We Learned in Remote Settings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.4 What We Learned in Southern Africa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.5 Generating Emic Inductive Data to Build an Indigenous Psychology Theory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.6 The Ethics of ‘Us’ and ‘Others’: Learning to Document Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.7 The Relevance of the Story . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.8 Validating What We Learned with Others . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.9 The Credibility of Our Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3.10 The Transferability of Our Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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3.11 The Dependability of Our Learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125 3.12 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 4 Being a Good Neighbour: The Interdependent Culturally Salient Beliefs and Practices of Flocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1 All Protocols Observed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.1 We are Born Because We are Needed, and We Die Because We are Needed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.1.2 Collectivism is Interconnectedness—‘A Family is a Family by Another Family’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2 A Good Neighbour: People Around Him Know Him by What He Has Done for the Community . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.1 Communality Beliefs: If We are United, We Have More than One Set of Hands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.2.2 Standards of Interdependence and Reciprocity: We Go Collectively as Neighbours . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3 Hierarchies of Power: Leadership, Governance and DecisionMaking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.3.1 Respect for Aged and Gendered Hierarchies . . . . . . . 4.3.2 Working Hand in Hand—Hierarchical Governance . . 4.4 That Is Where Everybody Gets Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.1 You Ring a Bell at the Royal House—Communal Gathering for Consultation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.4.2 They had an Agreement so They Wrote a Letter— Communal Gathering for Consensus . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.5 Conclusion: Collectivist Pragmatism or Romantic Nostalgia . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 When You Live, You Live with Others: The Culturally Salient Relational Dimensions of Flocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.1 Power Through . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.2 Whatever Happens to Your Neighbour, It’s also Your Problem . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.3 Everyone Will Put in Something: Social Capital and Flocking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.4 Relationships as Privileged Pathway to Resilience . . . . . . . . . 5.5 ‘It Is not Easy to Help Someone Who Is Difficult’—Culturally Salient Socio-Emotional Competence and Flocking . . . . . . . . . 5.6 If You Laugh, Don’t Expect Me to Help: Social Exclusion and Not Being ‘A Good Neighbour’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5.7 You Cannot Be a Single Person. You Need Other People to Support You . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

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5.8 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 183 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186 6 Gathering Under the Mopani Tree: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of an Interdependent Resilience Pathway . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.1 Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.2 Protective Resources and Interdependent Pathways to Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.3 Social Conventions of an Interdependent, Ubuntu Culture and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . 6.4 Structural Context and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.5 A Challenged Context with Structural Disparity: Risk Factors and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience . . . . . . . . 6.6 Pathways to Resilience: Using Resources in Adaptive Processes to Address Adversity and Achieve Positive Outcomes . . . . . . 6.6.1 Introductory Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.7 Social, Collective, Relational and Community Resilience . . . . 6.8 Coping as Protective Resource for Resilience . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.9 Southern African Studies on Pathways to Resilience . . . . . . . . 6.10 Soar on Wings like Eagles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

. . 193 . . 193 . . 194 . . 196 . . 198 . . 200 . . . . . . .

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Chapter 1

Flocking: The First Light of the Baboon on the Back of a Motorcycle

Abstract In this chapter I describe flocking as a resilience-enabling indigenous knowledge system of collaboration to manage social resources through social support—an age-old, culturally salient supply chain management system of distributing social resources within social networks to buffer against inequality-associated risks. I define flocking as instrumental social support that is both explicit as well as implicit. I introduce the social resources, which are accepted as being favoured, from an Afrocentric perspective, mobilised during flocking for social support. As an introduction to an extensive discussion in Chap. 4, I explain how the use of cultural resources (the transfer of socio-cultural beliefs and practices) motivates a preference for flocking as social support pathway to resilience. I describe a signature collective resource, namely female-directed social structures (societies) to manage the provision of social support. I describe instances of social resources (informal arrangements between neighbours or in a community) used as implicit emotional support, together with explicit reciprocal donations, borrowing and lending. I explain smart partnerships as a socio-economic resource that enables interdependence and counters chronic dependence. I conclude the chapter by giving evidence of flocking being resilienceenabling for better-than-expected outcomes related to food and nutrition, health and well-being, education and spirituality-based well-being. Keywords Collaboration · Instrumental social support · Social resources · Female-directed social structures · Implicit emotional support · Food and nutrition · Health and well-being outcomes · Education outcomes · Spirituality outcomes

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon ‘To catch the first light of the baboon’ is to experience the first rays of enlightenment —a Southern African equivalent of Köhler’s ‘aha! erlebnis’. A friend, Maximus Monaheng Sefotho, who is also a colleague and former doctoral student, introduced me to this Basotho proverb. Before dawn, baboons make themselves at home on the eastern peaks of the highlands in the mountain kingdom of Lesotho. They do this to catch the very first rays of the sun. They sit quietly as they awaken, warm their © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_1

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Photographs 1.1 and 1.2 Mesh wire and honeycomb images I took at the farmstall in the Free State during the 2009 motorcycle trip

bodies and prepare for their day. I caught the first light of the baboon on the back of a motorcycle. In 2009 I was travelling on the back of a motorcycle with my husband through the landscape of flat plains and gentle rises of the South African Karoo. I was trying to make sense of all the STAR1 data with which we were enmeshed—linking codes, drawing lines to connect recurring themes, regrouping categories into units that made sense. I wondered how teachers clustered together. How they gathered to provide support. We travelled next to kilometre upon kilometre of farm fences. The fences knotted strong, yet yielding steel into a mesh that keeps sheep within its boundaries and also protects them from jackals and leopards. We stopped at a farm stall, where we shared a chunk of honeycomb and slices of freshly baked bread. The honeycomb had neat cells full of nurturing gooey sweetness. Each cell nestled snugly to the next, forming a tight and robust unit (Photographs 1.1 and 1.2). I realised that the similar natural contours of the honeycomb and the mesh wire depicted the social support formation I was trying to get a grip on during analysis. The carefully constructed honeycomb provided a grid of comfort and nurturing. The sturdy wire, similar in formation, was a lattice of protection (Ebersöhn, 2011, 2012a, 2012b, 2012c). To my mind the knots where the lines of cells in the wire and in the honeycomb join represented how individual people exist in relation to others. A web of interdependent relationships links each nodal person to another with relationship links. These relationships are solid and sustain life by protecting and enriching it. The interdependence is a result of salient cultural beliefs and practices synonymous with Ubuntu (Letseka, 2013; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). The Ubuntu cultural perspective predicts a collectivist formation that gives a blueprint for flocking together; to gather to know about need; to cluster to share mutual resources. As the need for support increases, so the flock of connectedness expands to draw in additional people with their associated resources. In 2009 a female primary schoolteacher in the Eastern Cape noted: After we talked about it the parents came in flocking and started to disclose. Then we noticed that it is mostly grandparents, because they are staying with their grandparents and they disclose to us. (58–61) 1 The

STAR study is described in the next chapter.

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon

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In the STAR study we saw that teachers were able to resist the stigma associated with HIV and AIDS. What they did was to extend a circle of social inclusion, to widen the interdependent web of social connectedness. This inclusivity was visible in the range of social support teachers provided (Ferreira & Ebersöhn, 2012). Rather than people and families living with HIV and AIDS experiencing isolation and social exclusion, they could be enclosed in the folds of social support. This chapter is premised on the indigenous psychology position that indigenous knowledge is marginalised in science, policy and professional services. I therefore start the chapter by providing a bricolage (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005) of case studies that explains how the relationship-resourced resilience theory posits flocking as a resilience-enabling social support pathway chosen by participants with indigenous heritages for collective buffering where there is extreme hardship. Below I use a bricolage of case study data to describe flocking as a social support pathway to resilience. Figure 1.1 provides a visual representation of the bricolage. In the chapters that follow I expand on the tenets of culturally salient beliefs and practices espoused in Ubuntu, as well as propositions related to relationships and concomitant culturally relevant socio-emotional competence that are represented in this bricolage.

Fig. 1.1 A bricolage of flocking

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Photographs 1.3 and 1.4 Ever-expanding graveyards in the Eastern Cape (2009) and Mpumalanga (2012)

Lungi, a 39-year-old mother in a rural family, is very ill. She is living with AIDS, exacerbated by accompanying tuberculosis. The family is used to loss. Many of their loved ones have passed away (Photographs 1.3 and 1.4). The household has no formal income. They know hunger. Fortunately Lungi, like her sisters, mother and her grandmother, belongs to a society2 : Normally in communities women club themselves and this is commonly known as societies (Limpopo, Older Women: 4); We make a small group as women and form a society of five rands3 (Lesotho, Older Women: 72–73). Every month all the women in the society put what they can afford into a pool of money. They take turns to receive the bountiful total of funds one month per year: There are many societies. Those that many people can find livelihood from. You can join that society which collects some contributions and keeps it so that when the year ends you can get some dividends to feed the kids and also the mother and father in the family (Lesotho, Younger Men: 200–206). In the past year, since Lungi lost her job because of chronic illness, she has not been able to contribute. But she knows that these society women will set aside some money for her and her children. Or the person who has the jackpot month will come by to donate some groceries or household items: You can offer pots if there is a lot – dishes, spoons – and go be supportive (North West, Young Women: 177–178). She knows this because her people, those who also subscribe to the cultural beliefs and practices of Ubuntu, believe that:

2A

society, club or cooperative is a social structure, often female-driven, that exists at community level, and aims to buffer against adversity by means of cooperative savings and by administering collaborative social support plans. 3 Five South African rand is the equivalent of roughly fifty cents in the United States.

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon

Photograph 1.5 A household at the remote Limpopo site (2012)

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Photograph 1.6 Homes in rural Mpumalanga (2013)

Photograph 1.7 and 1.8 Access to transport is sporadic, Northwest, South Africa (2013)

Whatever we have, we give first to a child, because what they have, it is not enough. If I have, I divide it into two portions. Because it is a bit, and only enough for one hand, I opted for giving to a child (North West, Older Women: 47–51). Although her small family has so many challenges, she knows that they need not lie awake worrying. They may be a small household but they belong to a larger kinship. She knows she can count on a neighbour asking: Can I buy you food? Can I assist you? Can I buy you this 5 kg? (Namibia, Older Women: 213–214). Lungi’s family does not have a car. As it is transport options are limited, sporadic and costly (see Photographs 1.7 and 1.8). Every month it is a struggle for Lungi to travel to the local village to collect her social welfare payment, and to visit the clinic for testing and to receive her antiretroviral treatment. She feels thankful that the son of her neighbour’s friend has a car. Every month someone from that household takes her to the village in his car. Someone waits in line with her to show her identity document so that she can receive her social grant. They help her to walk to the clinic and wait with her there to see the clinic nurse:

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Photograph 1.9 and 1.10 Access to clean water is a challenge, Mpumalanga, South Africa (2011)

When he is sick, or one of his family members is sick… Here we assist by taking the person or people who are sick to see the doctors. Take them where they will get medical assistance. It might be at the clinics or the hospitals – wherever they will get appropriate help – important assistance (Lesotho, Older Men: 25–28). Her children get up early. Like others in their village they do not have water or electricity in their home. They fetch water from a communal point and neighbours all share the water. They make a small fire with the firewood they collect over weekends with the young men in their kinship system (see Photographs 1.9 and 1.10). … because we give them our support, collect firewood (Swaziland, Young Men: 116–117); … the men go out to get wood (Swaziland, Older Women: 62–63). The youngsters try to make their mother more comfortable before they leave for school. They know that the young unemployed women who live not far from their home will take turns throughout the week to drop in during the day to visit Lungi at home. The young women will see to it that she takes her medication … … we want to be sure that the neighbours drink their medications properly (Gauteng, Younger Women: 150–152). … and will give her some tea and bread from their own homes. The children know these young women will sweep the floor and the yard, wipe their mom’s brow, and help her to lie in her bed more comfortably:

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon

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We assist such a person or people by bathing them. And also finding things like bath soap for them to be able to bath. And we see to it that we wash their clothes (Lesotho, Older Men: 34–36); We start by visiting her. When we visit her we check her living environment to see if it is clean. Then we clean by making sure that her blankets… We see that she is truly short of some items, that she has no food … (Lesotho, Older Women: 106–110); Some of us are handy. We can go help with the peeling, and that would be comforting (North West, Young Women: 173–175); … we help if a neighbour needs help with cleaning their house or garden (Gauteng, Young Women: 146–147); We would be able to assist them to take their daily medication in a proper way (Lesotho, Older Men: 218–219). The children know that the pastor and men and women from the neighbourhood rotate their home visits to pray with Lungi and sing some of their church songs to her: When sickness befalls our neighbour, we bring them a word of prayer and hope and … We hold a short service and pray for them so that they know they are not alone (Eastern Cape, Older Men: 130–131). The children know their mom looks forward to these visits. It helps her to feel less sad about her husband, who had passed away. It also helps her to feel less anxious about being ill and to worry less about her children, herself and their future: We go to the neighbour’s house. We sing. We go help them out with all they need (Namibia, Young Men: 240–242); You also give regular visits, because it is not only materialistic things that our neighbours need. They also need that love and care (Namibia, Young Men: 255–257). The children dress in the school uniforms that their family, friends and teachers collected for them in the community if they cannot afford to buy their own. Some of the parents of their friends also give enough money to supplement their school fees: If the neighbour does not have anything, we help them out. We help out with clothes … and the neighbour’s children so that they can go to school and be like other children (Gauteng, Older Men: 9–12); We as community members, as neighbours, we assist by paying children’s school fees (Eastern Cape, Older Women: 30–32). Lungi’s children walk to school (see Photographs 1.11 and 1.12). They go to school every day even though their mom is ill. They know that their neighbours value education and have high aspirations for them: Let your book be your boyfriend. If your boyfriend is your book you will never fall pregnant until you finish what you want to achieve. That’s how I grew up (North West, Older Women: 219–221). They expect the elders to check on their school attendance:

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Photograph 1.11 Young people walking home from school, Mpumalanga (2006)

Photograph 1.12 The road to school, Mpumalanga (2015)

That even go to an extent where even her children do not go to school. It is up to neighbours to come together and see to it that children are taken back to school (Swaziland, Older Women: 73–75). It is quite a distance to school and they travel on gravel roads. In places where the road has deteriorated, they walk through the veld, on the lookout for snakes and wildlife. Once they even had to wait patiently for a gigantic elephant to make its way across the veld between them and the school. In the rainy season it becomes especially difficult to travel. Then seasonal rivers make it dangerous to cross the low-water bridges. They like going to school—even though their classrooms don’t all have doors, the paint is peeling, and they do not have chairs and tables. They see friends and learn from teachers. What they like especially is that they can count on a hot meal every day. They are proud that they have their own community school. They asked a teacher to help them build a display of their school’s name. They painted stones, arranged them to form the name of their school and created a succulent garden to decorate it. They also take turns to sweep the classrooms in the morning (Photographs 1.13, 1.14, 1.15 and 1.16). In the afternoons the children walk back home. Sometimes they walk past the homestead of their tribe’s chief. They know that this is where the older men meet to decide together how best to solve their problems. They feel comforted knowing that the elders are making decisions to improve their lives, decisions about transport, and fresh drinking water, and the concern about their friends who spend so much time in the tavern, drinking (Photographs 1.17 and 1.18). Lungi’s children usually hurry home because they have chores to do. Their older cousins have shown them how to take care of the marog4 and tomatoes and onions in the vegetable patch in their yard: And somebody like that. We help even their kids to know how to work with their own hands. So that they work in the gardens and take part in the rearing of animals and so that we help each other (Lesotho, Older Men: 13–16). 4 Wild

spinach that grows in Africa.

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon

Photograph 1.13 Young people receive a meal at school daily, Mpumalanga, South Africa (2010)

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Photograph 1.14 Infrastructure is limited in schools, with learners sharing chairs and desks, Mpumalanga, South Africa (2007)

Photograph 1.15 Pride in education is evident Photograph 1.16 The same early childhood in the care taken in this early childhood classroom is painted colourfully on the outside, classroom, Eastern Cape, (2012) Eastern Cape, (2012)

They are also very excited because their family had a much-needed windfall. They now form part of a smart partnership.5 They know how this works because their grandmother has such an arrangement with a friend who was going through a rough patch (see Photographs 1.19 and 1.20): I’ll buy you a seed … at the end of your yard you can plant the small things, carrots and vegetables and all those things so you can be on your two feet again (Namibia, Older Women: 214–217). The chief of the tribe arranged for them to have the use of a cow and chickens that belong to an affluent older man: If I have donkeys, my donkeys will assist my neighbour when he is ploughing. If I have a tractor, it will also assist. (Limpopo, Older Men: 102–104) 5 A smart partnership aims at supplementing livelihood and income generation and involves sharing

resources on the agreement that the use of the resources will benefit the collective and assist a family in need with recovery from hardship.

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Photograph 1.17 The homestead of the tribal chief, Mpumalanga (2013)

Photograph 1.18 A tavern indicated as a risk factor (symbol of snake) by participants on the community map they generated, Limpopo (2013)

1.1 The First Light of the Baboon

Photograph 1.19 Smallholding agriculture adds to food and nutrition, Limpopo (2013)

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Photograph 1.20 Goats are commonplace to supplement household nutrition and are visible here grazing in the high school’s yard, Mpumalanga (2008)

They agreed on a date that they must return the cow and the chickens to their owner. While Lungi is so very ill they may milk the cow daily. They can also use the eggs that the chickens lay. They can even barter the excess milk and eggs for other services or produce: ’Me offering you my sheep and you giving me the goat, or someone would have a chicken and the other one would have a cock (North West, Older Men: 23–25). They work alongside their uncle, who is also in such a smart partnership. He knows a man in church and every season the uncle borrows a tractor and a plough from him to prepare their kinship land for cultivation: If the neighbour has no ploughing means, the neighbours come together and make contributions to make it possible for him to plough, plant and have something to eat for his family (North West, Older Women: 64–67). They value not being a long-term burden to their kin, but rather being able to have enough to share with others who also know the weight of hardship. They are proud to help their family grow their own corn and maybe even having enough to sell so that they can have money for some stationery: I assist her to have a small vegetable plot with that money we took. This helps my friend not to always beg (Lesotho, Older Women: 77–79).

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Fig. 1.2 Socio-ecological processes of flocking superimposed onto a system of inequality

This bricolage illustrates several propositions of the relationship-resourced resilience theory. It illustrates how social connectedness is embedded in indigenous foundations of Ubuntu as cultural world view and drives options for resilience pathways. It gives examples of structures and strategies that characterise flocking as pathway to resilience. From the bricolage it is evident that Lungi and her family count on relationships for social support in their daily living in a severely stressed context. The relationship-resourced resilience theory proposes that, as a pathway to resilience, flocking reconfigures the possibilities for protection in a chronically disastrous setting. An analogy would be to think of flocking as a safety net over a swimming pool, as illustrated in Fig. 1.2. In the image to the left in Fig. 1.2 it is apparent that in a space of inequality there is both multiple squares of risk, as well as multiple circles of protection. As with a swimming pool, the space continues to be a potentially hazardous ecology, with ongoing and compound risks. Imagine that a net is superimposed on this precarious ecology. If anyone falls into the pool, they will bounce on the net, maybe get a fright, feel somewhat disorientated and uncomfortable, and get a little wet. But, all in all they will be safe. The socio-ecological processes of flocking serve the same protective function. The postcolonial ecology remains fraught with hardship and possible disaster. This net is protective despite the discomfort of shock due to family members’ continued debilitating illness, the disaster of not having an income to buy food, the jolt of being unable to pay for a funeral, or to travel to a clinic. Relationship-resourced resilience provides an indigenous psychology lens for gaining an understanding of how generations of people with Afrocentric heritages in Southern Africa (who are at the extreme end of deprivation) have opted to enable the well-being of one another. The evidence of this indigenous pathway to resilience supplements dominant Western discourses on pathways to resilience.

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In the next section I position flocking as an instrumental social support pathway. I then describe the social capital leveraged for social support during flocking. I first discuss societies as collective resource driven by women. Then I describe borrowing, lending and reciprocal donations as social resources mobilised for social support. I conclude the section by describing smart partnerships as a social innovation to leverage economic resources during flocking. Given the high levels of poverty, the societies, borrowing, lending, reciprocal donations and smart partnerships all share a common resilience-enabling mechanism: they systematically join social resources to access scarce opportunities so that better-than-expected adjustment is possible for the collective.

1.2 Goats, Gardening and Water: Flocking as Instrumental Social Support that Mobilises Social Capital What do you do? What do you do if you don’t have access to electricity? What do you do if your drinking water is polluted? What do you do if you don’t have money for your children to attend school? What do you do if you are unable to navigate dirt roads with potholes large enough to swallow cars? What do you do? You collaborate. You make plans that will be as hardy as the grit in the neverending challenges of your context. You get together to consult on ways in which the shared resources of a collective can best be used to obtain positive outcomes for the majority: When she have got many goats, she can give one his neighbour so that he can have some. When that goat have got many, he give (a goat) to another one (someone else) (Limpopo, Older Women, 2013: 258–263). Elsewhere I explained that in poverty settings resilience pathways imitate adversity patterns (Ebersöhn, 2014). I explain the structural origins of overwhelming need in highly challenged, unequal contexts in the next chapter. Flocking as a pathway to resilience also has structural origins. Here the origin of the structural response is socio-cultural, as I explain in Chap. 4. Just as the structural needs are felt by the majority who live on the margins of an unequal society, the response to this collective need is also typical of the majority. Flocking is inconceivable as an individual response. Just as the adversity caused by inequality is inconceivable as the need of one individual in isolation. Flocking has pragmatic roots given a history of deprivation, limited services and lack of access to such limited services. The roots of flocking as resilience pathway is what is familiar. What is known by the ‘us’ who feel hardship the most intensely—indigenous knowledge. Kuku, Omonona, Oluwatay and Ogunleye (2013) found the following to be social capital favoured from an Afrocentric perspective: cultural resources, collective resources, economic resources, social resources, and cultural resources. In Chap. 4 I specifically attend to cultural resources synonymous with flocking. As I argue in that chapter, the assumption is that cultural resources relate to the transfer of salient

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socio-cultural beliefs and practices and can be equated with indigenous knowledge on a range of topics (one of which would be how to, as a collective, respond to adversity by providing social support). In later sections in this chapter I provide evidence of how flocking mobilised a range of social capital in the form of social support. It follows that a core premise of the relationship-resourced resilience theory is that, in an interdependent culture, relationships and social connectedness are preferred ways of mapping pathways to resilience. However, being in relationships does not signify action. Being socially connected does not constitute adaptive support. It is through social support that relationships can enact a socio-cultural mandate to serve as pathway to resilience. The social support of flocking portrays a sophisticated social innovation, tried and tested over generations, to mobilise relationships in a way that moderates the effect of chronic hardship based on a particular need. From a socio-cultural perspective flocking (to provide social support) can be viewed as a behavioural manifestation of a cultural group subscribing to interdependence beliefs. In a review on development in the field of received and provided social support in the cross-cultural context, Nurullah (2012) found that studies focus on perceived availability of social support. He makes the case that the presence of a social network, or social capital, does not necessarily mean that social support is provided or received. Flocking shows how interdependence beliefs and practices are enacted as social support and that it does not only remain at the level of perception. Campbell and Foulis (2004) found that social capital is a valuable basis for gaining an understanding of support of carers in communities of local sub-Saharan Africa. From their study, it was apparent that, in this particular context, one could expect to find social networks and partnerships that support carers. Kaschula (2008) also found that a supportive social environment predicts that support actions are planned in such ways that they build the capacity of a collective to respond to adversity. As a pathway to resilience flocking reflects the essence of instrumental social support (Ebersöhn & Loots, 2017; Taylor, 2011). Flocking includes evidence of both explicit and implicit social support. Explicit social support denotes instances where people draw actively (explicitly) on existing social networks for support and provide concrete services to support others faced with adversity and risk. Implicit social support implies that people are able to reap the benefits of having others in their lives to support them and denotes instances where people benefit from emotional comfort of meaningful others in their lives. Both explicit and implicit social support are per definition collective in flocking. An interdependent cultural perspective reflects beliefs and practices inherent to social connectedness. This suggests that social gains (both implicit and explicit) accrue from not being isolated and indicate social support as a birth-right. One can plausibly argue that those born into a socio-cultural group that espouses social connectedness has the distinct privilege of being able to count on implicit and explicit social support. In their review Osher, Cantor, Berg, Steyer, and Rose (2018) posit that, from a developmental perspective, the manner of support must align with a person’s social-historical life

1.2 Goats, Gardening and Water …

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space. Similarly, Thompson and Goodvin (2016) found that this fabric of support must provide emotional security, information and knowledge and help individuals to develop age-appropriate skills. As a social support pathway to resilience, flocking draws on fonts of resources to address the identified needs.

1.3 A Society of Five Rands: Societies as Collective Resource to Administer Social Support Processes of Flocking From an interdependent, Afrocentric perspective collective resources denote structured self-help groups, credit unions and community safety schemes (Kuku et al., 2013). Elsewhere we typified societies as a flocking practice (Ebersöhn, Loots, Mampane, Omidire, & Malan-Van Rooyen, 2017) where a society denotes a grouping that structures the provision of social support and manages social efforts. Societies are structured around collectivist principles that recognise social connectedness, age and gender, incorporate communal processes of consultation and consensus, collaboration, and also audit the progress of beneficiaries regarding interdependence and agency. Societies thus enable the web of relationships to identify need, determine which resources are required, procure these resources from people who have access to what is needed, distribute the resources and monitor the use of resources: Then we make a small group as older women and form a society of five rands (Lesotho, Older Women: 73); I can add that if we have a problem we normally don’t discuss it with the chief when we are all together. We can just solve it in a short (small) group like when we have the elders. You don’t just go to the headman. You just gather and the elder discuss it (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 150–153). Societies are the social equivalent of an organisational electronic system for human resource and financial management. This people-generated system for communal living has the finesse and sophistication of Oracle Peoplesoft (Oracle, 2012) or Pastel accounting (Sage, 2018) computer programs. Societies exist in collectivist social networks to moderate the impact of anticipated challenges in a transforming, unequal setting. As Tait and Whiteman (2011) note, the sum of collective support always exceeds that of isolated, individual efforts: We consulted and we grouped together local stakeholders. And we came up with a plan on how we are going to reduce that high rate (of unemployment). We decided to form groups for cooperatives… (The stakeholders are) local businesses, traditional healers, tribal authorities, ward counsellor … to help us raise funds for starting our own business (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2013: 199–124); Another basic thing is that, when one is unemployed, my friend or neighbour is unemployed, truly here where we live with them, there are many societies. Those that many people can find livelihood from. He or she can join that society which collects some contributions and keeps it. So that when the

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year ends he or she can get some dividends to feed the kids and also the mother and the father in the family (Lesotho, Younger Men: 200–206). Societies have their ears on the ground. They screen relationships for possible vulnerability. Societies have refined the capacity to screen for and identify need: We start by visiting her. When we visit her we check her living environment to see if it’s clean. Then we clean by making sure that her blankets are clean. And truly, we see that she’s short of some items. We now see that she has no food. (Lesotho, Older Women: 106–110); We go collectively as neighbours and convene. We do have women in our community that are active in their organisations. It’s like this and that in that particular household. What do we do? (Eastern Cape, Older Women: 48–50); If a neighbour sees her, he immediately drops everything to go and help her out (Swaziland, Older Women: 86–87); This is where we come from. We reach out to the neighbour. We identify the need with the neighbour (Namibia, Older Men: 9–11). Part of the appraisal function of societies is that they screen for both need as well as available capacity to address the need. The local knowledge of societies also means that they are able to keep a current register of where (or with whom) which types of resources are available: She gets it by washing for me. And then I pay her. If I have to pay her ten rand when she finishes the laundry, I pay her five rand. And I keep the other five rand for the society. Like I said: it’s a society. I then take another five rand and say: ‘go and buy mielie meal6 (Lesotho, Older Women: 74–76). Societies cache communal resources in social networks, either in the form of donations or as shared savings: People donate food, everything. Even wood to make some coffins. There is something like societies that donate (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012: 528); Amagroups…There are groups that exist …such as the home-based care names (and) those that sell cabbages on the road… We working like a volunteer (Mpumalanga, Older Women, 2013: 515–539); As neighbours you can get together and buy some of the equipment, like tables, by clubbing a certain amount every month. So that next time you can be prepared as neighbours (North West, Younger Men: 108–111); We will contribute money to buy diesel on time anytime there is need for diesel in the generator. We will also continue … to contribute money together to pay the person that is putting on the generator and taking care of it (Limpopo, Younger Men, 2012:175–179). Societies also disperse a range of resources to groups where the vulnerability is identified: 6 Mielie

meal or mieliepap is a relatively coarse flour made from maize, known as mielies or mealies in Southern Africa, derived from the Portuguese ‘milho’ (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Mielie-meal). It is similar to polenta.

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The society will also buy food for the family during the bereavement and food for the actual funeral. The money will be used to buy vegetables, meat (Lesotho, Older Women: 56–59); They can join that society which collects some contributions and keeps it so that when the year ends they can get some dividends (Lesotho, Younger Men: 202–203); Forming a community-based organisation…This organisations is something to help the community … if there is parcels at the municipality they can use those organisations to distribute those parcels (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012: 638–641). It is societies that monitor and evaluate that resources are used in prescribed ways: As we have given her some money, we would direct her how to use it (Lesotho, Younger Women: 259–260); When you have got, don’t go away with it. Make sure you buy something – like mielie meal. And bring the change here (Lesotho, Older Women: 86–88); Giving him this money doesn’t mean saying: ‘Take this money and go and get drunk.’ Money is some form of assistance I will help with, with some instructions attached. Because I see that he or she is in need, I will say: ‘Take this money and see what sustainable project you can start with it’ (Lesotho, Younger Men: 186–190). During our school-based STAR intervention it was interesting to experience how the teachers used their knowledge of collaboration in society-like structures to implement teacher development plans and provide psychosocial support to students and their families alike. One female primary schoolteacher in the urban Eastern Cape remarked: We are connecting with each other, working together and trying to advise each other. We are deciding to meet with the parents so that we can help each other with things like grants (99–102). As social support phenomenon societies showcase how women appropriate power in a gendered governance model—with Ubuntu as collectivist exemplar: We visit that household and observe that person is facing some difficulties. We take our cleaning materials, soaps, and quickly clean the house. So that when other people come, at least the house will be in order. Because when there is a sick person people lose hope. And they become demotivated to do anything. Then you can see that house needs to be swept (Eastern Cape, Younger Women: 114–120); Normally, in communities, women club themselves and is commonly known as ‘society’ (Limpopo, Older Women: 55–56). Indigenous knowledge practices regarding societies bear evidence of culturally salient beliefs of femaleness that embody resourcefulness in powerful structures. Just as male privilege is evident as social convention in the description of hierarchical governance in Chap. 4, societies signify dynamos of female power. It follows that

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both female and male structures of governance exist alongside one another. Social support for healthy functioning in a collectivist community depends on symbiosis between female and male derivatives of collectivist consultation and consensus. Supply chain management is required when resources need to be distributed in systematic and accountable ways so that services can be effective (Seuring & Müller, 2008). Supply chain management in flocking is above all pragmatic. It uses available resources. It expects agency. It is punitive with regard to chronic dependency on social support. As I comment in Chap. 4, not adhering to interdependent cultural conventions (or, in the vernacular of flocking, being a bad neighbour) results in consequences—including being excluded from benefitting from social support. Others have also found similar reciprocity in providing and receiving social support (Harvey & Omarzu, 1997). Isolation from a group in an interdependent, collectivist community carries with it the additional harsh sentence of not being able to live a life with purpose—not being allowed within the enclave that provides and receives support. In Chap. 5 I reflect on the implications for resilience when families are disconnected and live outside the unity of support. Some (Theron, 2017; Ungar et al., 2015) have found that formal systemic support (be it health care, social welfare, or education) has more resilience-enabling value than that previously ascribed to individual (Masten, 2014) or family-level support. In a highly unequal space, such as South Africa, structural disparity, however, leaves people at a dead end when it comes to accessing services (Van Breda, 2010). It follows that in the absence of formal systemic support some plans that have been made over generations are still in place. In this regard capitalising on societies as a collective social resource that is resilience-enabling appears to have stood the test of time in the absence of the requisite government-supplied systemic support. In a study with young people Theron (2016a) also found women (especially mothers and grandmothers) to be significant social resources in South Africa. Others have found that the women in South Africa have historically been instrumental in buffering against constant hardship (Abrams, Maxwell, Pope, & Belgrave, 2014; Ramphele, 2012; Casale, 2011; Swartz & Bhana, 2009). As I discuss in Chap. 4, beliefs in reciprocal providing and receiving of care underpins interdependent, Ubuntu beliefs. In the relationship-resourced resilience theory, I propose evidence that women enact a cultural privileging of care by using age-old structures such as societies to organise social support, be it through borrowing, lending or reciprocal donations. Many have noted the challenge relating to the consequent resilience-enabling expectations of women (Gqola, 2011), the burden of care on women and caregiver responsibilities that tax female support and lead to female caregiver burnout (Boeving Allen et al., 2014). From an indigenous knowledge perspective female roles in managing resources to provide social support appear to have been honed to perfection. As I revisit in the last chapter, from an egalitarian position such a burden of care appears to be unjust. Social justice requires intervention by the state to lessen

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the burden of care on women and increase structural opportunity. While the latter is slowly transforming it appears as if women—whether just or not—continue to provide the social support required for large-scale resilience in communities that continue to be plagued by inequality.

1.4 Borrowing, Lending and Reciprocal Donation: Social Resources as Explicit Social Support to Address Limited Basic Services and Infrastructure Needs From an interdependent, Afrocentric position social resources constitute informal arrangements between neighbours or within a community. Instances of social resources used during flocking include implicit emotional support (discussed later in this chapter), together with more explicit reciprocal donations, as well as borrowing and lending (Kuku et al., 2013). We identified that flocking included borrowing, lending and reciprocal donations as social strategies to assemble and disburse muchneeded resources (Ebersöhn et al., 2017). A salient social expectation in the relationship-resourced resilience theory is not to demand more than what is available. Instead, with flocking practices, similar to what others found (Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004), the intention of social support is to be as creative as possible with what is available when providing support: He will give me something if he’s got something (Eastern Cape, Older Men: 11); Everyone will put in something. Everyone will look where she or he can help. Even if you don’t have money, you will look around how to clean (Namibia, Older Women: 129–131). Elsewhere (Ebersöhn et al., 2017) we shared insight into the specific explicit care and support practices involved during flocking social support. These include bartering, borrowing and lending, reciprocal donations, shared savings in societies and smart partnerships. These explicit flocking pathways to resilience have particular characteristics that are reflective of temporality and context. The characteristics thus mirror the characteristics of an inequality context and a collectivist socio-cultural belief system. We (Ebersöhn et al., 2018) found that the flocking practices are robust. They continue to be used by men and women across generations in both challenged urban and remote settings. In addition, the flocking practices are pragmatically responsive, as I discuss in a later section on social support processes. The flocking practices aim at achieving both agency and reinvestment in a shared pool of resources to support the collective. The discussions that follows about reciprocal donations, borrowing and lending, show how flocking is used to moderate the effect of the exhausting strain caused by limited infrastructure: lack of access to basic services mean that people often flock together to manage access to clean water, to gather firewood for heat and cooking, to travel and live in a safe home. The flocking practice of reciprocal donations denote providing resources to alleviate hardship and can include bartering. Resources that are exchanged to lessen

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privation include material resources, financial donations, bartering resources, giving time, labour and attendance, and accessing services for families or individuals (Ebersöhn et al., 2017): If your neighbour is kicked out of their house because of rent, you can take them in until they can get back on their feet (Namibia, Younger Men: 246–248); If there is a problem each and every person must contribute… It depends on what the community agrees. Where I come from it is fifty rand. In other villages they do contribute money, firewood and maize (Limpopo, Memberchecking, 2014: 260–275); One woman, who volunteers to accompany patient to clinic, that’s how we assist as community so that the person concerned won’t go alone (Eastern Cape, Older Women: 36–38); My friend have a problem in the past. I asked him: ‘What are you gonna do?’ He said he does not have a home. I asked him that how can I help him. I went to see his grandmother. I talked to my mum and she agreed that he should stay with us. After a couple of months, he went back to his family (Mpumalanga, Younger Men, 2012: 261–264); They contribute some of theirs (to build houses). One might have cement and the others come because they know how to build a house. They don’t get paid (Mpumalanga, Member-checking: 299–314). Borrowing and lending denote the exchange of available social resources on condition that it has to be returned. This flocking strategy signifies short-term social support: Maybe he was helping around the community. Like if someone doesn’t have a car. Yes, to take him to the hospital. Yes. So if one of my family passed away, we will ask him to help with his car (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012: 755–759); If I have donkeys, my donkeys will assist my neighbour when he is ploughing. If I have a tractor, it will also assist (Limpopo, Older Men: 99–102); If a person is ill he or she borrows money in order to consult a doctor (Gauteng, Younger Women: 145–146); During the planting season we help the families to plough so that they can also harvest at the same time with us (Limpopo, Older Women: 27–30). There have been findings in Southern Africa that it is the immediate family rather than the extended family that matters more as resilience-enabling resources (Ramphele, 2012; Theron, 2017). The prominence of the extended family in capitalising on social resources by means of borrowing, lending and reciprocal donations, however, challenges this notion. Instead this social innovation of flocking in order to resile depends strongly on extensive kinship ties in order to gain access to multiple resources that are needed (which in a severely resource-constrained context is not generally contained within the folds of only immediate family). As is the case in other studies (Jithoo & Bakker, 2011; Theron & Theron, 2013), it appears that support from the extended family continues to matter as significant resilience-enabling resource in a highly unequal space amongst Afrocentric people.

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Knowledge on flocking as resilience-enabling mechanism to lobby social resources may have meaning for knowledge on innovative social housing solutions. Svidronova, Meriˇcková, Nemec, and Kuvíková (2017) found that third-sector housing solutions may be the answer to high demands of housing, given the increase in displaced people and growing inequality. The main factors that they found advance innovations in social housing (long-term community work, the education of future residents, and the participation of future residents in the construction of their homes) were evident in social support to borrow, lend and reciprocally donate to secure housing.

1.5 ‘First She Works for Me, but Slowly, Slowly She Can Try and also Help Other People on Other Side’: Smart Partnerships to Mobilise Economic Resources During Flocking From an Afrocentric social capital perspective economic resources refer to income generation, livelihood strategies, and employment (Kuku et al., 2013). Inequality means limited job opportunities, high unemployment, and low household income. And, as I discuss in the next chapter, it means that not only is the frequency of these indicators high, it also means that it does not diminish—it is chronic. By implication, those who live on the dispossessed margins of life know unemployed kin, neighbours or friends—or are themselves unemployed. Given the severe levels of poverty in the Southern African context it does not come as a surprise that an extremely socially innovative flocking practice is that of smart partnerships (Ebersöhn et al., 2017) and that these frequently function as resilience-enabling resources to target the scourge of inequality. As I argued earlier, it is especially smart partnerships that are used to support people in acquiring agency to supplement household incomes, and to build concomitant self-esteem: By farming you can get food. And that helps with poverty alleviation and not having food. And also sometimes they can sell chickens and goats to get money. And then it helps both the individual and the community to benefit (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 134–144); I would give them a job so that they can help me where I need help. When I say they can help me, I mean there are lots of works. Just like I see they need. Also I can give them job of digging, washing, anything. They can wash my car, and wash me anything. And get the benefits of having money to sustain themselves as I am too sustaining myself (Lesotho, Younger Men: 170–176). The flocking practice of a smart partnership (Ebersöhn et al., 2014) signifies the use of available resources in social support to create capacity rather than dependency. Whether in rural or urban spaces there was evidence of smart partnerships to generate collective income. When resourceful acquaintances heard via the society grapevine

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Photograph 1.21 Leveraging a social capital opportunity to generate income, Eastern Cape (2009)

Photograph 1.22 Capitalising on social networks to supplement household income, Limpopo (2013)

that we would be visiting schools, they would bring clothes, arts and crafts and food to sell as a clever way to leverage on the social capital of their friends’ connectedness with visitors. We would all have food, teachers would be able to demonstrate their networks and friends would have a market for their products. In this way smart partnerships constituted opportunities for income generation to supplement meagre household incomes in mutually beneficial ways (see Photographs 1.21 and 1.22). Smart partnerships could also be viewed as borrowing and lending with longer term implications (Ebersöhn et al., 2017). Smart partnerships often indicate flocking practices that emphasise agency and target income generation or securing livelihood: Here we are most working with farming. So when I have a friend who needs a job I can help him to open a business on the side. Maybe I make small job opportunity. First she works for me, but slowly, slowly she can try and also help other people on other side (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2012: 212–217); In this case the family will be encouraged to plough (and plant) vegetables and in some instances they will be given mielie meal and beans (Lesotho, Younger Men: 6–9); She said if someone doesn’t have money. Because we are collecting money, we give her a separate job. Like if I want firewood, I go ask: ‘Can you collect firewood for me? So that I will pay him or her (Limpopo, Older Women, 2012: 401–403); No, they don’t give money. They give that person a job (Limpopo, Memberchecking, 2012: 251–253). Social grants alleviate poverty. But endless provision of finances is not enough for economic development. Nor is it, as I discuss in Chap. 4, an acceptable cultural belief and practice from an interdependent, Ubuntu point of view. From this sociocultural perspective chronic dependence is frowned upon and innovation to generate livelihood in order to contribute to a collective is valorised. Besides income, economic

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activity includes human and social development with complex interactions between economic growth, employment, poverty and income distribution that policy-makers ought to take into account. Rather than a singular focus on economic growth, smart partnerships reminds of social development (Thin, 2002) and of Sen’s (2007) position on capability and wellbeing. This social innovation shows economic activity ‘not for its own sake, but, as Aristotle put it, “for the sake of something else”, to wit, the bettering of human lives’ (Sen, 2007: 3). Smart partnerships signify a social economy as activities that are productive and typically in the ‘informal sector, non-monetised, and/or small scale’ (Thin, 2002: 144). Smart partnerships may be a standard for measuring the success of an economy. As Thin (2002) indicates, it is the normative criteria of how innovations contribute to quality of life, social justice and happiness that matter rather than the simply morally neutral terms of economic activity as measured by the GDP. And it is unequivocal that smart partnerships scaffold positive adjustment and imply established resilience-enabling mechanisms such as regulatory experiences of control and efficacy (Ungar et al., 2007), agency and mastery (Masten & Wright, 2010), as well as relational aspects such as social cohesion (Ungar et al., 2007) and constructive relationships (Masten & Wright, 2010), together with the cultural imperatives of human care (Masten & Wright, 2010) and cultural affiliation (Ungar et al., 2007). It would be interesting to see how more insight into the resilience-enabling capacity of smart partnership could be leveraged in policy for social development. In this regard, from a social welfare perspective Lombard (2008) cautions that the benefits of high rates of economic growth could be less without considering social policies and practices. Smart partnerships may be an age-old pathway that shows a model for maximising the potential of people trapped in poverty for increasing economic activity and labour productivity—a global development objective (United Nations, 2018). From the previous section it is apparent that social resource management practices—be they societies, borrowing, lending, reciprocal donations, or smart partnerships—provide access to material resources. The latter has been found to be crucial as resilience-enabling mechanism (Ungar et al., 2007). Here it is clear that positive adjustment to a general lack of access to material resources is buffered by the socioecological input of an indigenous knowledge system to flock in order to gather and distribute joint resources equitably.

1.6 ‘It Depends What Kind of Help Our Neighbour Needs’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support to Adapt Positively to Chronic and Cumulative Risk In this last section of the chapter I explain how flocking functioned as resilienceenabling given a wide range of chronic and cumulative contextual risks. There was evidence of flocking being resilience-enabling for better than expected outcomes

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related to food and nutrition, health and wellbeing, education and spiritual wellbeing. Social resources used for resilience-enabling flocking targeted needs identified by the collective: It depends what kind of help our neighbour needs (Gauteng, Younger Women: 140–141).

1.6.1 ‘You’ll Find a Dish and a Spoon, no School Books’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Food and Nutrition Outcomes A household with little income is a household with hunger. Given extensive need, limited job opportunities and low levels of household income an expected outcome would be chronic food scarcity and limited excess to share with others. However, flocking leads to better than expected outcomes given this significant challenge. Dotted throughout excerpts in this, and other chapters, are references to food—providing food, securing food, sharing food. Flocking was instrumental in managing social support to address nutrition and food challenges. As a male high schoolteacher poignantly observed: When they pack their bags you’ll find a dish and a spoon, no school books (Mpumalanga, Younger Men: 450–451). Students were more interested in the immediate benefit of receiving food at school than being able to even comprehend learning. The prevalence of flocking strategies to address hunger testifies to community-level commitment to buffer against the magnitude of inequality: Now they come and we see that child has a learning problem. Even if that child hasn’t got a learning problem, because he can’t say anything, can’t do anything on an empty stomach. Now we find it is easier for them to answer questions in class, to be involved, actively involved in a group, to play during break. Because he has something in his stomach (Gauteng female teacher, urban primary school: 122–127). As I note in Chap. 3, in each of the schools we’ve partnered with since 2003 the first initiative around which teachers flocked was that of vegetable gardens. And the distribution of vegetables was earmarked for supporting families, not individual students. Similarly, when one Eastern Cape school started a soup kitchen it was to the benefit of the community at large. I remember being astonished to find the school gates in this high-crime urban neighbourhood unlocked and people walking in and out of the school grounds. One reason was that the school had flocked together with community stakeholders to run a daily soup kitchen. The flocking together for social support also meant flocking of people in need towards the social support (Photographs 1.23 and 1.24).

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Photograph 1.23 Food preparation at school, Photograph 1.24 A photograph showing Mpumalanga (2011) family and community members sharing in food provided at a primary school (captured and shared by a teacher, Thembi Dyasi), Eastern Cape, 2008

Of the 1.4 billion extremely poor people in the world (living on less than USD1.25 per day), 70% are estimated to live in rural areas (The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition, 2013). Most of these people depend partly (or entirely) on agriculture for food and nutrition, or livelihood and income-generation. Smallholder agriculture uses, either exclusively or generally, family labour. The work generates a significant but variable share of household income in cash or in kind (as is evident in the socio-economic resources of borrowing, lending, reciprocal donations, and smart partnerships). Agriculture includes crop raising, animal husbandry, forestry and artisanal fisheries. Naturally smallholder agriculture is key for support against the negative effects of poverty and serve as resilience-enabling to bolster positive adjustment despite poverty. There was evidence of smallholder agriculture in each of the case studies from which the relationship-resourced resilience theory was built. Families and extended family (one or more households). In our data smallholder agriculture was extended to school sites using labour from extended school-community members. In their work on health promotion in schools, Ferreira, Botha, Fraser, and Du Toit (2016) go a step beyond school-based smallholding agriculture. They argue that curriculum integration of food and nutrition knowledge can be transferred from children to parents so that this could have a positive impact on smallholding agriculture. As I discussed above, in our data there was also evidence that smallholder agriculture used smart partnerships as economic resource in order to be effective. Smallholder agriculture also used social resources such as borrowing, lending and reciprocal donations to run their smallholder agricultural activities. As resilience-enabling mechanism efficient smallholder agriculture meant produce that was distributed via collective resources (societies) to reach identified vulnerable households. The role of women again takes centre stage in organising food and nutrition support. As in other studies (The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and

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Nutrition, 2013), it is largely women who run smallholdings, playing key roles in food production, processing and marketing activities. The knowledge system is thus that women are the custodians of nutritional care. As is evident below, whether for food and nutrition, health care or education services, indigenous knowledge systems have been refined regarding resilience-enabling support in the absence of systemic, state-provided support. An indigenous knowledge system of resilience flocking is an accepted social support pathway to encourage positive adaptation in the absence of systemic support services.

1.6.2 ‘We Would Clean in Order to Give Her Some Comfort’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Objective Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Positive objective health and well-being outcomes are not usually expected when hospitals and clinics are sparsely available, when public transport is few and far between and costly, or when literacy levels are too low to complete forms or read labels on medication. There was, however, evidence that flocking was resilienceenabling to support unexpected, positive objective health and wellbeing experiences. With regard to objective health and wellbeing outcomes flocking was resilienceenabling by supporting the identification of health needs, lending assistance to access health care services, together with giving assistance to undergo treatment. In the following extract the resilience-enabling benefits of flocking is apparent in how teachers were instrumental in the early identification of HIV and AIDS of students and their families: That’s when we started to know so-and-so is infected or that so-and-so is affected because he or she lost a parent. Then we gave them steps to Mrs. X – she has got all the numbers of the learners who are affected and infected (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 61–64). Flocking was also resilience-enabling to assist highly vulnerable individuals to access health services. Access to services (be it health, social welfare or education) is quite problematic if you are one of many marginalised people with limited options for transport to the few available clinics and hospitals: We were aware of children that did not perform well. To identify what I have seen. Hey man! What is happening to this child? You always ask the question. We take them. We don’t say they are affected or infected. Because we don’t label them. We don’t want to stigmatise them (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 23–27). The flocking support was characterised by a keenness to engage at household level. Consequently, flocking was resilience-enabling in terms of home visits and homebased to support better than expected objective health and wellbeing outcomes given health care resource constraints and high levels of health care needs: These are the people who are working within the community, especially as they are assisting with orphans. They are visiting places where people

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are sick. And people, maybe they are taking tablets. So that maybe they will be able, if that person is staying alone, and the person maybe is taking antiretroviral drugs, they are there to monitor whether these people are taking tablets. They see to it that they get food. They cook for them, they wash. Whatever they need, whatever way that they assist (Mpumalanga, Older women, 2012: 175–181); At her home we would clean in order to give her some comfort and that the person who lives there may live in a clean environment (Swaziland, Younger women: 264–266); The community come and give their support. This family does not cook any food, but the neighbours cook various meals and offer whatever food they can as a way to show their love, support and sympathy (Swaziland, Older Women: 43–48). Whether flocking as resilience-enabling pathway for positive health and wellbeing outcomes is the product of culture or context may be a case of the chicken or the egg. As is evident from the propositions for the relationship-resourced resilience theory which I indicate in the next chapter, flocking has both cultural and structural roots. Contextually lending social support to sick people is potentially a by-product of non-government agencies that emphasise mobilisation of social support, as is the case with the DOTS protocol (World Health Organisation, 1999). Flocking behaviour could also be a result of participation in humanitarian activities by Christian or global organisations such as Red Cross, Save the Children, Church Alliance for Orphans. Plausibly the uptake of the DOTS protocol and faith-based or humanitarian strategies may also have benefitted from a socio-cultural inclination to provide social support. It could also be that a long history non-governmental, faith-based, or donor organisation support programmes gave rise to popularise a predisposition to coordinate social support to acquaintances.

1.6.3 ‘Love Must Begin from Families Until to the Church’: Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Subjective Health and Wellbeing Outcomes Positive subjective health and wellbeing outcomes are not predicted when there are such common instances of long-term illness, and later death in families, that keep caregivers bedridden and unable to perform household duties for their loved ones, and when anxiety and sadness, given a life of hardship, leads to helplessness and despair. Flocking proved resilience-enabling to support better than expected subjective health and wellbeing outcomes. There is emotional comfort in being socially included during home visits and in support groups. Instances of flocking to provide implicit social support and of emotionally supportive relationships run like a golden thread through case study data. Empathy was often displayed in acts of service, as is evident in the examples on borrowing and lending and reciprocal donations:

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So what we do as neighbours, we just take the kids and give them emotional support – the love and care to that certain child. And then we do traditional adoption. As the previous group said, what we do is that if somebody passed away from a family and have a lot of children, so, and that family is already poor, the neighbour takes the kids just to support through the period when the funeral is going on. So that the kids stay in your neighbour’s house and they take care. Give love and support and treat the kids as their own (Namibia, Younger Women: 300–307); I can add love. You can’t have a relationship with somebody you don’t love. I can get to love the person first so that when we work together fruitfully (Gauteng urban primary school, female teacher: 63–64). Volunteerism is attractive as a way to meet collectivist criteria for quality of life (being a good neighbour), and it gives purpose to days when high levels of unemployment cause many to experience lack of purpose daily. The ways in which flocking serves as resilience-enabling mechanism to mobilise social resources to provide social support reminds of volunteerism. Volunteerism has been recognised as a pathway that supports the post-2015 sustainable development agenda (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). Volunteerism has been found simultaneously to improve governance, tackle inequalities, and expand voice and participation. Flocking can be viewed as a bottom-up system of volunteerism where indigenous knowledge of human care manifests as an indigenous knowledge system of social support that is resilience-enabling. It is now accepted that, at the local level, volunteerism can be a mechanism for people who are excluded and/or live in marginalised communities to be heard, and to access the opportunities, services and resources they require to better their lives (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). In a young democracy such as South Africa the way in which responsive and supportive governments and development actors match the motivation and commitment of individual volunteers requires investigation (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). Similarly, further investigation is necessary to determine the extent to which flocking leverages alliances with local governments and with like-minded local and broader civil society groupings to support people in marginalised spaces to access information and build the required capabilities to improve their future trajectories and hold local officials accountable. As I explain in Chap. 4, cultural conventions (traditional platforms of governance) show progressive changes, which include local officials and leverage local political pathways in addition to more familiar flocking mechanisms. At the country level the ability of volunteers to encourage development progress hinges on the readiness of national governments to ensure supportive environments that encourage and acknowledge available participation and initiatives (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). Home-based care policy frameworks in Southern Africa (Campbell & Foulis, 2004) also reflect clever propagation of existing socio-cultural practices. These strategies acknowledge the socio-cultural definition of quality of life as observing and responding to need by assisting. A teacher in the Eastern Cape explains the socio-cultural value of kinship that underpins social support with regard to home-based care:

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The volunteer, together with the caregiver, is very helpful because they are staying in the area. They know the area very well. So it is easy for them. So it helps us because there are so many orphaned kids. It’s a large area (62–66). Flocking was also a resilience-enabler with regard to supporting wellbeing outcomes related to spirituality. In the social resources kraal,7 spirituality is typified as an Afrocentric cultural resource (Kuku et al., 2013). The postcolonial habitus means that Afrocentric spirituality includes ancestral reverence as well as Western forms of religion (Greeff & Loubser, 2008) with 5.4% of South Africans claiming to follow ancestral, tribal or animist religions (Statistics South Africa, 2015a): Maybe there are some that do not know about ancestors. So they don’t know how to deal. So they ask and see how others do. Because maybe they weren’t taught when they were still growing (Mpumalanga, Memberchecking, 2014: 267–278). Photograph 1.25 depicts the proximal connectedness between current life, future life, death, and ancestral existence. At this homestead in remote Limpopo the graves are placed close to the two houses in the yard. The graves are also placed between two majestic baobab trees. An older man in Limpopo observed:

Photograph 1.25 Graveyard at a homestead, Limpopo (2012) 7 Kraal

is an Afrikaans word commonly used in South Africa for an enclosure in which people live or where cattle or livestock are kept.

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Photograph 1.26 A church indicated as an asset (symbol of cow) on the community map the participants generated, Limpopo (2013)

It is where we bury our loved ones so to mark where they being laid and for the future generations so to know where their elders have been buried, rather than being buried elsewhere (48–53); Even when the upcoming generation grow up they can say: ‘See, grandmother is buried here’. Rather than just to bury them anywhere (24–26). It is not surprising that many of the maps generated with elders and young people (see Photograph 1.26) feature churches. As estimated by the General Household Survey (Statistics South Africa, 2015a), most Africans in Southern Africa are Christian. In all 86% of South Africans identified as Christian, with 90% of them Basotho. Participants voiced churches as spaces for the larger social circle to convene, feel validated based on shared beliefs and be motivated to engage in shared social support agendas: It is taught at the church. If you have a problem just go to your friend or the neighbour (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 152–153); The church is also good because we pray to God and receive blessing from God. There are many churches in this place (Mpumalanga, Younger Men, 2012: 65–66); The church is important to us because it is where we communicate with God (Mpumalanga, Younger Women, 2013: 69).

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Nor is it surprising that religion is mentioned together with social support to address hardship. Faith-based organisations are known to support families in distress and to be instrumental in raising money to assist where need is high. In 2017, for example, more than 1.3 million South Africans benefitted from direct social services provided by a Christian social welfare council (Jackson, 2017). As with non-governmental agencies, here the question of origin and influence also matter: could the social support voiced by participants be a spin-off of engagement in formal religious functions? Or does a habitual preference for social support use churches as positive institutions with whom to access and mobilise protective resources? Be that as it may, spirituality was mobilised for implicit social support in response to needs related to everyday hardships arising from poverty: It is just a belief. God is there and you believe that maybe if you pray, God will help you. If you are employed … if I pray maybe I can get some job. It gives you hope. Just to keep you busy (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012: 325–329); The church makes the village to stay calm. And also, if a large number of people attending church, it means that you will be avoiding things like crime (Limpopo, Older Men, 2012: 5–6). The use of spirituality as a socio-cultural response draws people into a caring and supportive enclave of communion and is used to moderate prosocial behaviour. Mpumalanga’s Older Men explained that they identified the church as a resource on their asset map: Maybe somebody is having stress at home. They can socialise with other people at church (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2013: 114–115); Coming to churches there. I just believe it is for socialise. To get together for that two hours to know each other. Enjoy, praise God and after that you go home (304–306). The use of spirituality in social support appeared to bolster positive affect (such as hope, expectation, forgiveness, gratitude) and soothe negative affect (despair, anxiety, fear, anger): Sometimes you will find that a person have a big problem. There are people that when they are facing challenges they want to hang themselves or take a bullet. Take a gun to shoot themselves. It helps to go to church because they will learn so that if you are having problems you should not shoot yourself, kills yourself (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 70–89); We learn to appreciate ourselves, to love each other and God because love must begin from families until to the church (646–650); It brings peace to the village people and eradicating crime. And the other thing is that there is still a life after death for which the church helps us to prepare for heaven (Limpopo, Older Men, 2012: 14–19); What our mother here said is true. That only God knows our suffering. You will not be happy if you do not worship God (Mpumalanga, Younger Women, 2013: 743–745);

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You find that sometimes singing just comfort your heart. Maybe I’m stressful, or I’m in pain, then maybe I lost one of my big brothers. So maybe this song comforts me (Mpumalanga, Member-checking, 2014: 299–300); If you are a person that goes to church you have a heart to forgive. But if you are a person that does not go to church that means that you do not have a heart to forgive a person when they have done something wrong to you. But if you always go to church, then you have a heart to forgive (Limpopo, Older Men, 2013: 142–146). Spiritual and human care, as well as cultural and religious affiliation, form part of a short list of resilience-supporting mechanisms found to promote the positive adjustment of young people irrespective of their context (Masten & Wright, 2010). Similarly, spiritual cohesion, as well as social cohesion (inherent to the implicit instrumental support apparent in the above discussion) was found to be resilienceenabling for young people across countries (Ungar et al., 2007) and in South Africa (Theron, 2016a). It appears as if, from an Afrocentric perspective, the elders and young people in urban and rural settings favour social strategies where the collective promote positive adjustment by means of attending to spiritual and human care and enjoying a sense of spiritual and social cohesion. Others have found that valuing harmony signifies a South African personality structure (De Gouveia, 2015; Ferreira, 2006; Nel et al., 2012). Such harmony denotes congruence in acknowledging ancestral and divine kindness, holding ancestors and a Christian God in high esteem, together with doing human acts of kindness (Bujo, 2009). It follows that these socio-cultural beliefs and values are enacted by steady engagement in spiritual practices (both ancestral and religious) (Louw, 2011).

1.6.4 The School Belongs to the Community—Flocking as Resilience-Enabling Support for Positive Education Outcomes Flocking was resilience-enabling to support unexpected positive education outcomes. As social support pathway flocking encouraged school attendance, assisted with access to schools, and provided homework support. Teachers, in a school-based version of a ‘society’, provided social support in various ways to respond to need of children or young people and their families, including food and nutrition, and health care. The teacher-led social support enabled school attendance and had a positive impact on health and wellbeing outcomes, as I discuss below. Teachers used social connectedness to link with officials who could assist families to apply for social grants8 :

8 Social grants referred to here are applicable to South Africa, namely disability grants, child support

grants, foster child grants and care dependency grants (South African Social Security Agency, 2018).

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You can come to my school. There are social grants at school (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 498–499). Flocking enabled school attendance, social inclusion, self-esteem and adaptive child behaviour. Older men in Limpopo explained how a primary school is valued as a community asset: This is our primary school. So everyone has to go to school. It is skill development. Because we need some leaders tomorrow. Future leaders. You can’t be a leader without going to school. We need also people who are educated. This time you can’t be behind with technology. Same thing applies to high school there (318–336). Flocking served as social mechanism to enact commitment to and belief in education that enabled educational access and performance: The school helps their children to have more future so that they will get educated. Because at school they are learning how to write and how to read in different languages (Limpopo, Older Women, 2012: 13–15); It is important for our children to get education, because without education our children can have nowhere to go (Limpopo, Younger Women, 2012: 59–61); The problem was that our children travel so long distance with foot going to school. We set down with the school governing body, government and the municipality. They decided to provide a school bus to take children to school (Limpopo, Older Women, 2012: 220–229). Flocking enabled the demonstration of communally accepted beliefs and values regarding the significance of education. By means of flocking social pressure could be used to motivate children and young people to conform to these shared values. This in turn could enable pro-social behaviour and encourage school attendance: At that time, the people of X and the headman make a law so that every girls should go to school. If we find at home that there is a girl that is not going to school her parents, they must be given a warning. Or they are told that they must pay a fine because their children are not going to school (Limpopo, Older Women, 2012: 269–272); If someone is not going to school, and he or she is clever, but their parents don’t have money … someone is call him that he must come help me in the garden so that I will give him some money so that he will be able to go to school (Limpopo, Older Women, 2012: 371–374); Ever since we got a caregiver and those volunteers, we find that there was learners who were late. But they stopped coming late doing follow-ups. And we know there is a problem at home. It’s not the child who wants to come late (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 70–73); At least now I know when I come I know my children will be in the classroom. There is no delay at all. I will get my learners in the classroom (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 91–92).

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When teachers provided social support to children and their families challenged by poverty-related circumstances (be it food, transport, access to health care or assistance with social welfare grants), students were able to demonstrate adaptive socioemotional and learning behaviours: If a child is hungry he will be bullying other children. And now we’ve got food at school and everyone is full. There is no bullying at all (Mpumalanga male high schoolteacher: 300–302); Children are willing to work because they see the atmosphere. There is a change to learners. Learners don’t abuse each other here (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 304–306); Now they can answer questions in class. To be involved, to be actively involved in groups. To play. Because they’ve got something in the stomach (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 78–80). Positive social inclusion outcomes were also evident as a consequence of a teacherrun society to identify and support children with high vulnerability. The benefits of social support as pathway to resilience-enabled social inclusion and pride rather than shame and isolation caused by poverty: So it’s easy for us to identify those poor learners and give them those things. Now you can’t see that people are coming from poor (homes) and this is coming from… (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 170–172); Children feel that they belong. There is respect for all. They belong with the school, to this community, to the organisation (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 64–65). The social support by teachers meant that school-family participation benefitted: It is no longer the teacher and the learner. The parents are coming in and out… In this school it is not for the teachers. It is also for the community so they can come here and roundabout (Mpumalanga male high schoolteacher: 78–82); Even the school does not belong to us. The school belongs to the community. We are working for this community (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 78–82); And even here in this office of our caregiver you will see learners, parents floating in and out every day. Every day (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 78–82). However, the allure of teachers responding by default to the constant need they see pulls them away from their primary role as educators and pushes them into playing a variety of roles. One of the teachers proudly pronounced: We are social workers. We are AIDS counsellors. We are advisors. You know … we are doing. We are change agents (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 228–229). In the excerpts below teachers express what, to their minds, cause them to flock to provide social support. They touch on limited insight and action by officials and policy in the education sector, affirmation of professional self-esteem by providing

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social support rather than (only) teaching, and assisting those in need as the normative standard for behaviour: And there is no support at all. But what we are doing is good. But they don’t know what is happening in the real world. The real world in the classroom. And they don’t know the communities where we are working (Gauteng female primary schoolteacher: 333–336); It is not that we are incompetent. We are competent. It’s only because of thse challenges we have… Everything is fine for us. We do our best. So even that self-esteem, even for teachers, the educators (Eastern Cape female primary schoolteacher: 106–108); The lack of resources, they make us resist. But our teachers here at school…We are overcoming the change. We are doing what we are supposed to do. And if I council these children, these learners in our classrooms, we are doing it (Mpumalanga female high schoolteacher: 318–321). Whether in affluent societies (Boyden, 2013; Schoon, Parsons, & Sacker, 2004) or in a country with an emerging economy like South Africa (Lethale & Pillay, 2013; Mhlongo & O’Neill, 2013; Theron, 2016b), it has been noted that schools remain reliable resilience-enabling resources of community-level support in highly challenged spaces, be this in inner cities or remote villages (Ebersöhn, 2016). It is self-evident that schools were therefore prioritised as a space and structure for flocking initiatives. Reverence for education is an established resilience-enabling mechanism from the perspective of young people (Masten & Wright, 2010; Ungar et al., 2007; Theron, 2016b). Schools in particular have been found to be resilience-enabling, to bolster the resilience of young people (Liebenberg, Ikeda, & Wood, 2015). Similarly, teachers have been indicated as significant support to enable resilience amongst themselves (Coetzee, Ebersöhn, Ferreira, & Moen, 2015), and young women (Jefferis & Theron, 2017). In respect of flocking schools appear to be a nexus of collective social support efforts to a connected school community: adults, families and young people (Bagherpour, 2010; Dempster, 2010). Schools serve as space in which to identify the vulnerability of children and their families. The identified vulnerability includes risk related to health and nutrition needs, assistance with clothes, and support to access learning (school fees) and educational progress (homework support, monitoring absence from schools, motivating school attendance and the value of education). Converging flocking initiatives in schools had benefits. Social support could reach extremely vulnerable subsets in already significantly vulnerable populations. In this way children, young people and members of their households could benefit from flocking. The gamut of social resources used during flocking was evident in schoolbased support: societies were leveraged, there was evidence of borrowing, lending and reciprocal donations, as well as smart partnerships.

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1.7 Conclusion In this chapter I argue that the relationship-resourced resilience theory gives evidence of an indigenous pathway to resilience which constitutes a novel contribution to resilience knowledge—as I elaborate on in subsequent chapters. I used a bricolage of case study data to illustrate how the relationship-resourced resilience theory posits flocking as a social support pathway to resilience in a massively adverse context. I described flocking as resilience-enabling mechanism proposed in the relationshipresourced resilience theory. I explained that a severely unequal context, with limited formal systemic support, calls for alternative mechanisms that enable resilience. I explained flocking as one such resilience-enabling mechanism. As introduction to additional discussion in Chap. 4, I posit that as an indigenous psychology theory of resilience, the relationship-resourced resilience theory manifests culturally salient beliefs and practices in response to adversity. I based this proposition on the argument that flocking has roots in indigenous knowledge (cultural resources) and that the social support pathway to resilience, signified as flocking, is a collective enactment of Ubuntu values and beliefs on reciprocal need and support. I described flocking as social support that mobilises social capitals, namely cultural resources, collective resources, social resources, and economic resources. I gave examples of flocking mechanisms that are resilience-enabling, namely borrowing, lending, and reciprocal donations, smart partnerships, as well as societies, which are used to structure the supply management required for social support. I argued that these flocking mechanisms are resilience-enabling as they encouraged better than expected collective adjustment in an extremely strained ecology as regards food and nutrition, health and wellbeing, as well as education. In Chap. 6 I provide a comprehensive positioning of the relationship-resourced resilience theory, which rests within the body of resilience knowledge. In this chapter I pointed out that the relationship-resourced resilience theory supports existing knowledge that social structures associated with religion and education are crucial to support resilience and buffer against adversity. In a highly unequal context faith-based structures and schools appeared to be dependable physical structures around which to lobby social support efforts. In this chapter I showed that the relationship-resourced resilience theory differs from positions that argue that it is immediate rather than extended family that is progressively significant to bolster resilience. The scarcity of resources and the extent of need calls for access to and mobilisation of a substantial font of social resources. The supply of social resources in an extended kinship system exceeds that of social resources limited to immediate family. Further study of the effect on flocking as social support pathway is required given new insights that immediate family, rather than extended family, may progressively matter more as resilience-enabling mechanism. It is known that agency and mastery (Masten & Wright, 2010) and experiences of control and efficacy (Ungar et al., 2007) are resilience-enabling mechanisms. As I stated, in this book I argue that, from an Afrocentric perspective and in a context where hardship never lets up, flocking as social support pathway matters as

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socio-ecological innovation. I propose that flocking enables experiences of collective agency to provide the supply of much-needed resources. Flocking provides a sense of communal mastery and control of a harsh environment where chronic vulnerability prevails. Flocking champions the efficacy of the collective to adjust positively to multiple risks based on what is collectively available in the social ecology. I also argued that flocking enables socio-ecological collaboration for multiple other resilience-enabling mechanisms that support positive adjustment. Providing and receiving flocking-related social support is dependent on, and capitalise on healthy attachment processes (Masten & Wright, 2010) and constructive relationships (Ungar et al., 2007). As will be evident in Chap. 4, flocking for social support is normative as it conforms to cultural norms (Ungar et al., 2007) and enables cultural affiliation (Masten & Wright, 2010). Flocking enables social and spiritual cohesion (Ungar et al., 2007), as well as human and spiritual care and religious affiliation (Masten & Wright, 2010). The following resilience-enabling mechanisms, known as significant irrespective of context, were not evident in data as regards flocking: self-regulation, meaningmaking and intelligence (Masten & Wright, 2010), a powerful identity and social justice (Ungar et al., 2007). It is plausible that the participatory data generation in group format in a population with dominant interdependent views limited insights on intrapersonal traits. Conversely it is possible that, from an interdependent, Ubuntu perspective, mechanisms such as self-regulation, meaning-making, intelligence and identity may be present, but manifest as communal rather than individual. In Chap. 4, for example, I discuss the hierarchical decision-making processes of consultation and consensus, where collective regulation and meaning making are evident, and social justice is central to collective problem-solving. Similarly, in Chap. 5 I explain how group identity (as opposed to self-identity) is powerful to subscribe to and which are the appropriate roles, responsibilities and benefits of social connectedness given Ubuntu kinship beliefs.

1.8 Way Forward In other chapters I deliberate some intended and unintended effects of flocking as indigenous knowledge system on resilience. Intended effects are that social support is available to many in the absence of state-supplied services. In this way positive adjustment is possible, which would not otherwise be predicted. It may, however, have an unintended effect with regard to policy and transformation. National policy discourses infer rational and positive pathways to better equality and inclusion. It also assumes that measures are implemented to disassemble systems that have a negative impact on those who are excluded. However, in South Africa pro-poor initiatives favoured income through social grants to the detriment of providing social services (Lombard, 2008). The role of women in flocking social support knowledge systems has hardened over time. Maybe this grit that ensues from adaptation is tough to the degree that

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both society and state no longer readily query, but rather acquiesce to, dependence on social support at community-level, especially in the case of women. It may even be that an unintended effect of flocking as a resilience-enabling knowledge system is that it sustains inequality. State and citizens may comfort themselves that it is okay if change takes time because there are fonts of social support. The core role of women in social support, whether as cultural value or contextual consequence, implies an evaluation of the extent to which a gendered perspective is included in social policy in the places where women are expected to assume social support roles. In Europe, for example, similar analysis exists where marginalisation requires evaluation of social policy that is transformative (SOLIDUS, 2018) rather than, among others, perpetuating a centralisation of power to men and excluding complexities of gender, socio-economic class, ethnicity and disability (Lumby, 2009). Earlier I noted a growing world-wide appreciation for volunteerism to achieve sustainable development as it generates social trust, encourages social inclusion, increases basic services, and advances human development (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). Flocking potentially serves as a bottom-up model of functional volunteerism that is resilience-enabling in an unequal society. As a culturally and contextually refined model of volunteerism flocking may thus give useful evidence to consider for enablement agendas that confront exclusion, discrimination and inequalities that hinder progress in development. Flocking not only suggests what is currently happening at community level, giving voice to stakeholders and mobilising people and civil society organisations to contribute to solutions. If viewed as an indigenous knowledge system, flocking may be a poster child of how generations of marginalised families established and refined social innovation to bolster their positive adjustment. Understanding how flocking garners volunteerism may champion resilience agendas that fit a context and culture. It may help governments in similar cultural and contextual positions to harness what civil society organisations are already do to enable resilience. Privileging volunteerism in a national development agenda does, however, require enabling conditions that promote freedom of speech and association together with an established atmosphere of dynamic political debate (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). In a society that is still socialising itself into democracy these participatory pathways for civic engagement and political accountability are still being honed. Flocking may potentially continue in an isolated and insular manner until such time as interactive socio-political mechanisms have been developed to function in harmony with that of a trusted social support knowledge system. Indigenous knowledge systems are dynamic. So it goes without saying that flocking will morph. In a young democracy a transforming context with potentially more formal systemic support would make a previously marginalised majority less dependent on defaulting to flocking mechanisms. One way in which to advance possible adaptation of a comfortable resilience-enabling mechanism such as flocking could be to study how, at the local, country and global level, volunteer networks (societies, for example) use technology to build networks in order to improve social support and connect resilience-enabling actors. It is known that the progressive use of mobile

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phones and social media expand the reach and scope of volunteerism (State of the World’s Volunteerism Report, 2018). Such connectedness enables interested and participating people and groups to engage, learn and share capacity on evidence about other solutions, resources and opportunities that are resilience-enabling. In this way the existing resilience-enabling knowledge systems and solutions of people who are often simply viewed as vulnerable and excluded can be drawn into the centre of development decisions which have an impact on them.

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Kaschula, S. A. (2008). Wild foods and household food security responses to aids: Evidence from South Africa. Population and Environment, 29(3–5), 162–185. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11111008-0068-7. Kuku, A. A., Omonona, B. T., Oluwatayo, I. B., & Ogunleye, O. O. (2013). Social capital and welfare among farming households in Ekiti State. Journal of Biology, Agriculture and Healthcare, 3(5), 115–130. Lethale, P. S., & Pillay, J. (2013). Resilience against all odds: A positive psychology perspective of adolescent- headed families. Africa Education Review, 10(3), 579–594. https://doi.org/10.1080/ 18146627.2013.853550. Letseka, M. (2013). Education for Ubuntu/Botho: Lessons from Basotho indigenous education. Open Journal of Philosophy, 3(2), 337–344. Liebenberg, L., Ikeda, J., & Wood, M. (2015). “It’s just part of my culture”: Understanding language and land in the resilience processes of Aboriginal youth. In L. Theron, L. Liebenberg, & M. Ungar (Eds.), Youth resilience and culture—Commonalities and complexities (pp. 105–116). New York, NY: Springer. Lombard, A. (2008). Social work: A social partner in economic development. Social Work/Maatskaplike Werk, 44(2), 121–142. Louw, D. J. (2011). Pastoral care and counseling. In E. Mpofu (Ed.), Counseling people of African ancestry (pp. 155–165). Cambridge: New York, NY. Lumby, J. (2009). Performativity and identity: Mechanisms of exclusion. Journal of Education Policy, 24(3), 353–369. Masten, A. S. (2014). Ordinary magic: Resilience in development. New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Masten, W., & Wright, M. O. (2010). Resilience over the lifespan: Developmental perspectives on resistance, recovery and transformation. In J. W. Reich, A. J. Zautra, & J. S. Hall (Eds.), Handbook of adult resilience (pp. 213–237). New York, NY: The Guilford Press. Mhlongo, Z. S., & O’Neill, V. C. (2013). Family influences on career decisions by black first-year UKZN students. South African Journal of Higher Education, 27, 953–965. Nel, J. A., Valchev, V. H., Rothmann, S., Vijver, F. J., Meiring, D., & Bruin, G. P. (2012). Exploring the personality structure in the 11 languages of South Africa. Journal of Personality, 80, 915–948. Nurullah, A. S. (2012). Received and provided social support: A review of current evidence and future directions. American Journal of Health Studies, 27(3), 173–188. Oh, H., Chung, M. H., & Labianca, G. (2004). Group social capital and group effectiveness: The role of informal socializing ties. Academy of Management Journal, 47(6), 860–875. Oracle. (2012). PeopleSoft HCM 9.1. Retrieved from https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E28728_01/psft/ acrobat/hcm91fp2hhaf-b0312.pdf. Osher, D., Cantor, P., Berg, J., Steyer, L., & Rose, T. (2018). Drivers of human development: How relationships and context shape learning and development. Applied Developmental Science, 22(4), 1–31. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888691.2017.1398650. Owusu-Ansah, F. E., & Mji, G. (2013). African indigenous knowledge and research. African Journal of Disability, 2(1). Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.4102/jod.v2i1.30. Ramphele, M. (2012). Conversations with my sons and daughters. Johannesburg, South Africa: Penguin Books. Sage. (2018). Pastel accounting. Retrieved from http://www.sage.com/za/newsroom/sage-pastelaccounting. Schoon, I., Parsons, S., & Sacker, A. (2004). Socioeconomic adversity, educational resilience, and subsequent levels of adult adaptation. Journal of Adolescent Research, 19, 383–404. Sen, A. (2007). Unity and discord in social development. Keynote Address by Nobel Laureate in Economics. The 15th Symposium of the International Consortium for Social Development, 16–20 July. Seuring, S., & Müller, M. (2008). From a literature review to a conceptual framework for sustainable supply chain management. Journal of Cleaner Production, 16(15), 1699–1710.

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SOLIDUS. (2018). Handbook on fostering solidarity. Retrieved from https://solidush2020.eu/wpcontent/uploads/2018/07/D10.3-Handbook.pdf. State of the World’s Volunteerism Report. (2018). The thread that binds: Volunteerism and community resilience. Retrieved from https://www.unv.org/publications/swvr2018. Statistics South Africa. (2015a). General household survey. Retrieved from https://www.statssa. gov.za/publications/P0318/P03182015.pdf. Svidronova, M. M., Meriˇcková, B. M., Nemec, J., & Kuvíková, H. (2017). Social housing provided by the third sector: The Slovak experience. Critical Housing Analysis, 4(2), 67–75. Swartz, S., & Bhana, A. (2009). Teenage tata: Voices of young fathers in South Africa. Cape Town, South Africa: HSRC Press. Tait, C. L., & Whiteman, E. (2011). Introduction: Indigenous youth, resilience, and decolonizing research. Native Studies Review, 20(1), 1. Taylor, S. E. (2011). Affiliation and stress. In S. Folkman (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of stress, health, and coping (pp. 86–100). New York, NY: Oxford University Press Inc. The High Level Panel of Experts on Food Security and Nutrition. (2013). Investing in smallholder agriculture for food security. Retrieved from http://www.fao.org/3/a-i2953e.pdf. Theron, L. C. (2016a). The everyday ways that school ecologies facilitate resilience: Implications for school psychologists. School Psychology International, 37(2), 87–103. https://doi.org/10. 1177/0143034315615937. Theron, L. C. (2016b). Towards a culturally- and contextually-sensitive understanding of resilience: Privileging the voices of black, South African young people. Journal of Adolescent Research, 31, 635–670. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558415600072. Theron, L. C. (2017). Adolescent versus adult explanations of resilience enablers: A South African study. Youth & Society, 1–21. Advance online publication: https://doi.org/10.1177/ 0044118x17731032. Theron, L. C., & Theron, A. M. C. (2013). Positive adjustment to poverty: How family communities encourage resilience in traditional African contexts. Culture & Psychology, 19, 391–413. https:// doi.org/10.1177/1354067X13489318. Thin, N. (2002). Social progress and sustainable development. Bloomfield, CT: Kumarian Press Inc. Thompson, R. A., & Goodvin, R. (2016). Social support and developmental psychopathology. Developmental psychopathology, 1–50. Ungar, M., Brown, M., Liebenberg, L., Othman, R., Kwang, W. M., Armstrong, M., et al. (2007). Unique pathways to resilience across cultures. Adolescence, 42(166), 287–310. Ungar, M., Theron, L., Liebenberg, L., Guo-Xiu, T., Restrepo, A., Sanders, J., et al. (2015). Patterns of individual coping, engagement with social supports and use of formal services among a fivecountry sample of resilient youth. Global Mental Health, 2(e21), 1–10. https://doi.org/10.1017/ gmh.2015.19. United Nations. (2018). The sustainable development goals report 2018. Retrieved from https:// unstats.un.org/sdgs/files/report/2018/thesustainabledevelopmentgoalsreport2018.pdf. Van Breda, A. D. (2010). Possible selves: Group work with young people in a South African township. Practice, 22, 181–192. World Health Organization. (1999). What is DOTS? A guide to understanding the WHOrecommended TB control strategy known as DOTS. Geneva, Switzerland: World Bank. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/swaziland/overview.

Chapter 2

For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the Morning

Abstract This chapter frames my account of an indigenous psychology of resilience. I introduce propositions of the relationship-resourced resilience theory regarding flocking as pathway to resilience. I attend specifically to propositions related to structural and cultural constraints and enablers with regards to resilience. I substantiate the proposition that flocking is a consequence of structural constraints. I introduce the proposition that flocking leverages indigenous knowledge to bolster resilience, specifically relational dimensions of an interdependent culture. I introduce a discussion regarding beliefs and practices of an interdependent indigenous culture that have bearing on a resilience-enabling pathway given inequality. I explain indigenous psychology theory building as crafting a partial story. I introduce the way we built the relationship-resourced resilience theory intentionally as an indigenous theory to add this often silent knowledge base to discourses on psychology and resilience. I explain the theoretical, meta-theoretical and methodological lenses I used to build the indigenous theory. I give an overview of the case study data, from which I inductively generated a substantive theory on resilience from an indigenous perspective. Keywords Indigenous psychology · Indigenous knowledge systems · Building theory from case studies · Inequality context · Afrocentric culture · Postcolonial · Global South · Theoretical propositions · Relationship-resourced resilience theory · Flocking

2.1 A (Partial) Story ‘For those who lead me in the night, I will thank them in the morning.’1 A friend and colleague, Motlalepule Mampane, once explained to me that this Pedi proverb reflects the significance of relationships during times of hardship. This is the story of an indigenous psychology theory: relationship-resourced resilience. Resilience constitutes an adaptive process (Lerner, 2006; Sameroff, 2009; Ungar, 2012) of, unexpectedly, adapting well to adversity (Rutter, 2012; Masten, 2014). As I conclude in the final chapter, existing knowledge on resilience favour West1 Montshepetsa

bosege ke mo lebogang go sele. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_2

43

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ern perspectives on adaptation. Studies with non-Western individuals match their resilience against standards of what is normative from a non-indigenous, Western perspective. Consequently, there is limited knowledge regarding resilience that is generated inductively to document indigenous, non-western knowledge systems on processes to adapt well to adversity. And yet, as Margaret Beal Spencer notes, all risk and protective factors ‘are linked to the character of the context and the individual’s history of experiences and even the group’s history in the nation’ (2007: 840). Cultural mismatch is an everyday global occurrence. Cultural mismatch denotes differences in cultural perspectives (Stephens, Townsend, Markus, & Philips, 2012). In the case of migration acculturation expectations imply that new-comers will progressively assume the cultural views and practices of the host space, but that there would be (at least) an initial cultural mismatch. With regards to colonialism, imposed borders in crafted nation states meant that non-indigenous geopolitical power disrupted ancestral values and practices (Marshall, 2016). The colonial nature of power, policy and resourcing was the culture of a non-indigenous, often Euro-Western minority. The culture of the majority was that of indigenous populations that existed outside of, and alongside that of power. The expectancy in colonialism was that citizens would acculturate to the cultural perspectives of a new power, with cultural mismatch again signified as a majority population acculturate to a newcomer minority worldview. After political change, and in postcolonial spaces, such cultural mismatch endures. Power often continues to be structured against norms of what is espoused in Western, European and Global North cultural standards. The anticipation continues that the majority of a population acculturate to a non-indigenous view of standards, protocols and norms. Human capital development, employment, and social mobility all require of an indigenous majority to acculturate to a minority epistemology. Indigenous views and practices, cultural resources, continue to be marginalised in the same way as opportunities to access resources equally perpetuate inequality. Consequently, the everyday magic (Masten, 2001) of cultural beliefs and practices that are used by a majority to bolster unexpected outcomes despite marginalisation (structural and cultural) is under-acknowledged as it does not conform to mainstream non-indigenous, Western magic. Indigenous social ecologies swim stream-up against strong forces that expect people to enable resilience in ways that acknowledge and include dominant knowledge systems—with concomitant cultural and contextual positions. Whereas cultural mismatch is associated with high risk for maladaptation as indicated by academic underachievement (Stephens et al., 2012; Whitbeck, Hoyt, Stubben, & LaFramboise, 2001), cultural match aligns with motivation to succeed and accomplishments (LaFramboise, Hoyt, Oliver, & Whitbeck, 2006). Besides everyday presence, cultural mismatch is also evident in research, in the methods and epistemologies of science that maintain knowledge bases that privilege the hegemony of Global North and Euro-Western paradigms (Kapyrka & Dockstator, 2012). This is evident in science where epistemicide perpetuate the systematic silencing of discourses from the Global South in knowledge bases (De Sousa Santos, 2014). Thus, like others (Keating, Ortloff, & Philippou, 2009; Lincoln, Lynham, & Guba 2011; Seekings, 2007; Shultz, 2007), I privilege research that demonstrate epistemological considerations informed by cognitive justice and decolonisation (Sefotho, 2018). Accordingly, in this book I document perspectives

2.1 A (Partial) Story

45

of 639 Southern Africans from three long-term case studies in challenged rural and urban spaces in South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland.2 The purpose is to put forward knowledge of resilience-enabling social resources that have been, and remain characteristic of positive adjustment from an indigenous, Afrocentric perspective to an unequal life-world, and how context and culture converge in having shaped these resilience processes. It was evident that, in Southern Africa, commonly occurring collectivist, resilience-enabling strategies inform communal positive adaptation. What resulted is flocking—a social support pathway to resilience. The relationship-resourced resilience theory posits that dynamics of culture and context impacted the synchronous construction of flocking. The relationship-resourced resilience theory posits flocking as rooted in Afrocentric indigenous knowledge of a culture of care within a kinship. The theory also suggests that flocking is the social enactment of such sociocultural values and beliefs. In addition, the theory proposes that flocking is resilienceenabling: constitutes an indigenous knowledge system of resilience-enabling social mechanisms. Because of flocking, contextual expectations of negative adjustment are thwarted. Unexpected positive adjustment is possible because flocking indicates tried-and-tested social mechanisms to identify social vulnerability, to garner social resources to support against risk, to encourage agency, and to bolster positive health, livelihood and education adaptation. Flocking demonstrates how subscribing to values and beliefs of an Afrocentric culture drives social patterns of capitalising on social connectedness for social support. Flocking means that a context of historical hardship culminated in refined use of social resources to provide community-level support in the absence of systemic structural support. Considering one indigenous Afrocentric resilience-enabling mechanism adds to dialogue on interventions that are au fait with relevant cultural and contextual experiences of resilience. It also substantiates discourses on the significance of attending to non-Western favoured pathways of resilience in order to understand and drive resilience agendas in socially just ways. Indigenous psychology posits the study of indigenous knowledge in psychology to generate, or more appropriately, document knowledge in the place where it has its origins. In this way, it is possible to understand how indigenous agency evolves in the complex socio-cultural interactions of people, their social systems and their context (Liebenberg, Ikeda, & Wood, 2015). At an integration level (Kim, 2000) indigenous psychology aims to use indigenous knowledge and culture as primary sources to develop knowledge of psychology. The intent is to enrich existing science discourses—not to replace existing knowledge. I write the relationship-resourced resilience theory as it was communicated to me by the people who live the theory. Although I am telling this story of a resilience pathway, it is not my story. It is a story told by many and heard by many throughout a 15-year time frame. During this time a group of us3 partnered with men and women 2 Refer to Table 1.1 for an outline of case study data and participants (367 elders, 272 young people,

417 women, 222 men) speaking isiXhosa, Siswati, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana or Afrikaans as home language. 3 Motlalepule Mapane, Maximus Sefotho, Funke Omidire, Maitumeleng Ntho-Ntho, Marlize MalanVan Rooyen, Janna de Gouveia, Raphael Akanmidu, Safia Mohamed, Maria Mnguni, Bathsheba

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in Southern Africa to hear from them how they resile. The relationship-resourced resilience theory is how I made sense of what I heard and saw in the data. Given the crisis of representation (Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2000) and because I am the storyteller, I acknowledge that this is a partial theory, a fractional construction of an indigenous psychology theory. I write it through the lens of an educational psychologist. Every researcher is engaged in storytelling (Cicourel, 1974), and every researcher is therefore a storyteller. Every research text constructs a new world (Tierney, 2000), and the complexity and ever evolving nature of indigenous knowledge makes this a difficult story to find and recount (Sillitoe & Marzano, 2009). The inevitability of this, a partial testimony of resilience, is captured by Henry Fakude (a long-standing research partner at a rural school4 ) saying to me: ‘Liesel, you are like us.’ I am not ‘us’, nor am I ‘of us’. I am like a familiar family friend looking in. I am not an indigenous member of the family experiencing, knowing, and living ‘on the inside’. Although my paternal and maternal family roots in South Africa go back to the late 1600s, my whiteness and the history of white privilege mark me ‘like us’, not ‘us’. The plasticity and fluidity of culture (Panter-Brick, 2015), considering colonialism and globalisation, means that, as a white Afrikaner with centuries of heritage in South Africa, I can understand, yet have no understanding. As an episode of storytelling, this book is therefore a story positing tentative insights that are still due for arbitration. I cannot claim that the indigenous psychology theory we documented is complete, or correct, or even the only ‘truth’. From a fallibilistic position (Hammersley, 1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Seale, 1999), as research story, I could assert that you consider the relationship-resourced resilience theory as a version of ‘truth’, accounted for in a systematic way, based on a transitory consensus of views. As I explain in the next chapter, the very nature of its data generation delimits the theory. The relationship-resourced resilience theory depicts a palette rather than a portrait. At the very least it is a starting point—a spattering of potentially connected tints, dyes and shades required to eventually paint the artwork—of ‘indigenous psychology’. At most it indicates a range of characteristics attached to a particular pathway to resilience, or a group, or alternative ways of living. Definitions of ‘indigenous’, ‘culture’ and ‘indigenous knowledge’ battle to incorporate the significant intricacies and challenges associated with these concepts. The uncertainty about the credibility of science in indigenous psychology relates, amongst others, to limitations of understanding from an outsider perspective (Hwang, 2012; Sillitoe & Marzano, 2009). It includes scepticism regarding the ‘science’ of indigenous research that involves inductively eliciting data from systems of beliefs, values and concepts of indigenous people (Bohensky & Maru, 2011; Shams & Hwang, 2005).

Mbongwe, Tilda Loots, Hermien Olivier, Eugene Machimana, Marli Edwards, Sonja Coetzee, Cleopatra Chambati, Sam Bagherpour and Georgina Dempster. 4 Mr. Henry Fakude is a principal partner in one of the rural school districts in the Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR) case study, from which I built the indigenous theory on resilience.

2.1 A (Partial) Story

47

Ultimately, as established by feminist researchers (Olesen, 2005), research, or systematic documenting, can be expanded by knowledge-holders with more legitimacy. As insider-outsiders, in our case studies we used reflexivity (Guba & Lincoln, 1981; Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005) as tool to tell this story, this African beadwork, a bricolage (Weinstein & Weinstein, 1991) of indigenous psychology. In this book, as indigenous researcher, I use reflexivity as a means to monitor my Western value base, theoretical grounding and privilege. Hwang (2012) cautions that Western researchers in particular struggle to move beyond simplifying theorising as mere ‘collectivism’. Later in this chapter I give conceptual parameters for my using these constructs. However, before I explain how I view indigenous, indigenous knowledge systems, culture and context, I provide a brief overview of the propositions I posit on the relationship-resourced resilience theory.

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking Resilience is understood as a process of, unpredictably, adapting well to adversity and constitutes interplay between contextual, relational, and intrapersonal protective resources and mechanisms (Bowes & Jaffee, 2013; Cicchetti, 2010; Masten, 2001; Rutter, 2013; Ungar, 2011). A socio-ecological view of resilience (Ungar, 2011) suggests that any context provides resources and that individuals opt for particular pathways to gain access and mobilise resources to support their adaptation. In this way certain resources are resilience-enabling and support positive adjustment. More and more scholars recognise the significance of culture and context in wellbeing outcomes (Diener & Suh, 2000; Iwasaki, 2008; Masten, 2014; Oishi, 2010). Researchers acknowledge that so-called universal resilience-enabling mechanisms are contextually and culturally relative (Panter-Brick, 2015; Wright, Masten, & Narayan, 2013). Others have focused on how Western and individualistic wellbeing compares to East Asian collectivist experiences (Schimmack, Oishi, & Diener, 2009; Uchida & Kitayama, 2009). However, as is the case with science in general, indigenous African perspectives of resilience continue to exist along the margins of ‘psychology knowledge’. In this book I describe the relationship-resourced resilience theory, positing flocking as a social resource that is resilience-enabling from an Afrocentric stance and in a highly unequal ecology. The relationship-resourced resilience theory proposes flocking as a social support pathway to resilience. The theory explains flocking as a consequence of both culture and context. The theory suggests that flocking has its roots in collectivist kinship systems of care privileged in an Ubuntu-Afrocentric socio-cultural worldview. The theory proposes that the absence of formal systemic support over an extended period of time, and for many generations of indigenous populations, signifies a context in which alternative plans were required for resilience-

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Photograph 2.1 An article in the local Photograph 2.2 A rural high school in Eastern Cape article chronicles school Mpumalanga established a library by means of based social support to enable teaching and donated communal socialresources, (2010) learning, (2009)

enabling support. The theory submits flocking as such an age-old indigenous knowledge system of resilience. Despite chronic and cumulative challenges, the people who partnered with us showed us how flocking was resilience-enabling. Flocking bolstered unexpected outcomes by using age-old traditions to lobby collective resources to provide communal support. For example, teachers were confronted with an education system that does not pay salaries in a timely manner, schools with a lack of teaching materials, as well as limited water, sanitation and electricity supply. Yet, despite expectations to the contrary, teachers, children and their families resiled based on social support pathways to resilience. Teachers formed partnerships with district officials, owners of small businesses and other schools to obtain additional resources (Photographs 2.1 and 2.2), provide services to families on school premises (Photograph 2.3), and supplement food and nutrition in households (Photograph 2.4). By flocking together people mobilise relationships (social capital) for support. Flocking explains how social support functions in a system of supply chain management—distributing and monitoring the collective use of resources in response to adversity. Female directed socio-cultural structures (societies) provide a mechanism for people who are socially connected to monitor and evaluate the equitable use of supplied resources. People flock to use existing relationships to identify high vulnerability (demand for support). Through relationships they also keep an inventory of accrued resources (supply of social resources to support). They use relationships as conduit for the distribution of required resources, in so doing matching kinship-

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking

Photograph 2.3 In the absence of health services teachers lobbied to provide counselling services to HIV and AIDS affected families on school premises, Eastern Cape (2008)

49

Photograph 2.4 The school-based vegetable garden as an example of a smart partnership that reciprocally provide added nutrition to students and their families, opportunities for income generation, and capitalised on agricultural knowledge, Eastern Cape (2009)

level demand with supply. Flocking provides cumulative protection as it draws on a range of social resources to support a range of needs. The relationship-resourced resilience theory documents flocking as an Afrocentric, collectivist view of resilience. It proposes that the socio-cultural (Ubuntu) fabric of kinship (interdependent) predisposes people to use flocking as social support pathway to resilience. Flocking (social support) buffers against expected negative health and wellbeing effects of chronic and cumulative hardship. As I discuss in Chap. 6, the extreme hardship of inequality is especially experienced by marginalised groups in a postcolonial setting. The relationship-resourced resilience theory thus explains a pathway to resilience, a triedand-tested option to adapt by people of indigenous origin in Southern Africa who not only bear the brunt of high risk and need as a result of inequality, but whose indigenous knowledge remains isolated. The theory of how indigenous Southern Africans choose to resile could potentially serve as an exemplar of pathways to resilience among other similar collectivist cultures in similar postcolonial spaces that are in transformation. The theory is built on knowledge generated in three case studies on indigenous perspectives of adapting to adversity in Southern Africa. What we noticed during the case study research (recounted in the next chapter) was that participants from several indigenous populations in Southern Africa favoured a particular pathway to resilience. We realised that what we saw in case study data (see Table 2.1)

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2 For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the …

was different from the fight, flight (Cannon, 1934), freeze, faint (Schmidt, Richey, Zvolensky, & Maner, 2008), or swarm (Zolli & Healy, 2012) responses documented about resilience in literature. Among the established repertoire of resilience, the eferred pathway voiced by participants was using relationships to provide social support to manage scarce resources. Flocking, as pathway to resilience, appeared to be the default choice of participants to counter risk and make the best use of scant resources. Men and women, elders and young people speaking isiXhosa, Siswati, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana or Afrikaans as home language in rural and urban spaces in South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland used flocking as indigenous pathway to resilience. Elders recounting this as preferred resilience pathway could signify flocking as an age-old, rooted response. Flocking may also be robust as young and old alike reported using this social support pathway to address current urban and rural challenges. This does not mean that other known resilience pathways are not used as indigenous pathways to resilience in Southern Africa. But among the well-known pathways to resilience it is relational pathways which appears to have a default history. As preferred pathway to resilience from the perspective of indigenous participants in Southern Africa flocking for social support implies solidarity. As I discuss in Chap. 6, access to such solidarity to buffer against adversity necessarily implies social inclusion based on conforming to social conventions. When such adherence is limited, the resulting social exclusion implies loss of access to social support and increased vulnerability. In subsequent chapters I explain significant contributions of this indigenous theory for resilience thinking. I explain how flocking gives a collectivist tone to knowledge on social capital (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Bourdieu, 1986; Oh, Chung, & Liabanca, 2004; Putnam, 1995), and how flocking explains that social connectedness (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Smith & Mackie, 2000) can manifest as a pathway to resilience. I argue that flocking reflects characteristics of especially instrumental social support (Taylor, Dickerson, & Klein, 2005). I explain how flocking relates to collective resilience (Hernández, 2002) as the indigenous (adaptive) coping processes that are interactional with a given social context. I posit that opting for flocking as baseline resilience pathway signals that indigenous people in Southern Africa prefer relational resilience (Jordan, 1992) as pathway to resilience. I contend that flocking is an indigenous pathway to accomplish community resilience (as the measure of capacity of a community to use the available resources in a sustained way to respond to, withstand, and recover from adverse situations) (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008). I have theorised that resilience in a poverty-saturated context (Ebersöhn, 2014) is not a once-off occurrence in response to an unexpected disaster. Rather, resilience in contexts of high inequality requires adaptive processes that are as cumulative and chronic as the bouts of adversity that constantly bombard people. In such a space of chronic and multifarious risk resilience is a successive process of adaptation incidences (Ebersöhn, 2014: 22). Maintaining psychological wellbeing as a positive outcome of resilience in South Africa is challenging (Van der Walt et al., 2008; Vosloo, Potgieter, & Temane, 2009). Chronic distress reduces psychological

Mpumalanga, Limpopo ✓ –

2003–2018 Emancipatory, PRA School-based intervention case study South Africa

Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng ✓ ✓

Country

South African province

Rural

Urban

Time frame

Methodological paradigm

Research design

Sample

South Africa

PRA comparative case study

Co-generative, PRA

2012–2016

What are the pathways to resilience of indigenous elders and young people in challenging, remote settings?

How can teachers in schools in challenged settings provide psychosocial support to children in a context of HIV and AIDS?

Purpose

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Case study

✓

✓ (continued)

Gauteng, North West, Limpopo, Eastern Cape

Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland, South Africa.

PRA comparative case study

Co-generative, PRA

2013–2014

What are the traditional care and support practices of Southern African elders and young people?

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

Table 2.1 Evidence-base for flocking as indigenous pathway to resilience in an indigenous psychology theory (Relationship-Resourced Resilience)

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking 51

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

–

✓ isiXhosa, Siswati, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Afrikaans

Schools in challenged settings (n = 12, pimary = 9, high school = 3, peri-urban = 5, urban = 4, rural = 3) with teachers from indigenous Xhosa, Swati, Pedi, Sotho, Tswana and Afrikaans populations 74 None 59 15 74

Peri-urban

Indigenous home languages

Case: challenged setting with severe high risk and high need for support due to structural disparity; dominant indigenous population indicated by indigenous home-language)

Elders 36–>65 yrs

Young people 18–35 yrs

Women

Men

TOTAL participants in case study

135

57

78

82

53

Two remote challenged settings with dominant Venda and Swati indigenous populations in two South African provinces

Tshivenda, siSwati

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

430

150

280

190

240

639

222

417

272

367

(continued)

Seven challenged Southern African sites (urban, rural, peri-urban) with Sotho, Swati, Afrikaans, Pedi, Tswana and Xhosa indigenous populations

Siswati, Sepedi, Sesotho, Tswana, Afrikaans, isiXhosa, Otjiherero, Oshiwambo

✓

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

52 2 For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the …

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓

✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✓

✓

Multiple researcher field notes Visual data (photographs) Multiple researcher diaries Multiple researcher field notes Visual data (photographs) Verbatim transcriptions of audio-visualrecordings Visual data of process and PRA-group discussion artefacts (photographs)

PRA-group presentations

Observation of PRA-activities

✓

✓

Multiple researcher diaries

Data collection and documentation

Observation of research context over time

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

✓

✓

✓

✓

✓

–

✓

–

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

(continued)

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking 53

✓

✓

✓

✓

Annual colloquia: teachers, district officials, researchers

Translator (informed consent, posing PRA-questions, translating PRA-group presentations)

PRA-group presentations translated and back-translated

Dissemination with members

Site-visits after data analysis for session of member validation of results

Advisory panel

Collaborate with teachers for replication and fidelity phases

✓

✓

Emic appropriate PRA-questions

–

✓

Ethics

Verbatim transcriptions

In-case and cross-case thematic analysis

Pre- and post intervention face-to-face interviews

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Data analysis

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

(continued)

Site-visits after data analysis for sessions of member validation of results

✓

✓

Advisory panel

✓

–

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

54 2 For Those Who Lead Me in the Night, I Will Thank Them in the …

Credibility

Full-day deliberation on findings with local tribal leaders and municipal councillors

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR) Regional forum to disseminate Imbeleko-findings with NMCF-partners, policymakers, non-profit oragnisations and researchers

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

✓ Quarterly visits to each school over seven year time frame

Member validation Prolonged engagement in the field

24 month timeframe per site: one seven day site visit for data generation in the first year; one two day site visit for data generation in the second year; one full-day member validation visit in the last months (Ten days per site in total)

✓

(continued)

One eight-hour day data generation visit per the seven sites and one half day (three hour) member validation visit per site six months later

✓

National Policy for Rural Education in South Africa

Teachers developed, implemented and maintained school-based plans that enabled wellbeing and learning in school-communities

Rigour

Relevance

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking 55

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

Multiple investigators documented their own notations in field notes, researcher journals, as visual data (photographs and audio-visual recordings of the site and data-generation sessions) Teachers from indigenous populations representative of diversity in gender, age, and indigenous languages

Persistent observation

Crystallisation of data sources—participants

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Participants from indigenous populations representative of diversity in gender, age, and indigenous languages

Multiple investigators documented their own notations in field notes, researcher journals, as visual data (photographs and audio-visual recordings of the site and data-generation sessions)

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

(continued)

Participants from indigenous populations representative of diversity in gender, age, and indigenous languages

Multiple investigators documented their own notations in field notes, researcher journals, as visual data (photographs and audio-visual recordings of the site and data-generation sessions)

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

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Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

Crystallisation of data sources—different settings and spaces

Instances of flocking in primary and high schools in challenged urban, rural, and peri-urban school-settings in three South African provinces

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR) Instances of flocking in challenged remote settings in two South African provinces

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

(continued)

Instances of flocking in challenged settings on the urban-rural continuum (urban, peri-urban, rural and remote) in four countries (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland): urban settings in Namibia, Eastern Cape and Gauteng; rural towns in the Freestate, Northwest and Limpopo, as well as villages in Mpumalanga and Swaziland

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking 57

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

Research team: principal investigator, four doctoral students, three co-investigators

✓ ✓

Research team over seven years: two principal investigators, fifteen graduate students, six co-investigators ✓ ✓

Investigator crystallisation

Theory crystallisation Methodological crystallisation

24 month timeframe per site: one seven day site visit for data generation in the first year; one two day site visit for data generation in the second year; one full-day member validation visit in the last months (Ten days per site in total)

Quarterly visits to each school over seven year time frame

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Crystallisation of data sources—different data time points

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

✓

✓

(continued)

Research team: principal investigator, nine co-investigators, two NMCF-partners

One eight-hour day data generation visit per the seven sites and one half day (three hour) member validation visit per site six months later

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

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Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

✓

✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓

✓

✓ ✓

✓ ✓

Auditing: participantresearchers and peer examination Auditing: show data Auditing: mechanically recorded Auditing: reflexivity in researcher journals Auditing: fieldnotes

–

–

✓

✓

✓

✓

Auditing: multiple investigators

✓

Dependability

✓

Rich description of the case by many researchers using different methods and cases of flocking over different time periods

✓

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

Transferability

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

(continued)

2.2 The Focus of the Story: Relationship-Resourced Resilience and Flocking 59

Case study

Table 2.1 (continued)

Member validation

Enablement, agency

Cognitive justice

Educative authenticity

Catalytic and tactical authenticity

Ontological authenticity

Sophisticated sharing of a range of unfamiliar findings and concepts during colloquia

Teachers: motivated and enabled to act based on their sharing of different ideas, and spurred each other on to persevere in school-based support activities

Teachers, professional leadership, researchers listen to, appreciate and integrate different viewpoints

Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (STAR)

Sophisticated sharing of a range of unfamiliar findings and concepts during local governance meetings

Tribal chief and council motivated to action to formulate an action plan to address water issues (catalytic authenticity)

Elders, young people, cultural and professional leadership, researchers listen to, appreciate and integrate different viewpoints

Indigenous Pathways to Resilience (IPR)

Sophisticated sharing of a range of unfamiliar findings and concepts during policy-level discussions

Policy-level: NMCF motivated to disseminate findings in government departments (catalytic authenticity)

Elders, young people, cultural and professional leadership, researchers listen to, appreciate and integrate different viewpoints

Imbeleko (Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund study)

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functioning (Bach, 2000). Chronic distress also implies that an individual perceives environmental demands (risks) as exceeding the availability of their adaptive resources. Chronic distress results in burnout, cynicism and exhaustion (Mearns & Cain, 2003). Negative objective health and wellbeing indicators of chronic distress include increased cardiovascular risk (Mashele, Van Rooyen, Malan, & Potgieter, 2010) as well as an increase in the susceptibility to disease and suppressed immune sufficiency (De Kooker, 2008; Folkman & Moskowitz, 2000). The relations resourced resilience theory documents an interdependent view of resilience of people whose indigenous knowledge (cultural resources), and opportunities to access scarce resources are marginalised structurally. The theory is responsive to views that indigenous knowledge is marginalised in science, policy and professional services. It does not homogenise all Africans, Southern Africans or indigenous people into a broad category based on geography and race. The theory does document a pathway to resilience that was expressed similarly by older and younger men and women, people who are indigenous to Southern Africa and represent ethnic groups (AmaXhosa, EmaSwati, Bapedi, Basotho, Batswana, VhaVhenda, Coloureds, Herero, Owambo) in challenged rural and urban sites in Southern African nation states and kingdoms (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland). The theory is documented from a psychology perspective and analysis from different disciplinary positions (such as anthropology, sociology, history, political science and economy) may afford alternative views on patterns of resilience in relation to indigenous, culture, ethnicity and race. The theory does not include perspectives from Southern Africans representing a diversity of ethnicity (Afrikaner, English, German, Portuguese, Asian and Indian people) and class (affluent and middle class) which may presumably have provided additional insights for theory-building by adding data to consider whether the theory is indigenous or Southern African, or whether the theory is indigenous to the extent that more affluent people with indigenous social origins use flocking as pathway to resilience. Figure 2.1 serves as illustration of theoretical propositions regarding flocking. The proposition is that a preferred interdependent pathway to resilience evident amongst indigenous Southern African people is flocking. Flocking is a social support pathway to resilience that mobilises social resources. The resource management of social resources buffers the collective against structural effects of chronic and cumulative hardship. The social support promotes unexpected health and wellbeing outcomes for an excluded majority. In subsequent chapters I will substantiate claims set out as propositions of the relations resourced resilience theory. These propositions need to be read against the background of delimitations discussed above. Proposition 1: Flocking is a social support pathway to resilience to manage the distribution of social resources in order to bolster better than expected health and wellbeing outcomes for a collective: • although there is a wide range of pathways to resilience that are known for being used during hardship, social support was the pathway of choice among interdependent, Afrocentric participants in Southern Africa in a context of hardship;

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Better than Flocking: a resilience -enabling indigenous knowledge system to manage expected outcomes social resources through social support for many Relational access to flocking is enabled or constrained by the presence or absence of culturally salient socio -emotional competence

Fig. 2.1 Propositions on flocking in the relationship-resourced resilience theory

• flocking denotes social support to manage social capitals (social resources, economic resources, collective resources and cultural resources) in an age-old system of social supply chain management; • flocking includes implicit and explicit instrumental social support that is resilienceenabling for a collective; • as social support pathway to resilience, flocking is resilience-enabling for unpredicted outcomes given a range of communal adversities, including incomegeneration, food and nutrition, objective health and wellbeing, subjective health and wellbeing, and education. Proposition 2: Chronic structural constraints in a highly unequal context informed the intergenerational development of flocking as socio-ecological process to enable resilience of a collective: • flocking emerged as a resilience-enabling pathway amongst indigenous populations with a history of structural deprivation and cultural marginalisation in a highly unequal setting with resource constraints; • flocking is a socio-ecological response to adversity associated with a postcolonial setting of inequality with high risk and vulnerability for health, wellbeing and development outcomes of indigenous people; • flocking demonstrates the resilience-enabling opportunities of leveraging indigenous knowledge (cultural resources) as an available commodity in unequal spaces. Proposition 3: Flocking manifests (structurally marginalised) interdependent cultural beliefs and practices regarding adaptation to adversity: • the relationship-resourced resilience theory denotes ‘indigenous’ with an interdependent, collectivist world view by using the case of Ubuntu, and Afrocentric perspective; • interdependent beliefs and practices act as cultural bias to opt for flocking to bolster opportunities to resile collectively (the intergenerational transfer of interdependent socio-cultural beliefs and practices (indigenous knowledge or cultural resources) motivates relational and collective endeavour to address communal challenges);

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• the socio-ecological processes of flocking reflect interdependent beliefs and practices; • flocking is premised on a collectivist view that both human need and assistance are normative experiences; • flocking affords opportunities for positive quality of life outcomes that align with an interdependent cultural value to respond to human need; • flocking enables pathways to conform to cultural beliefs that reward agency rather than long-term dependence on social support; • flocking leverages collectivist social structures (with hierarchies of age and gender) to identify need, appraise available resources and administer resource distribution and resource management; • the mobilisation of social resources for collective gain benefits from refined decision-making structures that acknowledge beliefs related to age, gender and status, as well as consultation and consensus patterns; • flocking beliefs and practices that structure social support appear to be evolving given additional democratic pathways to access state-regulated resource provision. Proposition 4: Relational access to flocking is enabled or constrained by the presence or absence of culturally salient interdependent socio-emotional competence to maintain culturally valued relationships: • culturally salient values direct social conventions for socio-emotional competence and emotional regulation to attain normative pro-social interaction; • for flocking, the endpoint of emotion regulation is social harmony which serves as an end to the means of attaining social usefulness; • flocking signifies culturally relevant relational adeptness (socio-emotional competence) that can enable or constrain resilience-enabling opportunities for individuals and kinship systems; • emotion regulation aims at socially engaging emotions with a prevention focus in order not to transgress social norms, nor violate social rules; • the interdependent relationships in flocking indicates salient interdependent values and practices that mirror other-focused and outside-in perspectives that are selfdistancing; • collective consultation and consensus spaces are indicative of both adult relational co-regulation of emotions, as well as socio-emotional learning spaces; • flocking implies considering tenets of social connectedness for social inclusion and exclusion that could enable or constrain resilience opportunities; • the emotion regulation endpoint of social inclusion is especially significant in a highly unequally structured environment to access life-sustaining social support; • flocking appears to be changing given that structural opportunities afford or suppress emotional experiences and thus the potential for acceptable emotional experiences change in accordance with beliefs about the (un-)predictable or (un-)controllable nature of the world; • social welfare and development initiatives that leverage cultural resources and mirror familiar social conventions may hold promise in interdependent-dominant societies.

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In this chapter I explain how, by positioning and presenting relationship-resourced resilience as an indigenous theory, we desired to draw the indigenous perspectives of Southern Africans into the centre of the conversation on resilience.5 In other words, we typified the theory as indigenous with the distinct purpose of joining indigenous psychology scholars who aim to add under-represented perspectives on psychology to mainstream thinking related to psychology. The relationship-resourced resilience theory is a tentative suggestion that flocking appears to be a pathway to resilience that different ethnic groups of people indigenous to Southern Africa chose to share. Relationship-resourced resilience is not proposed as a theory relevant to all indigenous South Africans. Nor is the use of the marker ‘indigenous’ theory an attempt to exclude knowledge of others in similar, unequal spaces who may not share similar colonial or ethnic origins. Typifying relationship-resourced resilience as indigenous is an expression of the fact that the data in which the theory is grounded was generated by asking indigenous South Africans who are experiencing hardship to convey how they adapt. In as much as the resulting theory is the knowledge of the people who shared it, the knowledge (and the theory) could equally have been expressed by others along the colonial continuum of categories who share similar contexts of hardship.

2.3 Indigenous It is difficult to honour the complexity of overcoming colonial dichotomies. It remains a challenge for scholars to progress beyond bundling knowledge into packages such as the ‘West and the rest’ (Ferguson, 2011), or associated views of modern and traditional, or rational or emotional, or developed and developing. An aligned challenge here is to treat wide-ranging categories of people as homogenous, be it in terms of constructs such as culture or indigenous. We expressly did not want to rely on stereotypical notions of an indigenous other and uphold notions of culture as a static, discrete, ahistoric, monolithic whole that is largely synonymous with traditional. We wanted the theory to crystallise a clear understanding of a pathway to resilience used by the holders of knowledge who, in the past, given the histories of colonialism, may have been silenced. Some posit indigenous as that which denotes the roots, the origin (Odora Hoppers, 2001) of innate and familiar behaviour that occurs naturally in a particular context (Hodgson, 2002), and that indigenous exists outside a non-Western world view, knowledge and behaviour (Aikman, 2010; Hart, 2010). Indigenous theories have been explained as indigenous knowledge that originated in a specific culture, society and location (Mapara, 2009; Odora Hoppers, 2008). Intergenerational transfer, it has been argued, means that indigenous knowledge systems are passed from one generation to another in a given context of communal life (Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). Indigenous

5I

discuss the knowledge base for resilience in the Chap. 6.

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knowledge reflects indigenous culture (Nilsson, 2008) and indigenous people use this knowledge to manage their environment (Odora Hoppers, 2008). In Global South spaces the majority are often indigenous (United Nations, 2013; The World Bank, 2016). Not only is this indigenous majority often the most vulnerable, but their socio-cultural capital—their indigenous knowledge systems—are often unacknowledged as meaningful in enabling them to resile. Like others Marshall (2016) has argued that the geopolitical landscape of Global South countries have resulted in indigenous people receiving the short straw when it comes to accessing opportunities for resource distribution to develop human and financial capital. The systemic vulnerability of indigenous people has a colonial history of pushing indigenous people to the outer edges of benefit and resource distribution. The result is that in postcolonial spaces it is especially the indigenous people who are excluded from socio-economic activity, health services, quality education and the infrastructural support of housing, water, sanitation and transport. So, risk is highest for indigenous people as regards their development. They need the most support to access opportunities for education, health and wellbeing. This high risk and high need has socio-economic and geopolitical—not cultural—origins. The socio-cultural capital of all, and one would think especially of the majority, matters. But, historically, in postcolonial spaces (majority) indigenous socio-cultural capital has been silenced. The age-old socio-cultural capital is under-acknowledged. Resource distribution and service delivery are governed by Western views that define justice, development and wellbeing. Globalisation discourses signal tensions of unity and/or diversity. Globalisation implies that patterns of migration, social networks and socio-economic activity drive socio-cultural processes and identity towards being less different and more alike, therefore driving unity. The globalisation pathways make it ludicrous to imagine ‘uncontaminated’ positions of ‘purely’ indigenous views, or ‘untouched’, ‘solely Western’ world views. However, the norms and standards for ‘alike’ indicate a type of recolonising—again conforming to dominant discourses of North and West. A South African, Peruvian, Ghanian or Brazilian is judged as ‘global’ based on how close they come to being Western—how they communicate in English; how they define and display success and happiness in material ways. Unity means the same as the hegemony of the global Northern and Western standards. Globalisation has little space for diversity that does not in the end conform to the dominant Western and global North norms. Globalisation indicates that extreme opposite poles of socio-cultural, and socio-economic positions are illusive, a vague binary. Yet, when I am in Peru, I see a different way of life, of expression, of being from what I know in South Africa. I find it just as poignant in Peru as in Brazil and South Africa and Ghana that the ideal captured in policy appears to be an Anglicised education system, and a policy system that keeps indigenous views on the margins of structures. And in all these Global South spaces my observations of one unified, global way of being differs from what I experience when I travel in the West and the North. I unquestionably recognise myself and parts of my being in each of these spaces. But it is in coming home, when I am in the Global South, when I return to

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Southern Africa, that the legitimacy of ethnic differences and cultural heritage that apply to me is validated (Owusu-Ansah, & Mji, 2013). And this is why indigenous research matters.

2.4 Culture Ungar (2015) posits culture as everyday practices together with values and beliefs associated with these practices. Strümpfer (2013) noted that although culture interpenetrates all aspects of psychological functioning, psychology as a science mostly functions without a cultural perspective. As indigenous researchers in Southern Africa involved in the studies outlined in Table 2.1, we wanted to place culture centrally within inquiry. We wanted to deliberately study and represent knowledge systems without assuming similarity between African knowledge systems and dominant Western knowledge. As indigenous researchers, what we observe, hear, document, analyse and subsequently tell is premised on being intentional about ‘indigenous’ in the science of psychology. Our intent is to use findings, from inquiry to question, to add to or confirm psychological theory. However, it is especially challenging to consider ‘culture’ outside of bounded and ahistorical conceptualisations that homogenise ‘indigenous’ people or ‘African’ people or ‘Southern African’ people. We did not aim to centralise the historical roots of practice and assume that any resilience-related activity engaged in by non-whites can be considered as ‘indigenous’. Resilience scholars have sampled from African populations to establish that traditional cultural practices and philosophies influence the manifestation of resilience in South Africa (Theron & Donald, 2012; Theron et al., 2011; Theron & Malindi, 2010; Theron, Theron, & Malindi, 2013). Yet theorising regarding indigenous psychology and resilience remains limited. As Wissing and Temane (2013) note, more studies are required to understand meta-theoretical perspectives and values, as well as their implications for psychology, rather than blindly using existing psychological measures and constructs to understand wellness in a culturally diverse place. Indigenous research requires a position of multi-culturalism rather than globalisation. From the position of multi-culturalism (Wong, Wong, & Scott, 2006) a larger, global human rights movement is required when thinking about transformation (and by implication resilience). Here diversity is embraced and the domination of ‘majority’ values and world views are challenged. Multi-culturalism in indigenous research implies actions that are socio-political and require advocacy and change at policy level. A position of multi-culturalism endorses diversity, inclusiveness and equality while recognising the legitimacy and value of ethnic differences and cultural heritage. The sample of people who shared their views on a pathway to resilience were Southern Africans with predominantly collectivist, and specifically UbuntuAfrocentric, world views. This statement, however, is not intended to state that people think alike because of a broad category based on geography and race. From a north-south perspective, I continue to speculate whether scholars in the north battle

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similarly with discourses that potentially homogenise ‘Western’ people or ‘American’ people or ‘European’ people. Is the same deliberate attention given to a dichotomous framework to exemplify the dynamic complexity of historical, fluid cultural identities worldwide? In postcolonial education, the vestiges of postcolonialism still favour ‘English’ and ‘Englishness’ amongst citizens. For indigenous people this means that their cultural identity, educational performance and social mobility remains compromised. For a child learning in a language unfamiliar to them this means that even gifted children may be unable to understand their teachers. And teachers who are underprepared to teach in a language that is not their home language struggle to teach and provide support where multilingualism may manifest as a barrier to learning. And parents (who may statistically not be literate) are unable to support their children with homework in a language which is not their own. To indicate ethnicity we used home language as indicator of subsets of ethnic groups inhabiting an area—as indicated in Table 2.1. Participants could self-select a home language with which they identified in a demographic questionnaire (IsiXhosa, Siswati, Sepedi, Sesotho, Setswana, Tshivenda, Afrikaans, Otjiherero and Oshiwambo). In Namibia, for example, participants included different ethnic groups, namely Herero, Owambo and Afrikaans, and people of dual heritage. The intent of the analysis for theory-building was to determine shared psychology patterns in the resilience process-response among Southern African participants (irrespective of their ethnicity—AmaXhosa, AmaSwati, BaPedi, BaSotho, BaTswana, VhaVhenda, Coloured people, Herero, Aawambo). We did not aim for anthropological or sociological insight into ethnic affiliation, historical-cultural background or culturally unique subpatterns of beliefs and behaviour. In our analysis we specifically found similarities in indigenous pathways to resilience, rather than ‘otherness’ according to intercultural ethnic group, or diversity of age, gender and space. This alludes to views that ethnic membership does not determine beliefs and behaviour simplistically (McElreath, Boyd, & Richerson, 2003), nor do subsets of communities function in a discrete or self-contained way (Boyd & Richerson, 2002). This does not, however, preclude internal diversity (Leung & Cohen, 2011). Nor does it discount intercultural influences (Kashima et al., 2004). We found, in line with kinship systems (Carsten, 2000; 2004; Van der Geest, 2004) in an Ubuntu belief system (Strümpfer, 2013), that subsets of ethnic Southern African groups proclaimed to have similar specific culturally patterned methods of engaging in social support as mutual-help activities. From the analysis it was evident that, irrespective of participating ethnic group subset, Southern African region, age, gender, or urban-rural continuum, flocking was used as pathway to respond to the multiple challenges of living in Southern Africa. Thus, irrespective of the knowledge that the Ovambo are matrilineal, the Herero practice dual descent, and that the Batswana, AmaXhosa and Basotho are patrilineal, their default resilience pathway was kinship-driven flocking. The fact that we did not find radical differences in the prominent and expressed pathways to resilience among participants from several ethnic groups does not exclude the possibility of variability in pathways to resilience among such indigenous

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Southern African groups. As you would expect, the data we generated is delimited by the questions we asked, the group of researchers asking the questions, the people with whom we partnered answering the questions, and the time and spaces when and where we asked the questions.

2.5 Indigenous Knowledge Systems—Useful Commemoration or Romantic Nostalgia Indigenous knowledge systems (Odora Hoppers, 2008) have relevance when engaging in indigenous research to build the knowledge base of indigenous psychology. Indigenous knowledge can be equated with a resource for resilience (Bohensky & Maru, 2011), and exists as a significant resource that people use to deal with stressors (Roos, Chigeza, & Van Niekerk, 2010). We employed the processes of indigenous knowledge production to challenge accepted concepts of knowledge creation, knowledge application and meaning-making—in essence, of knowing and being (Coburn, 2013; Smith, Maxwell, Puke, & Temara, 2016). Already in 1999 the United Nations issued a global call to include understanding of indigenous knowledge into mainstream science and capitalising on it for policy (UNESCO, 1999). In 2003 this global awareness-raising of pluralism and localised knowledge was strengthened by a universal declaration on cultural diversity (UNESCO, 2001). Indigenous knowledge is synonymous with ‘place’—knowledge of a particular group of people residing in the same geographical area. So indigenous knowledge is equated with local knowledge, traditional knowledge, rural knowledge, or indigenous technical knowledge (Makinde & Shorunke, 2013; Mapara, 2009; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013; Warren, 1991). Sadly, indigenous knowledge is often viewed as static and unsystematic (Battiste, 2005). Calls for indigenous knowledge may, however, signal a danger of ‘over-valorising and over-romanticising’ (Briggs, 2005: 107) indigenous knowledge. In her work on gender and sexuality, Moletsane (2010) warns against the rose-tinted lenses of overreaching with regard to the value of cultural perspectives. She posits that this nostalgia retains, rather than disturbs, culturally accepted practices that suppress marginalised people—especially women and children. From her point of view the nostalgia of what ‘we did the in the golden old days’, means that culture renders (and keeps) women and children vulnerable. Rather than enabling participation and power, the nostalgia ‘keeps “them” in their place’. In her argument Moletsane positions herself with other feminists (Lewis, 2003; Motsei, 2007), who caution that studies in indigenous knowledge potentially decrease the possibility of equality. Documenting indigenous knowledge may in fact become ammunition (Lewis, 2003) to retain male authority while maintaining women (and children) obedient in their marginalised, subordinate roles. It is evident that in scientific literature indigenous knowledge, and specifically African knowledge, remains mostly on the periphery, existing as unknown and

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sparsely documented knowledge (Matoane, 2012; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). Scientific inquiry must document African indigenous knowledge (Forster, 2010; Porr & Bell, 2012). Like others (Macleod, 2004; Serpell & Simatende, 2016), I challenge the content Global South scholars use to train educational psychologists in Global South settings. We apply Eurocentric theory and interventions to the African context and culture, which is quite different from where it originated. Such a challenge obviously also indicates a research agenda: to document alternative knowledge in psychology discourses, which can manifest in training and professional services. An indigenous knowledge production agenda implies producing knowledge that is contextually and culturally relevant as a means to manage the environment (Odora Hoppers, 2008; Wilson, 2008). Indigenous research (Chalmers, 2017) and indigenous knowledge production provided the theoretical lens I required. Both these endeavours entail questioning knowledge hegemony in such a way that alternative ways of knowing enrich existing knowledge. I have argued (Ebersöhn, 2011, 2012a) that, as indigenous researcher, I want to document knowledge that could use markers for wellbeing and health that are familiar in the places where psychologists or teachers use them. I do not want to use tapes to measure the extent to which ‘developed’ scholars with ‘validated’ knowledge view ‘others’ or fall within or outside of ‘norms’. I do not want to think of wellness in a vacuum that gives prominence to individualism and materialism. I do not want to participate in potentially ‘bad science’ that imposes the values and theoretical constructs of a generally accepted authority (be it science, culture or geographical position) as the exclusive standard for studying and understanding behaviours of others. As indigenous scholar I am committed to the concept of indigenous knowledge (Smith et al., 2016) to construct psychology science around socio-cultural knowledge, ways and experiences that indigenous people use in local contexts to manage their environment (Nilsson, 2008). From an indigenous psychology perspective in particular, I am intrigued with how indigenous knowledge is produced, enhanced and applied in psychology and resilience. As indigenous researcher, I can deconstruct science not to be decontextualised. I can embrace cross-cultural, ethnic, indigenous and cultural approaches (McCubbin & McCubbin, 2005). I can systematically explore and document culture-bound concepts and categories (Misra & Mohanty, 2002). I can induce the wealth of cultural legacy and culturally bequeathed aspects that predispose scientific thinking. With others I can establish a knowledge base for psychology, and in particular resilience theory, through systematic research that serves as a heritage-true reference when importing epistemologies and methodologies that are foreign to our ‘knowledge’ soil—(Dalal & Misra, 2010; Sinha, 1965). My position is that of doing indigenous research rather than the indigenisation of research. I was trained, and initially trained psychologists, to work in an African-dominant lifeworld by means of ‘indigenised’ content—culturally tailoring or adapting (usually) Western-generated understanding to be culturally appropriate in another (often non-Western) ecology (Matoane, 2012). The following extract from Jessie Burton’s, The Muse (2016, 14), reminds me poignantly of a shared colo-

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nial school history of ‘knowledge’. The protagonist, a young woman from Jamaica, aspires to be an author in London and observes disparagingly: We studied men like him at school – protected gentlemen, rich gentlemen, white gentlemen, who picked up pens and wrote the world for the rest of us to read … The world I’d been taught I wanted to be in.

This extract conveys limitations of purely indigenising theories, concepts and measures. The norm for behaviour remains that of the ‘other’. In psychology the ‘superior’ standard of wellness and illness and acceptable pathways to adapt or intervene are those of an outsider with a different epistemology, axiology and ontology. When I learned the tools of my trade as social scientist and psychology professional, the content that curriculum developers selected was the existing accepted and ‘validated’ Western and Global North concepts, techniques and approaches. Imported Western, standardised measures and interventions (Adair, 1989) served as backbone of my socialisation to understand wellbeing and illness, health and disease. In some cases the prevailing Euro-American disciplines were adapted for our use in our local ecology. These attempts to indigenise knowledge was aimed at ensuring that theory and interventions are more culturally attuned, socially relevant and aligned with the ethos of the actual professionals applying the science within a particular client base. However, using a matrix of understanding that is not rooted in history, heritage and daily life may possibly lead to misunderstandings and counterproductive measurement, and have unaccountable policy and practice applications. Indigenisation often only meant translating theory and instruments, or adding images of local spaces. Borrowing from Maya Angelo (Winfrey, 2011): now that I know better, I can do better.

2.6 The Context as Reason for the Storytelling Ungar (2015) posits context as the physical and social ecology of people. By being cognisant of the lived space of postcolonial Southern African countries, we attempted not to neglect the historical dynamics of socio-political and intercultural influences that shape resilience in this region. From a resilience perspective, we especially aimed to understand the multiple and ongoing nature of adversities that exist because of structural disparities. We attended to the dynamic complexity of knowledge and context. In fact, we did this to the extent that we struggled to decide if the pathway to resilience we observed was indigenous, or collectivist, or that of a historically marginalised group, or even if it was resilience given the chronic and cumulative risk and resource constraints? The context in which resilience plays itself out is at the core of understanding the pathways and processes of resilience. In Southern Africa it is a context of severe challenges that require resilience responses. Context predicts the resources in the particular resource-constrained context that people can draw on during their adaptive processes. Context enfolds the dominant indigenous culture that enables assessment of the outcomes of resilience processes as positive or maladaptive. In this book it is

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Photograph 2.5 Risks associated with a Photograph 2.6 Households share scarce context of structural disparity with limited safe resources here electricity, Limpopo (2013) housing and sparse services, Eastern Cape (2009)

Photograph 2.7 Devastating losses caused by Photograph 2.8 Policy-level and the HIV and AIDS scourge, Eastern Cape NGO-services to address the high need for (2008) health and wellbeing support associated with high incidences of HIV-infection, Mpumalanga (2009)

context (socio-cultural, geopolitical, temporal) that indicated the need to document an indigenous psychology theory of resilience. I have often noted that living in South Africa is much like, unwittingly, being part of and contributing to a living lab of resilience. Assumptions of resilience theory are depicted in Photographs 2.5–2.12. In this regard, the terroir of a lab-like resilience environment includes risk factors (elements that cause disaster and require response), as well as protective resources (elements that can be used to respond to the disaster). Resilience is not relevant when hardship—or extreme hardship—is absent. Extreme hardship in the Global South characterises the daily life of citizens, transformation policy, and development and funding agendas.

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Photograph 2.9 A rural home with Photograph 2.10 A home in an urban informal household income, Indigenous Pathways to settlement, STAR, Eastern Cape (2009) Resilience, Limpopo (2012)

Photographs 2.11 and 2.12 Households share social resources to bolster their food security nutrition, and income generation, Mpumalanga (2010)

Households in which participating elders and young people lived have high unemployment rates,6 illness is rife, and literacy levels are low. The high levels of HIV and AIDS and tuberculosis (WHO, 2018; Stats SA, 2018) mean that death, grief and bereavement are familiar to many. Buildings are dilapidated. Classrooms are in disrepair, with few teaching and learning materials available to teachers. Extramural activities to support the positive wellbeing and development of children and young people are limited. Access to quality water, and consequently healthy sanitation, is problematic. The supply of electricity and technology is sporadic. Limited trans6 Unemployment

(Schwab, 2017).

rates in South Africa in 2017–2018 were estimated to be above 25% and rising

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port means that children mostly walk to school, although in some instances public transport is made available to teachers. Children receive meals at schools daily. Studying the case study data, I realised that the extent of cumulative and chronic risk of a highly unequal society prescribed different patterns of resilience than those I was reading about in resilience literature (Ebersöhn, 2014). As I describe more fully in the next chapter, as I was analysing and synthesising case study data, I realised that the supportive responses of indigenous teachers, elders and young people signalled a habitual response to adversity. Generations of indigenous people honed the precision of this indigenous pathway to resilience. The historical absence of structural support made it necessary to develop and refine flocking as a socio-cultural innovation of support. Indigenous people drew on indigenous knowledge—specifically knowledge on socio-cultural capital—to flock together in order support one another against an avalanche of risks from all directions. Flocking continues to be used as a triedand-tested indigenous pathway to respond to the continued structural disparity of postcolonial South Africa. Photographs 1.5–1.12 depict risk factors. They also depict protective resources. In the relationship-resourced resilience theory, I explain the processes that interact as a consequence of adversity to produce unpredicted outcomes. I posit that flocking is such a resilience-enabling socio-ecological process given deprivation. I posit flocking as an Afrocentric innovation as generations of indigenous people crafted flocking by drawing on their socio-cultural capital of kinship to mediate the effect of ongoing structural marginalisation.

2.6.1 Inequality in the Global South as Structural Risk that Requires Resilience Although I discuss resilience theory in terms of a context of limited opportunities more thoroughly in the last chapter, I provide some introductory thoughts on an unequal context here. Inequality is much more than a socio-economic side-effect of free-market capitalism. It is an indicator of a legacy of policy negligence. It is symptomatic of generations of power taking economic shortcuts rather than making an effort with structural reform, investment and economic strategy (Schwab, 2017). South Africa serves as an exemplar of countries faced with the excitement of transformation away from inequality because of their geopolitical place. Measured against a global multidimensional poverty index (MPI), poverty is more than a lack of income. Poverty also entails a range of deprivations (OPHI, 2015). Covering 137 economies, the Global Competitiveness Index 2017–2018 (Schwab, 2017) measures national competitiveness, which is defined as the set of institutions, policies and factors that determine the level of productivity. The Southern African countries that formed part of this study ranked as follows: South Africa (61st), Namibia (90th), Lesotho (120th) and Swaziland (122nd). Several countries in similarly geopolitically placed regions can be compared with those of the sampled settings according to national competitiveness factors. In sub-Saharan Africa

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comparative countries include Botswana (64th), Seychelles (107th), Uganda (114th), Zambia (118th), Madagascar (121st) and Zimbabwe (126th). Besides sub-Saharan Africa, other comparable countries in Africa are: Ghana (111th); Tanzania (113th) and Nigeria (127th). In Latin America and the Caribbean, countries similarly ranked include Colombia (66th), Jamaica (Peru (72nd), Brazil (80th), Argentina (92nd) and Venezuela (130th). East Asian and Pacific countries with similar rankings are Cambodia (94th), Lao PDR (98th) and Mongolia (101st). Bhutan (82nd), Nepal (88th), Bangladesh (99th) and Pakistan (115th) are comparative South Asian countries. The rankings of Eurasian countries Moldova (89th) and Georgia (67th) are similar to the sampled countries. Inequality places indigenous people as the most vulnerable on a spectrum of risk (Thekiso, Botha, Wissing, & Kruger, 2013). The stark inequality of postcolonialism comes with the discomfort that indigenous people have a history of limited opportunities and continued barriers to access opportunities for education, health services and employment. A lack of services and limited access to such scarce support is discomforting feature of inequality. Continued structural disparity includes that limited service delivery to especially the most marginalised populations are perpetuated—even after liberation and independence (Van den Berg et al., 2013). Where policy can afford opportunities, the history of inequality means that indigenous people do not enter the playing field of opportunity as the equals of those with historic privilege. In our case study data this was apparent in older women in remote and urban spaces not being able to write and read. It was evident when we heard time after time, at site after site, from men and women, that they were unable to access job opportunities because of limited education and training. Africa continues to face certain significant challenges. Structural disparity means that scarce resources are not shared equally. Growth in sub-Saharan Africa trail behind progress made in economic growth and poverty reduction on the whole (The World Bank, 2017). In Africa 389 million people live in extreme poverty7 —more than anywhere else in the world (ibid). Challenges in Africa that are supported with global funding include: promoting quality education to increase job skills, fostering women’s and young people’s economic empowerment, raising levels of agricultural activity and strengthening resilience to climate change, and increasing access to affordable and reliable energy. The limitations of infrastructure were visible in the challenged spaces where we conducted research. The Global South’s strain of place and temporality is, unsurprisingly, mirrored in the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (United Nations, 2018). According to the 2017 Annual Report of the World Bank (2017), Africa is performing well with regard to addressing some of these SDGs. Concerning health outcomes, levels of stunted growth have decreased in Africa (35% of children under five). The modelled estimate for the maternal mortality ratio in Africa is also lower, at 547 per 100,000 live births. The under-five mortality rates have dropped to 83 per 1000 live births. As regards infrastructure, more people in Africa have access to safe drinking water (68%), basic 7 Extreme

poverty in Africa is indicated by 389 million people living on less than $1.90 a day in 2013 (The World Bank, 2017).

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sanitation (30%) and electricity (37%). In terms of human capital development, more children in Africa are completing primary education (69% of the relevant age group), and more people use the internet (22.4%). Whereas the ratio of women to men in the labour force in Africa has plateaued at 84% of the population, representation by women in government in Africa has increased to 24%. As I stated, I posited that, in an unequal setting, the cumulative and chronic chain of risks necessitates an equally chronic chain of resilience processes that draws on cumulative resources (Ebersöhn, 2014). As I show in subsequent chapters the data from the three case studies in which flocking is grounded show that this chronic risk is co-existing with the doggedness of adaptive responses. Two broad characteristics of Southern Africa’s Global South context are therefore pertinent in an agenda to document an indigenous psychology theory of resilience. On the one hand, the severity of inequality signals the necessity to understand resilience pathways—how do people adapt with unexpected outcomes despite an onslaught of challenges? On the other hand, the suppression of the world views of dominant cultures in psychology theory and practice challenged the relevance of psychology in this space—how do people habitually respond across generations to challenges in ways that bolster positive outcomes?

2.7 The Ways in Which We Gained Understanding of the World of Indigenous Psychology To attend to such questions, I discuss the evidence for theorising in the next chapter. Here I provide some introductory methodological parameters. I explain how interpretivism served as lens, how we used participatory methods to generate data with participants, and I also give an overview of the sampled case study data our team of researchers co-generated with participants and from which I built the theory.

2.7.1 Interpretivism and Indigenous Psychology Research Interpretivism assisted us as indigenous researchers in an agenda to democratise research (Ansley & Gaventa, 1997; Vallaincourt, 2006). Like others, we found interpretivism to be an especially useful epistemological lens for the polyvocality (Schwandt, 2000) required when documenting a dichotomous framework troubled with nuances. The axiology, epistemology, ontology and methodology of interpretivism assisted us with how we wanted to be moral scholars of the south; how we wanted to know the world of indigenous knowledge and what our relationship as inquirers were with what (and with whom) we sought to know; our view of the nature of reality as silenced and alternative knowledge; as well as the means with which we wanted to gain an understanding of the world of indigenous knowledge.

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As indigenous psychology researchers, positioned in the traditions of interpretivism, we resisted the unilateral acceptance of (only) validated conceptualisations and measurements. We also rejected an ‘either–or’ stance with Western or nonWestern as binary. As is the case with decolonising methodologies, the intent of indigenous research is transformation. Yet with indigenous research the centre of the conversation is not critical theory. The centre is indigenous world views, including philosophical views on ontology and epistemology (Kovach, 2010; Wilson, 2001). Interpretivism (Schwandt, 2000) consequently allowed us this lens of pluralism, which we need for indigenous research (Brewer, 2013). It provides an acceptable alternative to science that often venerates positivism and associated methodologies that frequently favour understanding in terms of quantification and objectivity. In another chapter I discuss the implication of the crisis of representation (Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2000) in indigenous research. Although reflexivity supposedly assists researchers to de-emphasise claims to authorial presence, the storyteller still sorts, classifies, and orders the way in which the many voices present in the data are scripted. Reflexivity did assist us in auditing how these processes unfolded in order to reach a deeper understanding of indigenous pathways to resilience. Relationships and interconnectedness are central to indigenous world views (Chalmers, 2017). Indigenous research methodologies therefore require equally relational ontologies about the nature of reality that presuppose a relational understanding of the self, others and the context (Chilisa, 2012). Reflexivity (Guba & Lincoln, 1981; Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005) assisted us with giving a dependable audit of the methodological procedures we used to generate a set of findings. It also provides a space to explain how we gained access to the three research settings. Through reflexivity, we were able to present ourselves in the research settings and detail the roles we took. We were able to give an account of the degree to which we believe we achieved trust and rapport. We could recount mistakes, misconceptions, and surprises throughout the time span of the three studies. We could describe the ways in which we collected and recorded data and list the various types of case study data we had available from which to build the indigenous theory. We could account for the coding and analytic procedures we followed. We could be explicit about the theories we used and make clear the theoretical orientations and preconceptions of our research teams.

2.7.2 Participatory Methodology8 and Indigenous Psychology Research Indigenous psychology requires an investigation of the capacity (knowledge, skills, beliefs) of people about themselves and their functioning in families and social spaces, alongside culture and ecology (Kim, Yang, & Hwang, 2006). To build 8 In the Chap. 3 I explain how participatory methodology provided the means with which our research

teams gained Verstehen (understanding) of the world of indigenous knowledge.

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indigenous knowledge on resilience we had to select a methodological paradigm that enabled us to elicit and document socio-cultural values in conjunction with a complexity of indigenous constructs. We found that participatory methodology (PRA) (Chambers, 1995, 2006, 2007, 2010) provided a relational context in which knowledge creation (epistemology) could unfold. Indigenous research has to bring indigenous voices into the foreground to allow scientific documentation (Coburn, 2013; Dei, 2013). Goduka (2012) rightly points out that a theory that claims to be indigenous needs to be grounded in a particular local context. Socio-cultural values and constructs are often embedded in and expressed through certain stories and metaphors grounded in context-specific language and culture (Kirmayer, Dedeneau, Marshall, Phillips, & Williamson, 2011). Participatory methodology was opportune for relationships to unfold: relationships between indigenous knowledge-drivers themselves, as well as between them, others and the environment (Chilisa, 2012; LaFrance, Nichols, & Kirkhart, 2012; Nsamenang, 2006; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013; Roos et al., 2010). Others have also noted this utility of participatory methodology in indigenous research (Abedi & Badragheh, 2011; Chambers, 2006, 2007, 2010; Goodarzi, Tavassoli, Ardeshiri, & Ahmadi, 2011; Zavala, 2013). Participatory methods promote the expertise of the drivers of indigenous knowledge so that participants take the leading role in data generation to express complex patterns and relationships in their emic ways of living (Chambers, 2013). Pluralism, underpinning participatory methods, position researchers as ‘learning from’ and require researchers to ‘bracket’ their world views, while participants, custodians of local understanding and perspectives, share the power of their knowledge.

2.7.3 Theorising from Case Study Data As I’ve indicated, the primary intent of the relationship-resourced resilience indigenous theory is to understand (in Southern African cultures) how indigenous people (in their settings) do, know, believe and understand resilience. I followed the framework established by Eisenhardt (1989), Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007) to build the indigenous theory from case study data signifying relationship-resourced resilience as substantive theory. This framework of building theory from case study data is more similar to Charmaz’s (2000) constructivist grounded theory, and less similar to the postpositivist grounded theory of Glaser and Strauss (1967). As I explain in the next chapter, I inductively generated the theory from three case studies (see Table 2.1). All three studies focused on understanding adaptation in challenged settings where indigenous people experienced risk most acutely and their need for support was highest. The theory is therefore a beadwork of idiographic data that elucidate unique aspects of the particular phenomena of indigenous pathways to resilience, as reflected in the case study data. Theory induced from data is criticised as inappropriate for certain research questions. This is not the case with indigenous research, where the intent is to document

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indigenous knowledge that is present in generated data. As discussed in the next chapter, the theory is dependent on the trustworthiness of the participatory group discussion as well as observational data. Together with the boundaries of the sampled cases of indigenous pathways to resilience, this delimits the scope and depth of indigenous theory. Elsewhere (Ebersöhn, 2012a, 2013) I explained the initial process of theorybuilding, where I used only the school-based intervention data from one study (Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience or STAR) to craft relationship-resourced resilience theory. In this book I explain how we used theoretical sampling and theoretical saturation in subsequent case studies to bolster this indigenous theory. Theoretical sampling (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in two of the three flocking studies included in Table 2.1 (Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko) extended and broadened the scope of relationship-resourced resilience as emerging indigenous theory. The theoretical sampling involved choosing cases of indigenous pathways to resilience that enabled us to study this phenomenon, interview a diversity of people (place, culture, gender and age), and observe a variety of challenged settings (Southern African countries, urban, rural, peri-urban and remote). The purpose was to find issues that might challenge the limitations of the relationship-resourced resilience theory (Ebersöhn, 2012b, 2013), and force us as researchers to change the theory in order to incorporate new phenomena. In the next chapter I also explain the methodological decisions we made as we theorised and how transferability of the theory to other, similar contexts is possible. Building theory from case study data follows the familiar inductive route of cycling back and forth between theory construction and examination of data, and doing so in light of developing theoretical arguments that synthesise theory. Also, as substantive theory, the relationship-resourced resilience theory needs to be accessible and understandable to lay people. Seale (1999) notes that theory induced from data need to include explanations for events based on case studies. In this way the theory can have broader resonance for people seeking to understand other, similar events. Such emphasis on ‘other’, alternative events falls exactly within the ambit of documenting indigenous theory in which the emphasis is on expounding novel knowledge rather than drawing a comparison with existing knowledge.

2.7.4 Cases of Indigenous Pathways to Resilience in Challenged Settings The cases we studied were of indigenous perspectives on pathways to resilience in challenged settings characteristic of a postcolonial space. As discussed in Sect. 2.6 Context, the postcolonial space is indicated by the structural disparity and inequality of South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland, which makes their geopolitical place comparable to that of other postcolonial countries, as discussed earlier.

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As illustrated in Table 2.2, in comparison to other countries around the world, each of these countries qualifies as a challenged setting. Challenge is indicated by the high prevalence of cumulative risk factors and associated need for support given structural disparity and resource constraints in a transforming, postcolonial society. In these countries we sampled sites where people from indigenous populations live with extreme challenges, because of limited service delivery to address a high need for support with health, education and livelihood, and in some instances risk exacerbated by geographic isolation from already scarce services (see Table 2.1). Indigenous was indicated by sampling people from the population in the challenged setting with an indigenous home language (see Table 2.1). English is the parallel language used in all the sites. In Table 2.2, I compare the infrastructure, health and education of the four countries in which we sampled cases characteristic of challenge, and with predominantly indigenous populations (as indicated by indigenous home languages in Table 2.1). The comparison is based on the Global Competitiveness Report 2017–2018 (Schwab, 2017). The risks in the four countries where the case studies were located show cumulative risk regarding structural deficiencies, health care needs and education-related limitations. Institutional limitations and infrastructure restrictions have a chronic presence. From Table 2.2, it is evident that organised crime, and questions about the reliability of police services (safety and security of citizens) plague South African citizens in particular. The quality of overall infrastructure is especially challenging in Lesotho. The quality of electricity supply is problematic in the everyday lives of people in all the countries but Namibia. Whereas extreme limitations in mobile cellular subscriptions is a barrier to communication in the mountainous and remote settings of Lesotho and Swaziland, limited telephone lines also exacerbate access to telecommunications in all the countries except Namibia. All four countries suffer the burden of extreme levels of risks associated with heath. Prevalence of HIV and tuberculosis is severe, life expectancy is low and infant mortality rates are high. The education picture is equally bleak in all four countries. The quality of the education system in general is especially worrisome in South Africa and Namibia, with the quality of primary education ranking particularly low in South Africa and Lesotho. The quality of mathematics and science education ranks exceptionally low in all four countries. Whereas tertiary education enrolment is severely challenged in all four countries, primary and secondary education enrolment is highly problematic in all but South Africa. It follows that characteristics of the sampled cases of challenged settings included socio-economic risk in each of the settings, high unemployment rates, few job opportunities, as well as limited infrastructure support for water, sanitation, electricity, and transport. Negative objective and subjective health and wellbeing outcomes included a high frequency of illness and death, violence, crime and substance abuse as well as limited access to quality health care and social welfare services. Human capital development risks included low literacy levels, low education levels, and limited opportunities for access to quality education.

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Table 2.2 Comparison of countries sampled according to the World Competitiveness Report measuring 137 countries (Schwab, 2017) RSA

Namibia

Lesotho

Swaziland

Population millions

55.9

2.3

1.9

1.1

GDP US$ billions

294.1

10.6

2.3

3.8

Basic institutions (rank/137)

Organised crime

122

81

14

24

Reliability of police services

118

76

35

37

Infrastructure (rank/137)

Quality of overall infrastructure

72

45

120

81

Fixed-telephone lines

93

87

110

106

Mobile-cellular subscriptions

27

87

91

122

Quality of electricity supply

97

51

117

98

Prevalence of tuberculosis

137

133

136

135

Prevalence of HIV

134

133

136

137

Life expectancy

129

110

136

137

Infant mortality

105

104

132

119

Quality of the education system

114

92

70

76

Quality of primary education

116

86

122

73

Quality of math and science education

128

105

137

95

Internet access in schools

95

112

110

133

Primary education enrolment

50

105

123

125

Secondary education enrolment

54

103

113

101

Tertiary education enrolment rate

99

117

116

125

Health (rank/137)

Education (rank/137)

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In the next chapter I describe the specifics of sites aligned with individual case studies. The sample includes rural sites in Swaziland and Lesotho, and an urban site in Namibia. The nine South African provinces are represented by a remote site in Limpopo, a rural site in Mpumalanga, a peri-urban site in the North West, and urban sites in Gauteng and the Eastern Cape. The Eastern Cape comprises of the eastern part of the apartheid-era Cape Province, together with the former Xhosa homelands that existed under apartheid law (Ciskei and Transkei). The population comprises 12.7% of the total South African population. The majority of the Eastern Cape’s population are black African people (86.3%), with 77.6% speaking isiXhosa as home language. The Eastern Cape has the second-lowest average annual household income in South Africa (Stats SA, 2014). The majority share of the South African population live in Gauteng, namely 23.7% (Census, 2011), of whom 77.4% are part of the black African group (Stats SA, 2014). Gauteng has the highest average annual household income in South Africa (Stats SA, 2014). Urbanisation means that this province hosts a number of people from several indigenous populations, as well as many migrant workers and émigrés. As an urbanised site, monocultural views in Gauteng could not be assumed to prevail among people speaking an indigenous language as their home language. Based on analysis of the Imbeleko demographic questionnaire, 40% of participants indicated that they spoke English, 28% indicated that they spoke Siswati and 20% stated that they spoke isiXhosa. The Venda culture is indigenous to Limpopo (Hammond-Tooke, 2002; Toms, 2005). Limpopo is home to 10.4% of the total South African population (Stats SA, 2014). In the sampled Vhembe district 96.7% of the people are black Africans, with many women- and children-headed households. The dominant indigenous languages spoken in Limpopo are Sepedi and Tshivenda, both of which were included in the case studies. Limpopo has the highest official unemployment rate (38.9%) in South Africa, as well as the lowest average annual household income (Stats SA, 2014). Mining and quarrying is the backbone of the economy in the North West, and this industry employs the majority of the population in this province (Statistics South Africa, 2014). North West hosts 6.8% of the South African population and Setswana is the most widely spoken indigenous language (Census, 2011). Mpumalanga has 7.8% of the total South African population. There are two dominant indigenous languages spoken in Mpumalanga, namely IsiZulu and SiSwati. Mining is the dominant industry in Mpumalanga (Stats SA, 2014). Lesotho is surrounded by South Africa. Sesotho is the indigenous language of Lesotho. The majority of people live in rural areas, with agriculture as dominant industry for the economically active population of Lesotho. Other industries include manufacturing and processing (Lesotho Bureau of Statistics, 2014). Namibia shares borders with Zambia, Angola, Botswana and South Africa. The main indigenous languages are Oshiwambo, Afrikaans, Nama/Damara, and Otjiherero. The sampled region, Khomas, hosts 342,141 of the 2.1 million Namibians, has one of the highest employment rates in Namibia, and 97% of people older than 15 years are literate (Namibia Statistics Agency, 2011).

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Swaziland is home to mainly ethnic Swati, with Siswati as indigenous language. Whereas about 63% of the population live below the poverty line, 29% live below the extreme poverty line (The World Bank, 2014). The sample includes South African cases of indigenous pathways to resilience and excludes perspectives of indigenous people in high socio-economic settings in Southern Africa. In the next chapter I explain how participants with indigenous world views reflective of these sites were sampled in each of the three case studies. Only participants over 18 years of age were sampled in order to exclude people with additional age vulnerability in these already high-vulnerability populations. As is evident in Table 2.1, the majority of the views are those of older women in all three studies. Except for the STAR study, the education level of participants was low. In the Imbeleko study only 20% had completed primary education, or a part of primary education. In the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study 63% of participants had completed some grades of secondary education.

2.8 A Beadwork Bricolage Story In this chapter I laid the foundation for propositions regarding flocking I suggest in the relationship-resourced resilience theory. An appropriate way to end this beadwork bricolage of an African indigenous psychology story could be to sketch an incident that illustrates the centrality of structural enablers and constraints in terms of relationships and power in indigenous research. As I explained in the next chapter, in the Imbeleko study we took great care to develop the informed consent, as well as demographic questionnaires. Regional partners served as advisory panel to decide on content, formulate items and explanations, and translate the drafts into the various languages. On a hot summer morning on a Saturday in February, we gathered in a community hall in Windhoek, Namibia. It was the last of the series of days we spent at the seven Imbeleko sites. We were looking forward to setting up, observing and capturing a full day of group activities by participants. Groups of older and younger men and women were chatting away, laughing, exclaiming loudly at some friends who had arrived in full traditional Herero garb. We followed our ritual of dividing groups according to gender and age. We distributed informed consent forms and demographic questionnaires. Regional partners moved among groups to explain the forms and facilitate their completion. My role was to observe non-verbal behaviour, not to follow conversations. As a result of my limited multilingual ability, I had not been able to engage beyond the sharing of niceties in a range of the indigenous languages. I became functionally illiterate when the need arose to assist with the written format in languages other than Afrikaans, English and a smattering of German, the latter not of much use in most of Southern Africa. I noticed that several women in the group of older women were extremely distressed. They sat with bowed heads. They glanced at each other inconspicuously and spoke quietly from the sides of their mouths, their lips barely moving. They held the

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Photographs 2.13 and 2.14 Clarifying informed consent with older women, Namibia (2014)

pieces of paper tentatively between their fingertips, and pens in an uncomfortable grip. The excitement with which they arrived so boisterously that morning had all but disappeared. They were reduced to practically shrinking in their chairs. I walked over to the group, kneeled down among some of the women and asked in English if I could help. They answered in Afrikaans. What joy! We conversed as women of the southern lands in a shared home language. We were elated. I saw the tension leaving us as we spoke. I could feel my smile wrapping round my head in the delight of the utility of researcher. The women explained that most of them could not read. With another researcher, we took turns to sit with each woman. We read each item and pencilled in their response. We did the same with the informed consent form. By the time we were finished it was time for the tea break (Photographs 2.13 and 2.14). After tea we regrouped to start with the first participatory group discussion. The older women were somewhat more relaxed, but still quite apprehensive. What unfolded was a lived and shared revelation. The women realised that they were free to talk in their home language. Their shoulders dropped. They could to consult with one another in customary ways. Which they did, their heads held high with the power of their knowledge and position. They could follow familiar discourse processes and settle on consensus in the manner they are accustomed to. They sparred rowdily back and forth. They just had to tell the stories of how they care for and support others. They frowned, and smiled and cried and hugged one another. They were strong and confident and relaxed and engaged. Gone was all the tentativeness, the discomfort, the shame and anxiety inspired by a questionnaire. Herein lies the essence of eliciting knowledge when there is cultural mismatch so that others—outsiders—can attempt to document some kernels of insight. And so that each crafted bead of knowledge can be strung. And that, in the process, even if incomplete, the beadwork can become part of a bracelet, or a garment, or a carpet that shows the roots and customs that weave a heritage of resilience.

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Vosloo, M., Potgieter, J. C., & Temane, Q. M. (2009). Validation of the short self-regulation questionnaire (SSRQ) in an African context: The SABPA study. Unpublished master’s dissertation, Department of Psychology, North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, South Africa. Warren, D. M. (1991). Using indigenous knowledge in agricultural development. Washington, DC: The World Bank. Weinstein, D., & Weinstein, M. A. (1991). Georg Simmel: Sociological flaneur bricoleur. Theory, Culture and Society, 8, 151–168. Whitbeck, L. B., Hoyt, D. R., Stubben, J. D., & LaFromboise, T. (2001). Traditional culture and academic success among American Indian children in the Upper Midwest. Journal of American Indian Education, 40, 48–60. Wilson, S. (2001). What is indigenous research methodology? Canadian Journal of Native Education, 25(2), 175–179. Wilson, S. (2008). Research is ceremony: Indigenous research methods. Black Point, NS: Fernwood. Winfrey, O. (2011). Oprah’s life class: The powerful Lesson Maya Angelou Taught Oprah. Retrieved from http://www.oprah.com/oprahs-lifeclass/the-powerful-lesson-maya-angelou-taught-oprahvideo. Wissing, M. P., & Temane, Q. M. (2013). Feeling good, functioning well, and being true: Reflections on selected findings from the FORT research programme. In M. P. Wissing (Ed.), Well-being research in South Africa (pp. 225–250). New York, NY: Springer. Wong, P. T. P., Wong, L. C. J., & Scott, C. (2006). Beyond stress and coping: The positive psychology of transformation. In P. T. P. Wong & L. C. J. Wong (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress and coping (pp. 1–26). New York, NY: Springer. World Bank. (2014). Swaziland. Retrieved from http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/swaziland/ overview. World Health Organization. (2018). Global tuberculosis report 2018. Geneva, Switzerland: Author. Retrieved from http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/274453/9789241565646-eng. pdf?ua=1. Wright, M. O., Masten, A. S., & Narayan, A. J. (2013). Resilience processes in development: Four waves of research on positive adaptation in the context of adversity. In S. Goldstein & R. B. Brooks (Eds.), Handbook of resilience in children (pp. 15–37). New York, NY: Springer. Zavala, M. (2013). What do we mean by decolonizing research strategies? Lessons from decolonizing, indigenous research projects in New Zealand and Latin America. Decolonization: Indigeneity, Education & Society, 2(1), 55–71. Zolli, A., & Healy, A. M. (2012). Praise for Resilience. Simon and Schuster, Inc. USA: New York.

Chapter 3

Together We Are Stronger: Building an Indigenous Psychology Theory from Case Studies

Abstract In this chapter I explain the evidence base for a Southern African indigenous psychology theory of resilience. In this way I expand on propositions related to culture and context in the relationship-resourced resilience theory. I describe how we built the indigenous psychology theory grounded in data derived from three case studies with people from indigenous groups in Southern Africa that generated empirical evidence. Each study investigated aspects of psychological resilience from the perspective of indigenous people in settings that are challenged due to inequality. Data used for theory-building was generated with Southern African males and females, elders and young people, people from rural, peri-urban and urban settings whose home languages indicated a non-Western heritage. In this way I foreground the diversity of participating ethnic Southern African groups for whom flocking is a pathway to resilience. I explain how participatory reflection and action activities served as sources of textual data (translated, verbatim transcriptions of audio-recorded data), as well as observation data of the context (visual data and researcher journals). I elucidate the trustworthiness strategies used in each of the three case studies to enhance the credibility, dependability, confirmability, transferability, authenticity and relevance of the findings. Keyword Cultural propositions · Contextual propositions · Constructivist grounded theory building · Case studies · Over time · Observation as context of interaction · Participatory reflection and action · Visual data · Participatory group conversations · Thematic analysis

3.1 Introduction In this chapter I address specific propositions on culture and context relevant to the relationship-resourced resilience theory. By reflecting on the methodological background of the case studies, I build on contentions introduced in the previous chapters. Propositions on culture and flocking as pathway to resilience encompass positions on the ethnic representativeness of the theory. In addition, propositions on culture hold that the Afrocentric Ubuntu worldview predicts resilience processes © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_3

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that are relational. I provide evidence that the theory is not intended to homogenise Africans, Southern Africans or indigenous people into a broad category based on geography and race. Accordingly, I describe how participatory case study data was generated with older and younger men and women who are indigenous to Southern Africa and represent ethnic groups (AmaXhosa, AmaSwati, BaPedi, BaSotho, BaTswana, VhaVhenda, Coloured people, Herero, Aawambo) in challenged rural and urban sites in Southern African nation states and kingdoms (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland). I also describe that thematic analysis of the case study data sets occurred from a psychological perspective and indicated that flocking was expressed as resilience-enabling irrespective of age, gender, ethnicity, or geographical space. I acknowledge that the study is delimited to analysis of data through a psychological lens of resilience. Therefore, analysis with different disciplinary lenses (such as anthropology, sociology, history, political science, economy) may have afforded alternative views on patterns of resilience in relation to indigenous, culture, ethnicity and race. I also acknowledge that the inclusion of Southern Africans with a diversity of race (Afrikaner, English, German, Portuguese, Asian, Indian) and class (affluent and middle class) may presumably have provided additional insights for theorybuilding by adding data to consider whether the theory is indigenous or Southern African, or whether the theory is indigenous to the extent that more affluent people with indigenous social origins use flocking as pathway to resilience. Propositions on context and flocking as pathway to resilience encompass positions in a postcolonial context of severe challenges as pertinent to the relationshipresourced resilience theory. I explain how the cases of resilience studies constituted spaces redolent with adversity associated with a postcolonial setting of inequality. By means of methodological reflexivity I substantiate the position that relationshipresourced resilience theory recognises that a history of marginalisation was conceivably instrumental for indigenous people to select the use of flocking as pathway to resilience. In addition, I authenticate the argument that flocking plausibly emerged in a highly unequal setting because of, and in response to, high risk for health, wellbeing and development among indigenous people in combination with a low provision of services to marginalised groups. I acknowledge that the relationship-resourced resilience theory is delimited to contexts with severe challenges. Accordingly, perspectives on resilience processes of indigenous people who are affluent or, put differently, indigenous people who may have more opportunities for services to support their development and wellbeing, are excluded from the theory. Given these propositions and delimitations, I posit that relationship-resourced resilience could prove to have utility as exemplar of a pathway to resilience among individuals and groups with cultural and contextual similarities.

3.2 What We Learned at Schools—A Honeycomb and Chicken Wire of Support In 2003 I read a report on schools as nodes of care and support (Giese, Meintjes, Croke, & Chamberlain, 2003). Their theoretical notion of addressing the overwhelm-

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ing onslaught of HIV and AIDS-related challenges burdening children by using schools as available resource, irrespective of constraints in high-vulnerability settings, intrigued me. This theoretical position made sense to me. However, I wanted to find evidence of how school-based pathways to such support could be implemented: which type of intervention could operationalise schools to be enabling in this way? Together with my then doctoral student and now colleague, Ronél Ferreira (Ferreira, 2006), we embarked on a doctoral collaboration1 to find evidence of what would be required of schools to function as fulcrums of support (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2009).2 Over ten years (2003–2010), together with graduate students3 and participating teachers (n = 74, 59 = female teachers, 15 = male teachers) in schools (n = 12, pimary = 9, high school = 3, peri-urban = 5, urban = 4, rural = 3) in three South African provinces (Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Gauteng) we used participatory reflection and action (Chambers, 2006, 2007, 2010) to co-develop, replicate and investigate the fidelity of an asset-based (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), schoolbased intervention as pathway to teacher resilience that enable teachers to address the psychosocial support demands of children and their families. Map 3.1 indicates the settings of the schools in the school-based study. Working with twelve Xhosa female teachers4 in one primary peri-urban school in the Eastern Cape (2003–2005), we developed a school-based intervention for psychosocial support. In subsequent phases and in collaboration with teachers, we cogenerated an intervention name, STAR: Supportive Teachers, Assets and Resilience (Ferreira & Ebersöhn, 2012) (Photographs 3.1 and 3.2). We replicated the intervention in 2005–2007 with 25 teachers (4 male, 21 female) in two additional urban primary schools in Gauteng and one rural high school in Mpumalanga. This data set included perspectives from Bapedi, BaSotho, so-called Coloured people and AmaSwati South Africans. In 2009 ten additional teachers (7 male and 3 female) from the high school joined the study. In a subsequent phase (2007–2010) we determined the fidelity of the intervention by partnering with regional teachers trained as facilitators (Ferreira & Ebersöhn, 2011). Trained Eastern Cape teachers (2003–2005 STAR cohort) implemented STAR in four additional peri-urban Eastern Cape schools (two primary and two high schools) with various teachers (n = 22, male = 4, female = 18). Trained Mpumalanga teachers (2005–2006 STAR cohort) implemented STAR in two additional rural Mpumalanga primary schools with female teachers (n = 13). 1 The

collaboration included the co-supervisor of Ferreira’s doctoral work, Dr. Kim Blankenship, Centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of AIDS, Yale University. 2 Table 2.1 in Chap. 2 provides an overview of STAR as one of the three case studies in which relationship-resourced resilience theory is grounded. 3 Doctoral students who completed their studies in STAR include Ferreira (2006), Mnguni (2015), Mbongwe (2013), Loots (2010), and Olivier (2010). Master’s students who completed their studies in STAR include Chambati (2015), De Jager (2010), Beukes (2010), Joubert (2010), Dempster (2010), Bagherpour (2010), Mnguni (2007), McCallaghan (2007), Odendaal (2007), and Loots (2005). 4 All the teachers who participated in co-developing STAR are named and acknowledged in Ferreira & Ebersöhn (2012).

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Gauteng Schools

Mpumalanga School

Eastern Cape School

Map 3.1 Location of STAR schools in South Africa

Photographs 3.1 and 3.2 The moment where we co-generated the STAR-name, Eastern Cape (2009)

Trained Gauteng teachers (2005–2006 STAR cohort) implemented STAR in two additional urban primary schools with four female teachers. During the iterative cycles of analysing the school-based data we collected over ten years, I realised that certain patterns emerged across the sites which we did not anticipate. For a start asset-based work (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993) emphasise the assets that are available rather than the centrality of relationships to access and mobilise resources.5 Different from what we expected relating to the asset-based 5I

reconnected with work on social capital (Bryan, 2005; Bourdieu 1986; Coleman, 1990; Olsson, Bond, Burns, Vella-Brodrick, & Swayer, 2003; Stewart, Sun, Patterson, Lemerle, & Hardie, 2004),

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approach, teachers did not use assets they had mapped to guide resource use. What they did was map relationships. They mapped (albeit mentally) who they knew, with whom they could collaborate to address certain challenges. Once this circle of collaborators was mapped they determined which assets they had between them to address a particular problem. For example, a teacher would speak to a friend at her church. Together they would start a faith-based support group. This group would be organised to provide spiritual support by doing much-needed home visits to families ailed by living with AIDS and where there are caregivers. As I explained in the first chapter, my ‘first light of the baboon’ reflective meaningmaking on the back of the motorcycle was a turning point regarding the patterns I saw in our analysis. I was able to conceptualise the evidenced trend of social support as resilience-enabling and coin it ‘flocking’.6 In addition, contrary to our expectations (plausibly a result of psychology training from an individualised, Westerndominated perspective), teachers did not target children for support. Instead the teachers planned support strategies for the benefit of families of children identified as being in need. In fact, in some instances the targeted action expanded beyond family constellations to include school communities for support. The relationship-resourced support benefitted the collective by structuring social support for resource management (Ebersöhn & Loots, 2017). Teachers wanted to address the severe hunger facing many families in the school community. Providers were too ill to work and sustain household incomes in a landscape legendary for its few job opportunities. Teachers connected with acquaintances to assist them with providing knowledge, seeds and tools, as well as labour to cultivate school-based vegetable gardens for produce. They supplemented such food parcels with donations from small businesses that they knew (Photographs 3.3 and 3.4).7 We also realised that teachers prioritised poverty-related needs in conjunction with HIV and AIDS challenges. Given, at that stage,8 the devastating effect of this illness for children as witnessed by teachers, we had expected illness-related challenges to be the overriding focus in teacher support. Our research team was (bar two graduate students) historically privileged white, tertiary-educated female researchers. We naively believed in the factual simplicity of foregrounding AIDS as the risk factor ‘of choice’ for intervention. What teachers taught us was that the AIDS parasite was comfortably feeding on the disquietening realities of structural disparity. For teachers, AIDS-related needs were not more extreme, nor more important than relatedness and autonomy (Carsten, 2000, 2004; Van der Geest, 2004), relationships and social support (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Connell & Wellborn, 1991; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Skinner & Wellborn, 1994), relationships and social support (Luther, 2006; Masten, 2001; Rutter, 2000), affiliation (Taylor, 2002) and association (Rothermund & Wentura, 2004). 6 I presented a paper in this regard during my visiting professorship at the Fogarty Learning Centre, Edith Cowan University (2011), and later published my theorising (Ebersöhn, 2012). 7 In later years policy proved extremely effective in providing food to schools in low-income socioeconomic settings, although school-based vegetable gardens remained the action plan of choice for many teachers at schools in challenged settings to support children and their families (DBE, 2018). 8 Policy-level treatment support in South Africa was only implemented in 2006 (Department of Health, 2006).

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Photograph 3.3 Supplementing household food with produce from the school vegetable garden, Eastern Cape (2008)

Photograph 3.4 Food parcels for households-school-partner donations, Eastern Cape (2009)

poverty-related needs. Our research team had been well-schooled in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory (Bronfenbrenner, 1977). Yet it was the teachers with whom we partnered who taught us, as scholars of the Global South, about a mandate to seek evidence for psychological knowledge and intervention that could speak to inequality and contribute to social justice. While seeking evidence of ‘how to cope with AIDS’, we changed tack to ask ‘how do people resile given inequality?’ We realised that resilience theory was more appropriate to study considering the adaptive nature of development required in unequal systems. We started revisiting resilience work.9 While re-examining resilience studies I realised that the risk factors characteristic of postcolonialism differed from what we were reading. In an unequal and transforming society risk factors had a chronic history, which is suggestive of a chronic future of risk. Also, given structural disparity, the onslaught of never-ending risk factors had many origins. In our data these cumulative risks were evident as health needs, education needs, and employment needs (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2011). The resource-constrained setting and structural disparity meant that the resources and services available to support adaptation processes remain skewed in favour of the minority, where need is—ironically—less. To understand pathways to resilience in an unequal society we realised we would need to understand not only lived experiences of hardship in more nuanced ways, but we would also need to be open to unevenness in resilience processes. As I revisit in the last chapter, we could not expect patterns of resilience in a young, transforming democracy (with dominant non-Western worldviews and exasperatingly high 9 For

a broad reintroduction to resilience I read Masten (2001), Rutter (2000), Cicchetti (2010), Goldstein and Brooks (2005). For an ecological view on resilience as transational processes I drew on Ungar (2008), Hopfall (2011), Lerner (2006), Ungar (2011), and Sameroff (2009). Memorable readings on social resilience included Evans (2005) and Bloom (1996), and those on collective resilience the work of Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche & Pfefferbaum (2008). Theron and Theron’s (2010) work provided an overview of South African work on resilience.

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levels of inequality and limited resources to use during adaptive processes) to be similar to resilience processes in affluent, Western-dominated settings. Based on the school-based data, I posited that teacher resilience in an unequal setting required continuous mini-cycles of adaptation that mirror the mini-cycles of risks following on one another without a break (Ebersöhn, 2014). I questioned the assumption that resilience must unequivocally produce positive outcomes (ibid). We observed much more changeability with regard to outcomes of chronic adaptation among teachers resiling in spaces of high inequality. I thus posited that evidence suggested scaled outcomes of resilience in a chronic-risk context (ibid). The outcomes included mostly positive outcomes, as well as instances of ‘bad days’ (maladaptive outcomes), and ‘spectacular days’ (thriving).

3.3 What We Learned in Remote Settings Based on thematic analysis (Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2008; Braun & Clarke, 2006; Atkinson & Delamont, 2005) of this decade’s school-based case data, I drew on Eisenhardt (1989) and Eisenhardt and Graebner (2007) to build theory from case work and crafted the relationship-resourced resilience theory (Ebersöhn, 2013). I initially posited ‘flocking’ (Ebersöhn, 2012) as a particular response of teachers to access and mobilise existing relationships as resources to provide support during adaptation processes in resource-constrained school communites. I acknowledged limitations in the school-based intervention data set in which I grounded the relationship-resourced resilience theory (Ebersöhn, 2013). I realised that I felt quite attached to my first ‘aha’ moment when I bonded with the idea of flocking. I wanted to be careful of blindly persisting with this attachment to emergent theorising. As I discuss below, I wanted future work to include data triangulation of varied instances of flocking as phenomenon in several different settings, and at different points in time and space. I wanted to search and account for several negative instances of assumptions I had generated in the relationshipresourced resilience theory. The theory was a result of an intervention design. I did not know if the same patterns of resource mobilisation would happen in the absence of an asset-based intervention, which is used for community-level development studies. I wanted to know if the flocking pathways were perhaps artificially provoked or if they were present daily with people in challenging life settings. The theory was a result of data from an institutionalised setting with participants in their professional capacity. I did not know if flocking as pathway to resilience was particular only to schools and the work-related behaviour of teachers. The schoolbased studies also had limited perspectives of men and younger people. Theoretically I was not interpreting results through the lens of indigenous psychology, and neither was the methodology intentionally informed by knowledge from indigenous research. Besides asking ‘how do people resile, given inequality?’, I also wanted to know ‘how do people most affected by inequality risks draw on their

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socio-cultural capital (indigenous knowledge) to resile?’ In the postcolonial setting of inequality in Southern Africa the vast majority of marginalised people do not have a dominant Western worldview. I was intrigued about finding out if flocking could be an indigenous pattern of behaviour favoured traditionally among some cultural groupings in South Africa. I therefore wanted to explore if the theory could have roots in indigenous knowledge systems, and asked: Could the relationship-resourced resilience theory perhaps describe flocking as a preferred socio-cultural pathway to resilience?10 The theory was a result of data generated by ‘coping with HIV and AIDS’. I wanted to know which inequality challenges, besides HIV and AIDS-related need, triggered flocking. Consequently I crafted a further investigation with a group of doctoral students and Centre for the Study of Resilience affiliates.11 In the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study the specific goal was to use principles of theoretical sampling in the design of a study exploring the feasibility of the relationship-resourced resilience theory as an indigenous psychology theory.12 We changed relevant methodological elements, and others remained the same. Similar to the school-based data set this study also focused on generating insight into addressing risk in challenged settings. We again used participatory reflection and action as methodological approach to generate data inductively from an emic perspective with the specific intent to conduct indigenous research (Darroch & Giles, 2014; Coombes, Johnson, & Howitt, 2014; Kendall, Sunderland, Barnett, Nalder, & Matthews, 2011; Cochran et al., 2008). We partnered with 135 people from dominant Venda and Swati indigenous populations in remote Limpopo and Mpumalanga settings (youth = 82, elders = 53, women = 78, men = 57). We continued to be informed by principles of strength-based thinking, as posited in the knowledge bases of an asset-based approach (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993), positive psychology (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Seligman, 2002), self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2001), and flourishing (Keyes, 2002) as encompassing positive psychological functioning, positive social functioning, and positive emotions (Ryff, Keyes, & Hughes, 2003; Keyes, Shmotkin, & Ryff, 2002). Informed by these readings, we assumed that in instances of severe hardship, assets are present (contextual, intrapersonal and interpersonal) on which individuals can draw to adapt so that they can thrive.

10 I was intrigued that flocking reflected principles inherent to an African cosmology, specifically the collectiveness of an Ubuntu value system, which foregrounds kinship, collectivism and relatedness, as described by Phasha (2010), Mkhize (2006), Munyaka and Mothlabi (2009). 11 The Indigenous Pathways to Resilience Doctoral Lab included Malan van Rooyen (2015), De Gouveia (2015), Mohamed (2018), as well as Raphael Olorunfemi Akanmidu (who sadly passed away tragically in 2014, a month before submitting his thesis for examination). CSR affiliates included Dr. Funke Omidire, Dr. Vanessa Sherman and Dr. Linda Liebenberg. 12 Table 2.1 provides an overview of the Indigenous Pathway to Resilience study as one of the three case studies in which the relationship-resourced resilience theory is grounded.

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Limpopo research site Mpumalanga research site

Map 3.2 Location of the indigenous pathways to resilience study

However, different from the coping theory in the school-based work, we selected the work of Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck (2011) as theoretical framework to conceptualise the questions to direct the indigenous pathways to resilience study. I was drawn to the emphasis in their framework on resilience as developmental processes to address ongoing adversity—recognising coping as a psychological process on which people draw during adaptation. In order to operationalise this theoretical position each doctoral student in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience homed in on a different construct.13 Different from the school-based study, we intentionally sampled non-school sites and included another South African province (Limpopo) and a site to include a previously excluded ethnic perspective of the VhaVenda people. Both the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience sites were chosen deliberately as they were challenged settings, indicated here as remote spaces (rather than peri-urban and urban sites, as in the school-based study), with high incidences of people privileging traditional worldviews (here VhaVenda and AmaSwati) (see Map 3.2 for the location of the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study). Another sampling criterion was to select non-teacher participants, and include more men, as well as elders and young people.

13 Mohamed

focused on appraisal during resilience processes. Malan-Van Rooyen foregrounded adaptive coping embedded in resilience processes, De Gouveia emphasised outcomes of resilience processes. Akanmidu used analysis from their inductive data to design and test a measure scale (Indigenous Pathways to Resilience Scale).

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For the relationship-resourced resilience theory it was significant that in the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience data (Malan van Rooyen, 2015; De Gouveia, 2015; Mohammed, 2017) flocking was evident as resilience-enabling social support pathway even in the absence of an intervention. Flocking was a pathway to resilience ‘of choice’, chosen by young people and elders, male and female, in the remote settings. Venda and Swati people used flocking to address chronic challenges of life in remote villages. Flocking occurred as an indigenous pathway to resilience in the daily lives of everyday South African citizens, outside of institutionalised spaces and professional lives. To resile collectively, they flocked by leveraging relationships as an available resource to adapt to cumulative challenges and scaffold collective wellbeing despite chronic hardship. Flocking was used as resilience process to address a variety of lived experiences, from water shortages to livelihood needs (as I illustrated in the first chapter). In-case and cross-case thematic analysis (Atkinson & Delamont, 2005; Stake, 2005) of the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience case study data enabled us to describe flocking processes inductively with more clarity. It became plausible that the adaptive processes underpinning flocking as pathway to resilience manifest an Afrocentric Ubuntu worldview. As I discuss in the next chapter the collectivism tenets of Ubuntu perceives relationships through a lens of kinship, and being family (Letseka, 2013). We saw that indigenous beliefs regarding the collective appraisal of risk manifested in consultation and consensus processes that conformed to age and gender hierarchies (Mohammed, 2017). It was evident that support for adaptation was similarly nested in kinship beliefs of mutual assistance, resource sharing, resource distribution, and social expectations to conform in order to access social resources (Malan van Rooyen, 2015). A kinship orientation was also observed in determining the value of adaptive outcomes with a golden standard of evaluation being the extent to which the flocking process enabled people to be supportive of one another (De Gouveia, 2015).

3.4 What We Learned in Southern Africa A question remained as to how representative flocking was of an indigenous pathway to resilience outside of the borders of South Africa. As Marshall (2016) argues, these borders are a vestige of geopolitics. The Southern African nation states remain a political statement of privilege of former Global North occupiers. As is the case elsewhere in the world, the bounded borders of nation states in Southern Africa do not reflect the porous nature of cultural and ethnic histories. Be that as it may, we were interested in the extent to which propositions on flocking in the relationshipresourced resilience theory would hold elsewhere in Southern Africa.

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A partnership with the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund14 (Ebersöhn et al., 2014) proved fortuitous in exploring this question as part of the Imbeleko study.15 We sampled perspectives of Southern Africans—(n = 430, men = 150, women = 280) of elders (n = 240) and young people (n = 190)—including other Southern African states (Namibia, Lesotho, Swaziland) and an additional South African province (North West) and to explore resilience-enabling traditional care and support practices of children (see Map 3.3 for the location of the Imbeleko study). Data from the Imbeleko study supported the feasibility of relationship-resourced resilience as a Southern African indigenous psychology of resilience. The rich Imbeleko data assisted us with thinking deeply, and to describe propositions in nuanced ways (Ebersöhn, 2016). As I discuss in the next two chapters, I realised that flocking was resilience-enabling social behaviour that encouraged better than expected outcomes. As such flocking was a manifestation of a cultural imperative to accept the normativity of social need and, reciprocally, acceptance of the normativity of providing social support. Flocking thus capitalised on a communal penchant for social connectedness to collectively provide help where need was observed. From the Imbeleko data we were able to conceptualise flocking as a resilience pathway of instrumental social support for resource management in contexts where resources are constrained (Ebersöhn, Loots, Mampane, Omidire, & Malan-Van Rooyen, 2017). We were able to describe that flocking included robust resource management strategies such as reciprocal donations, shared savings in societies, partnerships, as well as borrowing and lending (ibid.). We found that across the sites elders and young people used flocking as resilience-enabling social support for similar needs (ibid.). We noted that the absence of services to distribute resources equally, especially to places and people most in need of such services, potentially acted as driver for people to persist in using flocking as preferred pathway to adapt to need (Ebersöhn et al.,

14 Imbeleko means the act of giving birth or ‘to carry on your back’. As ritual, Imbeleko is a ceremony to welcome a child into the greater community. In the Imbeleko ceremony the umbilical connection between mother and child is detached, the child is introduced to ancestors, a goat is slaughtered and the clan is invited to attend the feast. The Imbeleko study emerged as a result of work and thinking advanced by Kim Samuel in her collaboration with Oxford University’s Poverty and Human Development Initiative and through her leadership as President of the Samuel Family Foundation in partnership with Synergos, the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) and the Foundation for Community Development (FDC) in Mozambique, working to overcome isolation and to deepen the social connectedness of children and youth in Southern Africa. Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund (NMCF) Researchers included Vuyani Patrick Ntanjana and Fezile July. Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund Regional Partners included Lesotho—Red Cross; Gauteng—Albertina Sisulu Special School; Swaziland—Save the Children, Swaziland; Eastern Cape—Diaz Primary School; Namibia—Church Alliance for Orphans; Limpopo—Sepanapudi Traditional Authority; North West—Emmang Basadi Advocacy and Lobby Organisation. 15 Table 2.1 provides an overview of Imbeleko as one of the three case studies in which relationshipresourced resilienceis grounded.

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Map 3.3 Location of sampled Imbeleko sites in Southern Africa

2018). It appeared that using flocking as an age-old and familiar support strategy moderated the effects of sparse infrastructure and resources to access limited lifesustaining services.

3.5 Generating Emic Inductive Data to Build an Indigenous Psychology Theory Being part of multinational, interdisciplinary research teams made me aware of how views that exist as alternatives alongside dominant science and geographical perspectives need to be intentionally included in theoretical considerations and methodological decisions.16 I experienced that resilience could, for example, from an ecological 16 From 2006–2010 I was a co-investigator in Kgolo Mmogo (an NIH-funded study on ‘Promoting Resilience in Young Children of HIV-infected mothers in South Africa’. Brian Forsythe (Yale University, Principal Investigator, Yale University), Irma Eloff (University of Pretoria, Project Director and Principal Investigator).

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science perspective, be viewed as adjusting to disaster in order to return to a previous state of being (Steelman et al., 2015). Conversely, psychological resilience assumed more than a return to a previous state. Psychologically resilience anticipated ‘bouncing forward’ (Manyena, O’Brien, O’Keefe, & O’Keefe, 2011) based on increased capacity as a result of adapting to hardship. I learned that a scale may, for example, be validated for use to measure adaptation, or adaptive and maladaptive outcomes. It could follow rigorous processes of cultural tailoring and back translation (Choi et al., 2012; Chen & Boore, 2010). But essentially, if conceptualised and validated in a dissimilar context and culture, it would continue to measure the answers of respondents against a particular conceptual framework of resilience which was developed in a particular context with particular views on what constitutes ‘positive well-being’ and ‘adaptive or maladaptive’. For example I realised when using the Vineland Adaptive Scale (Sparrow, Cicchetti, & Balla, 2005) the mother of a child with only one set of clothes is unable to answer about how adaptive her child is in choosing clothes for the type of weather outside. There is no choice of clothing irrespective of the weather. For a household with no income there is no bank account. So a child will not know how to use an ATM. Choosing to eat with one’s hands, not utensils, may not be maladaptive. Equally, choosing relational support may not be ‘dependence’. In a randomised control trial study (investigating resilience in the mother–child relationship where a mother is HIV-positive) we included techniques such as expressive drawing for ‘measures with young children’ (Ebersöhn et al., 2012) and ‘projective storytelling’ (Ebersöhn, Eloff, Finestone, Grobler, & Moen, 2015). In South Africa these techniques are accepted for use by educational psychologists during clinical assessment with children. I appreciated how these psychology techniques had utility as inductive research strategies to elicit emic perspectives on resilience experiences. Right from the onset of our work in schools, which was then moving into remote settings and later into Southern African spaces, a consistent thread was that we wanted to make methodological decisions that would create similar elicitation spaces (Ebersöhn & Malan-Van Rooyen, 2018). We did not want to measure behaviours, perspectives, emotions and pathways of participants against a normalised, outsider standard of what was conceived as a standardised view of ‘resilience’. In order to document an indigenous psychology we wanted to be able to partner with particiFrom 2010–2013 I was Principal Investigator with Melissa McHale (then at North Carolina State University) in IMAGINE (International Mentoring of Advanced Graduates for Interdisciplinary Excellence). From 2010–2014 I co-chaired the World Education Research Association (WERA) Task Force, leading the development of an international white paper on poverty and opportunity to learn worldwide. Other co-chairs were: Carol D Lee, Edwina S Tarry Professor of Education at the School of Education and Social Policy, and African-American Studies at Northwestern University), Michael Nettles, (Senior Vice President and the Edmund W Gordon Chair of ETS’s Policy Evaluation & Research Center), and Petronilha Beatriz Gonçalves e Silva (Associação Brasileira de Pesquisadores Negros (ABPN) (Brazilian Black Researchers’ Association) and Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-Graduação em Educação (ANPED) (National Association of Research and Graduate Studies on Education).

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pants from indigenous groups in such a way that we could generate data. From an indigenous research and indigenous knowledge system perspective, our aim was to share the power base of what had legitimacy as knowledge and ways of knowing.17 During a visit to Sussex University in 2001, I had a conversation with Fiona Leach and shared with her my interest in investigating school-based support in a South African, AIDS-ridden context. I explained that we wanted to be able to understand the views of teachers and script a feasible intervention with them. She introduced me to the seminal work of the Institute of Development Studies, and in particular that of Robert Chambers. This introduction to participatory reflection and action was a methodological revelation18 to someone mostly trained in positivist traditions of science. Participatory reflection and action assisted us as researchers during our pursuit to document knowledge on indigenous psychology to be aware that we wanted data as seen by ‘participants’. It challenged us to devise questions and interactive, generative activities that would encourage participants to engage enthusiastically in their home languages (Van Nes, Abma, Jonsson, & Deeg, 2010). One example of the equalising capability of participatory reflection and action was when Ronél and I proudly showed the printed STAR manual to teachers. There was a furore. We had—based on an institutionally approved ethics protocol—anonymised the manual. In the photographs the faces of teachers were blurred. None of the names of teachers appeared anywhere in the manual. The teachers were offended that we had obliterated their role in the development of this evidence of ‘what works’ in a school to provide psychosocial support. It was during this conversation, depicted in Photographs 3.1 and 3.2, that we agreed collectively19 to ‘christen our child’ STAR. The printed version of the intervention was changed to include the names of all the teachers as knowledge contributors and in all the interventions (and subsequent dissemination images) teachers could be identified. As we used the participatory reflection and action methodology with indigenous people over time and in different contexts of marginalisation, we found that we could predict a particular rhythm of data generation in spaces where participants usually remained wary of outsiders—especially white, urban, university-based outsiders. To create this predictable rhythm certain methodological ingredients were necessary. Like Bishop (2005), we realised that the first methodological lesson was that research on indigenous psychology is nested in relationships and trust. And both relationships 17 I

studied views on indigenous research from African perspectives (Chilisa, 2011; Mapara, 2009; Mkabela, 2005; Odora Hoppers, 2008; Owusu-Ansah, & Mji, 2013), other Global South views (Smith, Maxwell, Puke, & Temara, 2016; Zavala, 2013), in non-Western Global North spaces (Shams, & Hwang, 2005; Wilson, 2001, 2008), and in Western-dominant spaces (Bohensky, & Maru, 2011; Braun, Browne, Ka’opua, Kim, & Mokuau, 2013; Dei, 2013; Drawson, Toombs, & Mushquash, 2017; Hart, 2010; LaFrance, Nichols, & Kirkhart, 2012; Sillitoe & Marzano, 2009). 18 I expanded my reading of methodological evidence with regard to participatory work for indigenous research after this first introduction (Abedi, & Badragheh, 2011; Cochran et al., 2008; Coombes, Johnson, & Howitt, 2014; Darroch & Giles, 2014; Ghaffari & Emami, 2011; Kendall, Sunderland, Barnett, Nalder, Matthews, 2011; Khodamoradi & Abedi, 2011). 19 As an aside—I later reflected on this being my first introduction to communal consultation and consensus.

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Photograph 3.5 People at the heart of PRA data Photograph 3.6 Part of people gathering generation: taking time out together, Indigenous for research is the ritual of sharing a meal. Pathway to Resilience (2012) Here STAR-teachers brought homemade gingerbeer and roosterkoeke to share (2009)

and trust require time. We stick out like flashing beacons of privilege at research sites. We are so very obviously outsiders. And so very obviously outsiders who are at the positive, beneficiary end of an inequality continuum (Smith, 2005) (Photographs 3.5 and 3.6).20 As is common in feminist (Olesen, 2005) and participatory studies (Kemmis & McTaggart, 2000), in each of the case studies an insider gatekeeper assisted us with access to their networks of colleagues, neighbours and acquaintances. In STAR, a student (whom Ronél met when she was tutoring in a distance learning programme) introduced her to the primary school principal. In Indigenous Pathways to Resilience our IMAGINE research partners already had established relationships with key people in several villages adjacent to the rural research site. In Imbeleko the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund had partners with strong community networks of care and support at each site. Our initial credibility at each site was therefore the result of our affiliation with a familiar insider. 20 In 2003 our husbands accompanied us as we travelled to the ‘dangerous’ peri-urban school site. This remains a poignant reminder to me of how childhood and young adulthood under Apartheid shaped my beliefs regarding gender, class and race, my role as woman, the role of a male in society, ‘danger’ and ‘safety’. Only later could we reflect that the only worse outsider symbols of privilege and oppression than two White Afrikaner women would be two bulky White male Afrikaner ‘boere’. After this experience we travelled with peace of mind along with members of the ever-evolving research teams into spaces with high violence and crime statistics (Stats SA, 2015). Despite this high probability of crime, over 15 years’ of research in challenged spaces there was only one alarming incident. In 2015 Ronél and I were held at gunpoint and robbed as we got into a car to leave the school grounds at a school that we had visited often. I will not forget the feeling of the cold metal against my temple. Nor will I forget the anxious faces of the emaciated nine young men desperate to take our belongings. For the first couple of visits after this incident we went to that particular school with private guards we had hired for protection. Now, as advised by the school principal and the police, we visit this specific school district using a protocol of alert. The principal alerts the police that we will be visiting her school and other schools in this neighbourhood. When we enter the community, we stop at the police station and the police accompany us to each school.

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Our repeated presence over time at research settings became a given. We became used to being welcomed as we reached sites. I remember, as we undertook the phase when we studied the fidelity of STAR, being astonished at one school when an older female teacher stood very close to me, looked me up and down, and asked with a penetrating look: ‘What do you want? Why are you here?’ Her strong distrust very gradually changed into tolerance of our presence. At some stage she indicated to the principal at her school that she wanted to be the point person to liaise with us about project coordination. She continues to be the person who meets us whenever we bring monitoring and evaluation visits, or as we deliberate new partnership pathways to build knowledge on schools as enabling systems. As research team members came and went (postgraduate students graduating, local and international partners dropping in and out of sites), a familiar ritual happened that could probably be seen as reflecting an Ubuntu family orientation to life. The lead person at each site would walk up to the newcomer smiling, embrace them (sometimes to the astonishment of especially partners from abroad) and state that they now belong to the fold. They were therefore stamped with insider approval and acceptance—akin to a christening ceremony. So, in the same way that we were initially accepted by virtue of connectedness to an acquaintance with credibility, association with the research project also merited acceptance. Participatory reflection and action group discussions (Kendall et al., 2011; Coombes et al., 2014) served as primary data-generation method. In each of the studies we therefore organised the venue (a staff room, a community centre, an open-air setting) in such a way that participants could sit together in groups. At each site we stratified groups for participatory reflection and action discussions according to schema that were familiar to the participants at each setting. In Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko participants self-selected into groups of older women, older men, younger women and younger men. In STAR teachers grouped themselves according to the schools they were affiliated with. Per data-generation session, this would mean that there would be at least two to four groups simultaneously discussing the same question in their groups. The result is a raucous and exuberant space quite different from individuals sedately completing pen-and-paper questionnaires or quiet and ‘safe’ spaces in which a researcher facilitates a focus group discussion. Initially we (as outsider experts, I must add tongue-in-cheek) decided on the schema. In due course we became less arrogant and as our humility grew, we asked participants about the relevance of brainstorming the relevance of ‘our’ schema assumptions regarding, for example, age, gender and affiliation in terms of ‘their’ schemas (Photographs 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10). Another methodological requirement was how we decided on prompts for open-ended questions for the participatory reflection and action-group discussions. Initially we were with one foot comfortably in our ‘expert’ shoes. In STAR we (condescendingly, I realised in retrospect) decided by ourselves, in true matriarchal

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Photograph 3.7 PRA-data generation, indigenous pathways to resilience, Limpopo (2012)

Photograph 3.8 PRA-data generation, Imbeleko, Namibia (2014)

Photograph 3.9 PRA-data generation, Imbeleko, Swaziland (2013)

Photograph 3.10 PRA-data generation, indigenous pathways to resilience, Limpopo (2012)

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fashion, that cows, calves, snakes, knopkieries21 were relevant metaphors to use in an Afrocentric setting to elicit responses on resilience (Photograph 3.11). In Indigenous Pathways to Resilience we did the same, deciding in a selfcongratulatory way by ourselves that drums and corn (Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study) would be appropriate ‘local’ symbols to trigger participation.22 Later we were able to ‘let go’ of this position assuming primary knowledge. By the time we ventured into the Imbeleko study we asked advisory members to advise on the relevant symbols, items and activities that would be familiar in the context and elicit engagement among participants. We had to ‘live’ the theoretical knowledge 21 A

‘knopkierie’ is the Afrikaans word for a certain traditional weapon in South Africa. A literal translation is a wood walking stick with a large round knob at the top end. 22 In fact, I learned later from young people in another school-based intervention study (Flourishing Learning Youth) that, contrary to our use of ‘snake’ as a symbol of a ‘locally relevant’ risk factor, snakes were also viewed by some Southern African tribes with pride as a heraldic kinship symbol.

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Photograph 3.11 Using cows, calves and snakes as symbols to identify protective resources and risk factors, Eastern Cape (2008)

Photographs 3.12 and 3.13 Using the symbol of a mealie and knopkierie for PRA-group discussions on resilience-enabling resources and plans, indigenous pathways to resilience, Mpumalanga (2012)

that knowledge and power in inductive data generation is shared. We could not make top-down decisions about what was applicable to ‘them’. As is common in research in marginalised settings, we were especially careful to consider language and literacy levels when formulating questions for participatory reflection and action group discussions (Van Nes et al., 2010). Like many postcolo-

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Photographs 3.14 and 3.15 Our field planning for PRA-group discussions, indigenous pathways to resilience, Mpumalanga (2012)

nial countries, South Africa is characterised by multilingualism (Pierce & Ridge, 1997). We formulated questions in English. A minority of Southern Africans speak English as home language (Stats SA, 2012). Given the temporality of a postcolonial setting it is English, not home languages, that is mostly used as language of teaching and learning (Taylor & Von Fintel, 2016), and in the media for public communication (De Kadt, 2006). When formulating questions for the group discussions we as researchers therefore took into consideration participants did not speak English as home language. In the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko studies we knew, based on statistics (Stats SA, 2012; United Nations, 2012) and after consultation with advisory committees, that we could not expect universal literacy23 among participants at the sites and more so among the elders.24 23 Literacy rates in Gauteng (97.8%) are higher than in other provinces in South Africa. Literacy rates in Gauteng are followed by the Free State (93.5%), Eastern Cape (90.7%), North West (88.3%), Mpumalanga (87.3%) and Limpopo (86.9%) (Stats SA, 2012). In Lesotho literacy rates are higher than the sub-Saharan average, with males at 95% and females at an 83% literacy rate (United Nations, 2012). Swaziland has a literacy rate of 83.1% for persons older than 15 years of age and 45.18% for persons older than 65 (United Nations, 2012). In Namibia the literacy rate among the youth is 94.42%, while the adult literacy rate is lower, at 88.27% (United Nations, 2012). 24 In South Africa, Limpopo has the highest number of people aged 20 years and older who have had no schooling 17,3%, followed by Mpumalanga (14.1%) and North West (11.8%) (Stats SA, 2012). The Western Cape has the lowest number of people (2.7%) of 20 years and older, who have had no formal education or schooling in South Africa, followed by Gauteng (3.7%) and the Free State (7.1%).

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Photograph 3.16 Using a black board Photograph 3.17 In Imbeleko we gave each group a to display the prompt for the PRA-group printed version of the prompt for the PRA-group discussion, indigenous pathways to discussion, Gauteng (2013) resilience Mpumalanga (2012)

Photograph 3.18 We displayed the prompt per Photograph 3.19 We used multiple PRA-group discussion prominently, Imbeleko, languages and examples of structuring a group Gauteng (2013) answer on a poster, Imbeleko, Gauteng (2013)

During the participatory data-generation sessions a researcher and translator stand in a central position between groups and verbally pose a particular question to all of the groups. The researcher asks the question in English. The translator repeats the question in the dominant language used in that particular setting. The prompt is either printed on the poster, on a separate sheet of paper or displayed in a central position in the venue (Photographs 3.16–3.19). The respective groups then consult amongst themselves in their home language to arrive at their response. A member of each group writes or draws their group’s response on a poster (Photographs 3.20 and 3.21). When each group has reached consensus on their combined answer, they present their answer verbally to all the other groups (Photographs 3.22, 3.23, 3.24 and 3.25). This participatory reflection and action group discussion rhythm resulted in spaces where participants could generate data inductively in groups. Without our having planned this deliberately, the method also enabled preferred processes of consultation and consensus to be embedded in data-generation processes (which I discuss in the next chapter). After analysing the data, we noticed the centrality of consulta-

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Photograph 3.20 Older women consulting Photograph 3.21 Young women deliberating among themselves as to their answer, Imbeleko over their answer, Indigenous Pathways to Namibia (2014) Resilience, Limpopo (2012)

Photograph 3.22 STAR-teachers presenting their consensus answer on observational data they generated, Eastern Cape (2008)

Photograph 3.23 Young men in Swaziland presenting the consensus answer from their Group, Imbeleko (2013)

tion and consensus among participants as Ubuntu pathways to decisionmaking. We realised that this data-generation method mirrored a finding on privilege attached to consultation and consensus among indigenous participants, for example, during flocking processes to appraise risk and decide on social support. Thus, participatory group discussions appeared to affirm dominant Afrocentric epistemological ways of knowing and making sense of knowledge in the non-Western spaces in which we partnered. We found that the methodological strength of using participatory group

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Photograph 3.24 A presentation by the older Photograph 3.25 After presentation the women group, Imbeleko, Namibia (2014) generated data is displayed to be visible to all, indigenous pathways to resilience, Limpopo (2012)

discussions is that collectivism is valued and leveraged as socio-cultural capital when eliciting emic insights. Multiple researchers observed the data-generation processes. While groups were absorbed in discussions, researchers walked among them and observed the interaction. Researchers did not prompt or intervene in group discussions. Participants were engrossed in their consultations and, for the most part, appeared undisturbed by researchers glancing over shoulders, taking photographs, making notes and listening in on conversations (which researchers generally could not understand as they mostly did not speak the regional languages). We documented our multiple observations textually and visually using field notes, researcher journals, photographs and audio recordings (Harper, 2005; Liebenberg, 2009). We found that observation as context of interaction, as described by Angrosino and Mays de Pérez (2000), fitted best with the mode of observation required in these inductive data-generation studies. The emphasis during observation was on fitting into the ebb and flow between participant-observer and observer-participant. In these case study partnerships we live in an in-between space of belonging. We are neither absolute outsiders, and nor are we wholly insiders. Teachers, for example, started introducing us as ‘family’ to community members. As I noted earlier, newcomers were welcomed to families of participant-insiders as a consequence of association. Yet, we were not part of the primary insider group who can speak an indigenous language with ease and share the same burdens and joys of living in the same neighbourhood or village. An example of navigating this netherworld of belonging, yet not belonging is what we’ve come to refer to as the ‘burgers-and-fries story’. As I alluded to with Photograph 3.6, food is fundamental to research in Southern Africa (Hatting & Swart, 2016). Not only does it pay homage to a culture of sharing. Food is also an essential in communities with severe challenges, where hunger is a primary indicator of poverty and deprivation (Stats SA, 2017). Every time we meet with participants, we share a meal. At first we wanted to emulate a kind of ‘brown-

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Photograph 3.26 Sharing a meal during data Photograph 3.27 Ronél and Mandisa Generation, Imbeleko, Namibia (2014) Mtshiselwa (a teacher participant) connecting over a meal during STAR data generation, Eastern Cape (2009)

bag lunch’.25 We soon learned, however, that eating together needs to be savoured as spaces for connecting, not working; just being (women) together, sharing recipes, telling stories of our children, comforting each other during times of grief and fear and anger, celebrating birthdays and weddings and births (Photographs 3.26 and 3.27). For many years Ronél and I made sure that funding budgets included costing that enabled us to buy participants burgers, fries and fizzy drinks from a well-known South African fast food chain. We assumed that this would be an extravagance, a treat to show our appreciation of teacher engagement in the partnership. As we strategised with teachers during the phase when they were going to become the trainers of other teachers in STAR, one teacher stated: ‘And enough with the takeaways from XXX. Our people want chicken and bread.’ This incident affirmed many emic-etic discourses: assumptions of what is viewed as valued in certain contexts, the porous nature of entering and exiting spaces, the arrogance and paternalism of colonial power, and the condescension of privilege. We learned to ask rather than to tell. According to guidelines for trustworthy transcriptions (Davidson, 2009; MacLean, Meyer, & Estable, 2004) a trained transcriber (conversant in the spoken and 25 I enjoyed this workspace intersection of socialising, working and networking to which I was introduced when I was a visiting associate professor in the Department of Psychology and ‘Emotions Lab’ of the then Dean of Graduate Students, Peter Salovey at Yale University (2001).

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written indigenous language in which the data was generated), transcribed the audio recordings of the presentations made by groups verbatim. Another trained translator, conversant in both the spoken and written versions of the indigenous language and English, translated the verbatim transcription into English. In Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko the English translations were then back-translated from English into the indigenous language by another trained translator (Chen & Boore, 2010; Choi, Kushner, Mill, & Lai, 2012; Van Nes et al., 2010). Multiple coders participated in thematic analysis (Atkinson & Delamont, 2005; Braun & Clarke, 2006; Fereday & Muir-Cochrane, 2008) of the English versions of the back-translated transcriptions, visual data of participatory posters, as well as observations in researcher diaries and photographs. In building the indigenous theory from the case study data (Eisenhardt, 1989), the core of the analysis was to develop concepts and indicators. Thus our analysis was informed by work relating to constant comparison(Glaser, 1978; Strauss & Corbin, 1990), and especially by positions on analysis from a constructivist position (Charmaz, 2000). In the Imbeleko and Indigenous Pathways to Resilience studies we used in-case and cross-case analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) to understand emerged themes according to age, gender, ethnicity and region. Our analytical framework was that of relevant psychology and resilience theoretical knowledge bases, as explained in this and the previous chapter. In each of the case studies we used member-checking to gain an understanding of the perspective of participants regarding the results of our analysis. We followed iterative processes to generate inclusion and exclusion criteria (Babbie & Mouton, 2001). Thus the thematic analysis in each case study included iterative processes of open and axial coding to establish categories and determine their relation to one another. We used open coding for a close examination of data sources to name and eventually code data. With regard to axial coding, we deliberated how some categories connect with other categories to derive subthemes and themes on indigenous pathways to resilience. In this way we were able to determine what constituted core categories and what existed as subsidiary to the core. In the chapters that follow I describe how propositions on flocking as a pathway to resilience is the result of our analysis to explore the conditions, contexts, interactional strategies and consequences of distinct categories.

3.6 The Ethics of ‘Us’ and ‘Others’: Learning to Document Together As I alluded to earlier, when selecting observation as context of interaction (Angrosino & Mays de Pérez, 2000), we would overreach ourselves if we claimed uninterrupted insider status at sites. Even though we collaborated with participants over many years, for the most part researchers and participants retained outsider positions in the continued disparate lives that prevail in unequal structures. In my anecdotes of newcomers being ‘welcomed into the family’, it is clear that a social identity

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Photograph 3.28 Participants wearing their Photograph 3.29 STAR researchers and STAR school-based t-shirts, STAR colloquium participants at the book launch, (2013) (2009)

did form in the research partnerships. Affiliation and association with any one of the projects served as bridging to access social groupings and behaviours (Angrosino & Mays de Pérez, 2000). Evidence of bonding is for example visible in the STAR study (see Photographs 3.28 and 3.29). This bonding is evident in previously mentioned kinship experiences of eating and sharing life stories and deciding on a name for a project together (STAR name-giving). Bonding was also apparent in STAR researchers’ and participants’ wearing ‘branded’ project clothing items, celebrating research moments to mark milestones, and disseminating knowledge together, either to teachers at other schools, parents and caregivers, education district officials, local authorities, policymakers at national level, or co-presenting at international conferences (Ferreira, Ebersöhn, Dyasi, Mtshiselwa, & Loots, 2011). Shared gender may also have had a positive effect on bonding in STAR. A poignant womanhood moment was when teachers shared Xhosa beliefs and rituals on becoming pregnant with a boy. When Ronél became pregnant with her son we all teased, laughed and rejoiced at the faith and hope that underpins myths and views on pregnancy and motherhood. In some cases the bridging spilled over into private-life spaces, and did not remain confined within the boundaries of research spaces. In 2012 the teacher who initially distrusted our presence in schools, phoned me from the Eastern Cape to ask if I could visit her daughter in hospital in Pretoria.26 In another instance our families all visited with Thembi Dyasi and Mandisa Mtshiselwa, teacher-collaborators who had become friends over the many years of partnering together to make sense of resilience in schools in challenged settings (Photograph 3.30). As I recounted in the previous chapter, a consequence of colonial history is multilingualism skewed in favour of Western worldviews and languages. When attempting to document emic knowledge together with indigenous participants this becomes a tightrope act of navigating between acknowledging otherness and steering clear of ‘othering’ (Gabriel, 2003). Mostly researchers and participants did not converse in 26 She remains a staunch collaborator and is currently involved in a new study on social connectedness as pathway to teacher resilience (2018–2020).

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Photograph 3.30 Creating non-research moments with Thembi Dyasi and Mandisa Mtshiselwa visiting from the Eastern Cape (2010)

their home languages. In some cases members of our research team also spoke the language used in participatory reflection and action group conversations.27 In cars travelling to and from research venues, Ronél and I would plan, debrief and reflect 27 Maria Mnguni completed both her Master’s and doctoral studies in the STAR study. Her home language is isiZulu and although she does not speak isiXhosa, given the Nguni heritage of both languages, she could follow conversations among isiXhosa and Siswati teachers in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. Bathsheba Mbongwe hails from Botswana. As a Setswana- and English-speaking researcher in STAR she was mostly unable to follow typically isiXhosa- and Siswati-dominated conversations in the Eastern Cape and Mpumalanga. In the Imbeleko team, besides the habitual English, several researchers spoke a variety of Southern African indigenous languages and had the same indigenous socio-cultural heritage as the people at several Imbeleko sites. Motlalepule Ruth Mampane was raised in rural Limpopo and her home language is Sepedi, resonating with the language and heritage backgrounds of participants in Limpopo, Gauteng and North West. Tebogo Tsebe was raised in the North West and his home language is Setswana, resonating with the language and heritage backgrounds of participants in Limpopo, Gauteng and North West. Maximus Monaheng Sefotho and Maitumeleng NthoNtho both have their roots in Lesotho, with Sesotho as their home language, resonating with the language and heritage backgrounds of participants in Lesotho, Gauteng, North West and the Free State. Tebuhleni Nxumalo was born in Swaziland, with Siswati as her home language, resonating with the language and heritage backgrounds of participants in Swaziland and the Eastern Cape. I myself and Dr. Tilda Loots have Afrikaans backgrounds, which assisted us in Namibia, where Afrikaans was one of the dominant home languages of participants.

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on what we had observed, thought and how we made sense of data in Afrikaans. I wrote in my researcher journal in Afrikaans. When I conceptualised how the data showed patterns of a very particular pathway to resilience, it was in Afrikaans. The same trend was observable among participants. When they spoke about processes, discussed answers, and shared insights, it was in their home language. We had no inkling of what was said. During the phase investigating the fidelity of STAR, the teachers trained other teachers in STAR in isiXhosa or Siswati. None of us had discussed this prior to the implementation of STAR. It occurred naturally as a familiar expression of who and how participants ‘are together’ culturally and professionally (in the same way Ronél and I, being Afrikaans-speaking researchers, logically conversed in Afrikaans when we ‘were together’. I noted in my researcher journal that ‘we have become wallflowers. We are superfluous. We make tea. We serve lunch. We are called to take photographs of posters and certificate ceremonies’ (Researcher diary, STAR, 9 September 2008). In joint spaces we (researchers and participants) spoke English, not the language of our hearts and minds and experiences. We shared conversations in English; this language we were socialised into viewing as currency for mobility and status and ‘civilisation’ and convenience.28 This way of living with ease in dual spaces of Western and non-Western is familiar to most citizens in a postcolonial habitus, which some would argue is characteristic of globalisation and decolonisation (Brewer, 2013; Chambers, 2010; Coburn, 2013; Harry, 2011). Yet, when the intention is deliberately to elicit emic views the inability to speak the same language as participants when they convey their experiences limits the depth of engagement, nuances of data shared, and capacity to gain deep insight into that which matters (Squires, 2009). Language, after all, carries culture. This reminds one of the well-established relativism associated with the crisis of representation (Fine, Weis, Weseen, & Wong, 2000; Smith & Hodkinson, 2005). In the end, when researchers do not speak, nor understand the language in which data is generated, data is fractional and trustworthiness becomes questionable. Where researchers and participants do not speak the same language neither researchers nor the participants are able to clarify knowledge authentically. The process of generating knowledge becomes a quagmire of potential misunderstanding or misrepresentation. The effect of this on the trustworthiness of data is that data is compromised when questions are developed at times when data is generated. Confirmability is compromised when researchers cannot monitor verbatim transcriptions and translations (Choi et al., 2012; MacLean et al., 2004), or audit dependable and mutual understanding during member-checking discussions (Carlson, 2010). At each of these intersections there is the potential for ‘watered-down’ versions of what participants chose to share, putting the credibility of data at risk. 28 My grandmother had to wear donkey’s ears in school when she spoke Afrikaans. She had to speak English. So successful was her socialisation into what is ‘revered’ that she preferred to be called Kitty rather than by her Afrikaans name, Katerina. She also became an English teacher, fiercely strict with us about being well spoken and well read in this language of ‘the enemy’. She never could forget nor forgive that the British had imprisoned her mother and cousins in a concentration camp during the South African War.

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Even though we could speak English, share meals, and celebrate milestones, the otherness of researchers and of participants in a highly unequal society is an emotional reminder of being polar opposites on the inequality spectrum. In all cases researchers denoted the privilege of educational opportunities and class. Given the sampling criteria in generating knowledge with indigenous Southern Africans in challenged contexts, participants denoted the lack of opportunities associated with race, ethnicity and class in a transforming society. In some cases, where researchers were ‘mlungu’,29 the gauge of otherness and power increased exponentially. Mlunguness, or whiteness, signifies oppression, engineered intergenerational opportunity and beneficiaries of resource distribution considering the structural imbalance. In other cases, researchers were ‘makwerekwere’.30 Besides the privilege of class, their signature otherness is that they are foreigners. The isolation of apartheid resulted in ignorance and unfamiliarity among South Africans about other cultures in Africa. Research members who were Nigerian, Batswana or Zimbabwean carried the social burden of ‘makwerekwere’ stereotyping. An outlier stereotypical attribute of ‘makwerekwere’ would be that ‘they’ took scarce job opportunities because of an unfair advantage, previously having had opportunities not open to Africans, people of their race, in South Africa. Xenophobia has increased significantly worldwide (United Nations, 2016), not only in Southern Africa (Tella, 2016). Migration globally means that societies around the world are characterised by displaced people living as immigrants, migrant workers or refugees (United Nations, 2017). As I stated, it would be ignorant of members of the research team to assume insider status based on race or gender or ethnicity or nationality.

3.7 The Relevance of the Story A conversation about insider-outsider positioning also implies a parallel conversation on research relevance. The lenses we used to generate data prescribe how to evaluate the relevance of data, as well as the indigenous theory we built from the data. I take my cue to judge data (and findings) from trustworthiness criteria for rigour (Guba & Lincoln, 2005; Lincoln & Guba, 1985) and I use these, in Schwandt’s (1996) postpositivist discourse, as guiding ideals to evaluate rigour. The combination of these ideals give guidance to establish confidence in the ‘believability’ of the data. Given the political, transformational nature of indigenous research, an essential criterion to evaluate findings is the relevance of the findings (Kovach, 2010; Wilson, 2001). Specifically what matters is the relevance of findings for participants with whom and the context wherein the particular case studies were situated. I agree with those who argue that such relevance is equal to truth, in a fallibilistic sense (Hammersley, 29 Mlungu: term used in the context of interaction between black and white South Africans to refer to a white person. 30 Makwerekwere: the slang word used in South Africa to refer to African immigrants or foreigners from outside the country’s borders.

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1992; Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Seale, 1999). Therefore, I need to be reflexive about Hammersley’s (1992) call for relevance in studies, while I remain open to multiple perspectives of ‘truth’. Relevance manifested differently in our studies. In STAR, the mutuality and emancipatory character of participatory reflection and action was evident. Teachers developed, implemented and maintained school-based plans that enabled wellbeing and learning in school communities. Researchers and participants also studied the sustained effect of these teacher-generated interventions over time (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2011; Ferreira & Ebersöhn, 2012). There is, however, little point in conducting research where relevance does not extend beyond the local, and specifically case study, context. In both the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko studies we followed alternative pathways to impact, informed by lenses of democratising research (Ansley & Gaventa, 1997; Vallaincourt, 2006). Rather than immediate effect in the cases sampled for the study (as in STAR schools), in the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko studies the impact was aimed at community level, and policy level. The Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund hosted a regional consultative forum to disseminate the Imbeleko findings (Ebersöhn et al., 2014) to government officials and policymakers for social development and education, their regional Southern African partners,31 non-profit organisations, and researchers from various South African universities. As part of the IMAGINE team the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience researchers met with the local tribal leaders and municipal councillors for a full-day deliberation on findings, in so doing honouring a finding on hierarchical consultation (Malan van Rooyen, 2015). We explained the findings and listened to strategies by the local authority to use these findings to address issues that were raised during data generation. The local chief and his advisers reached consensus (informed by research findings) to address the challenges relating to access to and quality of water (Photographs 3.31, 3.32, 3.33 and 3.34). The publications from, and policy-level engagement because of, all three studies culminated in an example of relevance at policy level (Hammersley, 1992). In 2016–2017 I formed part of a team of education researchers in South Africa who drafted the National Policy for Rural Education in South Africa, which was gazetted in 201832 (Department of Basic Education, 2018).

31 Red Cross (Lesotho), Save the Children (Swaziland), Church Alliance for Orphans (Namibia), Albertina Sisulu Special School (Gauteng), Diaz Primary School (Eastern Cape), Sepanapudi Traditional Authority (Limpopo), Emang Basadi Advocacy and Lobby Organisation (North West). 32 A National Rural Education Research Team was established in April 2016, under the leadership of the Acting Director of the Rural Education Directorate, Dr. Phumzile Langa, and was composed of seven members who were appointed by the Minister of Basic Education. The Ministerial Committee consisted of: Prof. Relibohile Moletsane (Chairperson); Prof. Liesel Ebersöhn; Dr. Adele Gordon; Dr. Dipane Hlalele; Mr. Paul Kgobe; Dr. Thomas Mabasa; and Dr. T. Nkambule.

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Photograph 3.31 Co-deciding on an agenda meeting with tribal and local authorities, Limpopo (2013)

Photograph 3.32 A joint meeting at the offices of local authorities to discuss findings and consult on pathways to impact, Limpopo (2013)

Photograph 3.33 Researchers mapping their response to an item on the joint agenda, Limpopo (2013)

Photograph 3.34 Tribal leaders and district officials discussing their response to an item on the joint agenda, Limpopo (2013)

3.8 Validating What We Learned with Others In each of the case studies we used member validation to reinforce the authenticity and credibility of data and findings. Lincoln and Guba (1985: 34) have argued that member validation is ‘the most crucial technique for establishing credibility’ and authenticity. After analysis, researchers visited each site in every study to share the results with participants. Only after member-validation sessions did researchers engage in the literature control of validated results, and write-up of findings. This provided an opportunity for participants to indicate their agreement or disagreement with results. We also created spaces where participants could share their opinions about how they, their knowledge and experiences are represented in the findings. In STAR we also hosted annual colloquia so that teachers from different schools and provinces could discuss their different views of findings. As indicated in Photogrpah 3.29 teachers participated in a book launch (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012) to share their

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views of findings. Besides member-validation sessions with participants to discuss results, as indicated above, we also discussed findings with education officials in STAR, with local chiefs in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and with NMCF partners in Imbeleko. Member validation provides proof that the relationship-resourced resilience case study data is authentic and presents a fair range of different realities (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Authenticity is significant as principles of democratising research underpins indigenous research. Therefore, the endeavour of indigenous research is to document alternative sources of knowledge and is an exercise in social research as emancipation. Authenticity of findings is therefore central to evaluating the rigour of case study data that prop up the relationship-resourced resilience theory. Educative authenticity (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) of findings is evident as member-validation sessions in each of the case studies where teachers, elders, young people, cultural and professional leadership, as well as researchers could listen to, appreciate and integrate different viewpoints. Catalytic and tactical authenticity is evident in STAR initiatives where teachers were motivated and enabled to act based on their sharing of different ideas, and they moreover spurred each other on to persevere in school-based support activities. That the tribal chief and council in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience became motivated to formulate an action plan to address water issues indicates catalytic authenticity. In Imbeleko the catalytic authenticity is shown at policy level, where the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund was inspired to disseminate findings in government departments. Ontological authenticity is present in the sophisticated sharing of a range of unfamiliar findings and concepts during colloquia in STAR, local government meetings in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience, and policy-level discussions in Imbeleko.

3.9 The Credibility of Our Learning The prolonged nature of engagement in each of the three participatory reflection and action case studies enhanced the credibility of the relationship-resourced resilience theory’s findings (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). Indigenous Pathways to Resilience stretched over a period of 24 months, with 10 days per site (see Table 1.1). The length of time in the field was the shortest for Imbeleko, with a one-day, or eighthour, visit to each site to generate data and another half-day, or three-hour, visit to each site after analysis for member validation. In STAR the length of time in the field was the longest. At the one end of engagement in STAR there were 28 quarterly visits over a seven-year period to one peri-urban primary school in the Eastern Cape. At the other end of the spectrum of engagement in STAR there were four quarterly visits to a peri-urban high school in the Eastern Cape. Persistent observation over time by multiple researchers also enriches the credibility of the relationship-resourced resilience theory’s findings. Each investigator documented their own notations, guided by the principles of observation as context of interaction (Angrosino & Rosenberg, 2011). We documented observations in

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field notes and researcher journals, which the multiple investigators integrated into one electronic document or book. We also documented our multiple observations as visual data by means of photographs and audio-visual recordings of the site and data-generation sessions (Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005; Liebenberg, 2009; Harper, 2005). Rather than triangulation, I prefer, in indigenous research, using the notion of crystallisation (Janiseck, 2000; Richardson, 1994) from an interpretivist position. This follows as I subscribe to the notion that indigenous research is about mapping different views rather than views that converge on ‘truth’. In each of the case studies crystallisation occurred in terms of data, investigator, theory and methodology. Crystallisation enhanced the credibility of findings as it enabled me to establish trust in the trustworthiness of findings by participants with whom and in whose context the studies were conducted. Crystallisation of data sources is visible in the inclusion of participants representative of diversity in gender, age, and indigenous languages. We generated data that depict several resilience-enabling instances in several different settings and spaces. These Southern African settings include instances of flocking in four countries (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho and Swaziland), settings on the urban-rural continuum (urban, peri-urban, rural and remote), as well as institutionalised settings (schools) and everyday community life settings in urbanised neighbourhoods (Namibia, Eastern Cape and Gauteng) and rural towns (North West, Limpopo), and villages (Swaziland). In addition, given the prolonged engagement of participatory reflection and action studies, crystallised instances of data represent different points over time. The result is richer descriptions of multiple indigenous perspectives of resilience. Besides impacting positively on the credibility of the relationship-resourced resilience theory, transferability is also strengthened because of these different data sources. Team research means that investigator crystallisation is evident to strengthen the credibility of the relationship-resourced resilience theory. In each study there were multiple observers in the field. Personal bias could be reduced as the research team engaged in continuing discussion on points of difference and similarity. During site visits this consultation occurred every evening after generating data with participants. The iterative nature of data generation and analysis (Atkinson & Delamont, 2005) also meant that our investigator consultations continued in cars, in offices back at universities and during team meetings. Theory crystallisation is apparent in some of the descriptions on the sequencing of the three studies earlier in this chapter. Theoretical assumptions used in studies subsequent to STAR include: (i) relationships are present as socio-cultural capital on which indigenous people draw for resilience, and (ii) adaptation processes in indigenous pathways to resilience graft onto relationship networks to share scarce resources in order to mitigate the impact of chronic and cumulative risks. An explicit example is how we used Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck (2011) to direct the studies of doctoral students in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience. We approached data generation and analysis with several theoretical assumptions, namely: flocking is evident in the appraisal processes of indigenous pathways to resilience (Mohammed, 2017); flocking is indicated in adaptive coping processes of indigenous pathways to

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resilience (Malan van Rooyen, 2015); and, in Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko studies, flocking manifests in positive wellbeing experiences. In Imbeleko a central theoretical assumption was that relationships are instrumental as indigenous pathway to leverage and mobilise existing resources. As discussed earlier, we used both participatory reflection and action-group discussions together with consistent observation. This multiplication of methods enabled methodological crystallisation and helped to deepen understanding of the different aspects of flocking.

3.10 The Transferability of Our Learning Providing appropriate, detailed descriptions of settings and data-generation processes enhances the transferability of findings. Thick and rich descriptions (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005) of settings studied (as opposed to ‘thin’, superficial, irrelevant depictions) need to provide sufficient information to judge the applicability of findings to other settings. The long periods of fieldwork and our resultant ‘immersion’ as investigators in the various settings with indigenous people provided us with opportunities to describe the detail of settings at an acceptable level and thus achieve thick descriptions. This facilitates the transferability of the theory as the nuanced descriptions assists with determining the extent to which findings are transferable to other contexts or with other participants. The guideline here was for me to provide sufficient detail in every chapter about the context of events so that readers can vicariously experience what is was like to be in the setting. Throughout this book I needed to reveal and build on many-layered interpretations of social life, made possible by crystallisation strategies, so that rich and detailed understanding of several meanings are available to the reader relating to the peculiarities of indigenous pathways to resilience. For theoretical generalisation to be possible I needed to give an idea of the empirical typicality of the setting so that readers can transfer findings through a ‘thought experiment’ (Seale, 1999).

3.11 The Dependability of Our Learning Dependability is facilitated by expressing different accounts (as discussed under crystallisation) to give prominence to multiple realities in indigenous research (Guba & Lincoln, 2005). I have been intentional in stating that my depiction of our multiple investigator analysis of generated data is obviously merely a selection of possible versions. Attempting to attain consensus would be nonsensical in indigenous research and would at best be artificial. We achieved dependability of findings by using auditing. Earlier examples of auditing include our use of both multiple investigators in each team-based study for ongoing deliberation of methodological decisions (signifying, in post positivist

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terms, interrater reliability), as well as participant-researchers and peer examination in the form of member validation to determine if participants see data similarly as researchers. I also show data in the book. I use transcriptions of verbatim accounts as well as photographs of the settings as low inference descriptors of the data that was generated. For increased dependability of findings we also mechanically recorded observation data, as well as participatory reflection and action-group discussions, using audio and video recordings. We have an audit trail depicting the documentation of data, the methods used, as well as decisions we made during the project and of the product (the indigenous theory built from the case study data). Auditing the presence of multiple researchers in the three studies buttresses the dependability of the theory. The many researchers in the three studies maintained their own individual researcher journals, in which we captured our detailed and exact observations in field notes, together with reflexivity accounts of our interpretations during the studies (Richardson & Adams St. Pierre, 2005). We used reflexivity for our compound methodological self-accounts. Reflexivity assisted with establishing how participants and conditions of inquiry determined findings, and not the combined bias, motivations, interests, or perspectives of us as inquirers.

3.12 Conclusion In this chapter I used methodological reflections to attend to cultural and contextual propositions of the relationship-resourced resilience theory. I shared how, in crafting studies, we were intentional with regard to the data we wanted to generate to develop the theory as it emerged. We were deliberate about the participants we included for indigenous knowledge and regarding contexts of challenge we selected for resilience perspectives. I recounted how we contemplated which groups or subgroups we turned to sequentially for multiple case studies on resilience, given extreme adversity from an indigenous stance. I explained how theoretical purpose directed methodological decisions to select from an infinite choice of groups. For example, we wanted sampled cases to extend beyond (predominantly) female teachers and school-based intervention designs. The cases in the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience and Imbeleko studies provided more variation regarding Southern African indigenous groups, and included cases beyond South Africa, more males and younger people. For a perspective of indigenous pathways to resilience in challenged postcolonial spaces, the included cases signify indigenous people who experience severe risk and need and exclude cases of indigenous people from higher socio-economic classes who are not experiencing the brunt of inequality-related risk and therefore need less. Naturally the size and characteristics of the sample limit the transferability of the theory (Hays & Woolley, 2000; Wilig, 2008). The convenient sampling of participants resulted in a sample biased towards regional ethnicity, lower socio-economic class, rurality, unemployment, and an oversampling of women and youth. The overrepresentation of women and elders in the sample (of especially the Imbeleko and Indigenous Pathways to Resilience studies) is understandable given that there is

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less young and middle-aged men than women who reside in South African remote settings (Richter et al., 2010). By implication insights on indigenous pathways to resilience with positive wellbeing outcomes that are excluded are those of people with indigenous roots (i) from other South African ethnic origins, (ii) from different classes, (iii) who live in urban environments, or (iv) who are employed. Therefore we acknowledge that there may be variability in pathways to resilience amongst Southern African indigenous groups. There may be drastic differences in pathways to resilience when the Southern African sample is extended to represent diversity of class, race, and ethnicity. Or if more men are included. Besides sampling delimitations, other methodological decisions also set limits when the theory is read. The use of participatory methods precludes individual perspectives. The questions we asked assumed the presence of salutogenic-fortegenic (Antonovsky, 1987) adaptive outcomes despite the harshness of risk. The pool of researchers signifies limitations with regards to language and shared cultural heritages. The rationale for transferability is that theoretical statements have to become convincing in the way they are linked to life experiences familiar to many. Within the boundaries of the data a proposition is that relationship-resourced resilience could prove to have utility as exemplar of a pathway to resilience among individuals and groups with cultural and contextual similarities. In the book I therefore provide plentiful examples of general concepts related to the theory, together with illustrative examples.

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Chapter 4

Being a Good Neighbour: The Interdependent Culturally Salient Beliefs and Practices of Flocking

Abstract In this chapter I describe significant interdependent cultural beliefs and practices that inform flocking processes. I therefore engage with the proposition that, despite cultural marginalisation, interdependent cultural beliefs and practices continue to inform resilience responses to structural marginalisation. In addition, the interdependent cultural beliefs and practices predispose the choice of flocking as a preferred pathway to resilience. Accordingly, I substantiate the claim that cultural beliefs and practice act as interdependent bias to opt for flocking to resile, and that flocking processes reflect interdependent beliefs and practices. To this end I describe relevant ancestral beliefs and practices that underpin flocking as interdependent pathway to resilience. As an interdependent worldview, Ubuntu scripts preferred kinship-system pathways that buffer against inequality and buoy better than expected communal wellbeing outcomes. I begin by explaining how, from an interdependent self-construal, ‘being in need’ and ‘providing help’ are viewed pragmatically and positively as interconnected ways of living that constitute a collective raison d’être. I then explain how assumptions regarding communality, interdependence (rather than chronic dependence) and reciprocity form a collectivist foundation that predicts social support that are resilience-enabling. I describe how social support is structured around beliefs and practices that revere hierarchical decision-making, consultation and consensus. I propose that new pathways for democratic engagement requires that indigenous practices be adapted. Keywords Ubuntu · Collectivism · Kinship · Interdependent self-construal · In-group · Harmony control · Other-focused social goals · Socially engaged emotional expressions · Interpersonal relatedness · Gendered power structures · Consultation · Consensus

4.1 All Protocols Observed In this chapter I engage with that which is viewed as everyday magic (Masten, 2001) in an interdependent, Afrocentric space (and thus expected norms and standards of resilience-enabling socio-ecological processes). It is commonplace to attend a meet© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_4

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ing in Southern Africa where the chair, speaker or presenter will open a gathering by using the nomenclature: ‘all protocols observed’. Ungar (2011) explains that navigation indicates personal agency to move towards available and accessible resources in a given context and negotiation includes the meaning that individuals (independently or in groups) ascribe to available resources. In this section I explain that despite continued cultural mismatch in a postcolonial space, indigenous cultural values and beliefs continue to inform powerful cultural protocols for collective navigation and negotiation. I maintain that these age-old standards are also observed when social support is used as pathway to resilience. These include resilience-enabling tenets of values and practices ascribed to viewing both need and assistance as normative existential states that bolster positive wellbeing experiences despite severe hardship. I also provide evidence of resilience-enabling values and practices related to kinship system beliefs—on which I expound in the next chapter. It became evident that interdependent, collectivism remained a privileged belief system among indigenous people in Southern Africa. Collectivism is at the core of discourse by the elders and young people, as well as men and women along the urban–rural continuum. Evidence of independent identity (Yeh, Lai, & Ho, 2006) is absent in the flocking-case study data, possibly indicating that despite the effects of globalisation the centre of indigenous knowledge remains essentially influenced by collectivist socio-cultural beliefs.

4.1.1 We are Born Because We are Needed, and We Die Because We are Needed It was apparent that an interdependent, collectivist belief system frames ‘help and need’ as positive existential experiences. Taking care of others has a spiritual element as it is a way to demonstrate one reveres the sacredness of life (Masango, 2005): It is when a person is needed. It is our view in Setswana that a person that is born, in the end he will have to go. This is why we had the definition that a person is needed when they are born… That is how we defined it. There is a need for this person to go. That is why we say in Setswana that before they go, and get into the second journey, we say they are identified by gods. Those signs that the person is about to go there. They are identified. We need them on earth, and they are needed by the dead (North West, Older Men: 7–20). This is synonymous with views on interdependent self-construal, a view of the self often the norm for the majority of indigenous populations in Asia, Africa, South America and the Pacific Islands (Juslin, Barradas, Ovsiannikow, Limmo, & Thompson, 2016; Markus & Kitayama, 1998). Interdependent self-construal denotes a variable self that views a person as nested in a social network defined by significant relationships, group affiliations, social positions and social roles are rooted within a community (Markus & Kitayama, 1991). From this self-perception, collective values

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are moderately more important than individual characteristics, beliefs and attitudes (Cross, Gore, & Morris, 2003; Singelis, 1994). This existential refrain underpins a collectivist belief of what ‘a good life’ requires. From an interdependent, Ubuntu view quality of life—indicated by subjective wellbeing, life satisfaction and happiness (Møller and Dickow, 2002)—entails that people are aware of the needs of others and act on this awareness by assisting in whatever way one can: If someone need help, we help (Mpumalanga, Younger Men: 303). This awareness and action inspired by need does not end with life. As is evident in other interdependent cultures (African, Aboriginal, Chinese), ancestors are revered (Markus & Kitayama, 1994). In flocking-case study data an expressed belief is that physical life ends when the ancestors need one; there is continuity in existence, as signified by the need of others. In the afterlife, as an ancestor yourself, you continue to contribute by assisting where other ancestors need you. (The classic ‘circle of life’ popularised by a little animated lion in a film): Our belief as Basotho is that when one has died, he does not end there. Where he is going, he will do something. We would lay him and give him seed so that when he gets there he will do the job of seeding and remember us (Lesotho, Older Women: 107–111); According to our culture and the way we were brought up, our parents assisted each other. They were neighbourly (Limpopo, Older Women: 16–18). Quality of life indicates the global wellbeing of individuals in various life domains (Higgs, 2007; McCoy & Filson, 1996), including the domains of material welfare, health, productivity, intimacy, security, status in society and emotional wellbeing (Best, Cummins, & Lo, 2000). Westaway and Gumede (2001) note that besides health status and wellbeing, quality of life also includes personal ratings of (i) quality of and satisfaction with life, together with (ii) satisfaction with the environmental quality of life (indicated by housing, schools, health services, safety and security, roads and transport). From a collectivist viewpoint, quality of life implies being vigilant, to observe where people are experiencing need. When such instances are identified, and you can respond to the need, you are granted the gift of demonstrating how you live your life with meaning. The implication is that you do not have an individual choice when you observe need: your life is scripted to provide help. This is not optional. It is expected. Such cultural predisposition to be responsive to vulnerability appears to be resilience-enabling in a space of extreme inequality. It assists with identifying where social support is needed and also provides an imperative for people to share social resources as normative. To understand how positive wellbeing is conceptualised from an indigenous perspective, we asked in the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study: ‘When you go to bed at night and you close your eyes, and you go to sleep, and you think of everything that has happened that day, what makes you think, ‘this was a good day’? One of the older women in Limpopo answered:

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Is that she was living good with the community when alive. And that she loves all people equally and helps the wealthy and poor without undermining people’s values … every person is important to the community they [are] living at. Whether their work is good or bad (Limpopo, Older Women: 990–995). Both need and assistance are framed positively and pragmatically as communal experiences. In this regard some have also found that solidarity becomes amplified in times of need (Gale & Bolzan, 2013), and sharing of capacity (Tait & Whiteman, 2011) takes place (indicators of flocking as pathway to resilience): You help your neighbour when they are in need (Swaziland, Older Men: 3–4); We identify the need with the neighbour. We will respond to the need (Namibia, Older Men: 10–11); When you see a neighbour struggling, even if they did not call you … you go to them and help (North West, Older Women: 35–37). Need is framed as a pragmatic communal experience as it is accepted (even predicted) as inevitable: everyone will experience moments of need in their lives. Collective assistance is framed pragmatically as the belief is that everyone will have some capacity to assist those in need, whatever the circumstances relating to the need or the availability of resources. Oh, Chung, and Labianca (2004) note that the guideline is not to provide beyond your means, but rather to be innovative in how you assist. Need is framed positively as it affords others opportunities to live a life of purpose: to respond to need that you and your family are experiencing with the knowledge that, somewhere in the future, you will be able to reciprocate. Collective assistance is framed positively as a chance to demonstrate you are living a life with meaning: You can also keep your ear on the ground for them so they can return the favour next time (North West, Younger Men: 92–94). To be in a position where you can provide assistance is fortuitous. You can answer that you recognise and are able to respond to the call of your birth: I live because I am needed. ‘Being in need’ is therefore not conceptualised as shameful, as I have quoted before: You can go to your neighbour and say: ‘Neighbour, my children do not have this.’ Or: ‘Isn’t there tea here?’ That is something that we grew up knowing. We knew that very well. So we could support each other (Gauteng, Older Women: 78–81). Instead ‘being in need’ is posited as unavoidable. ‘Being in need’ does not necessarily imply despair either. Being in need denotes the expectation of receiving assistance. Framing experiences of need positively means that ‘being in need’ is extended to include such need enabling others to exact purpose in their lives when they assist you and your loved ones when you are in need. Existentially ‘being in need’ is placed alongside ‘receiving assistance’ or an opportunity for those in your life to ‘provide assistance’. This interdependent stance differs incrementally from that of an independent self-construal. This socio-cultural view of the self ascribes dependence on others

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as embarrassing or shameful emphasising that people should be able to achieve goals or solve problems on their own without dependence of external assistance (Triandis, 2001). From an interdependent position the relationship-resourced resilience theory explains an interdependent cultural belief that being responsive to need does not constitute outlier behaviour. Assisting people who face adversity is normative and is an everyday, ordinary (Masten, 2001) resilience-enabling attitude and practice in an interdependent culture. In South Africa frequently health care (Van den Berg, 2013; Koen, van Eeden, & Rothmann, 2013) and education (Peltzer et al., 2005) therefore remain career paths that many (especially women) opt for—irrespective of high levels of burnout given the work-related demands of a high-need society. Similarly, given limited job opportunities and limitations in opportunities for training, volunteerism is a popular avenue through which to engage in fulfilling roles while also acquiring skills (Akingbola, Duguid, & Viveros, 2013). By engaging in caregiving careers one capitalises on a cultural obligation to be useful in the lives of others while experiencing optimal job satisfaction and optimising the possibility of leading a quality life. Positive psychology and collectivism converge regarding views on a meaningful life. In the former Seligman (2003) posits a meaningful life as one of authentic happiness where people invest their signature strengths in enabling wellness in the lives of others. Enabling the wellness of others is not present as an individual signature strength ‘of choice’ in an interdependent culture. Enabling communal wellness is valued as a collective obligation. Consequently it may be interesting to examine the extent to which a life lived in accordance with collectivist notions of need and help may be resilience-enabling as indicated by a life of engaged happiness.

4.1.2 Collectivism is Interconnectedness—‘A Family is a Family by Another Family’ The essence of interconnectedness is an acknowledged characteristic of interdependent, collectivist cultures (Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008; Smith, 2010; Yeh et al., 2006). In the next chapter I expand on how connectedness with other people extends beyond direct kinship: ‘a family is a family by another family’ (Gauteng, Older Women: 77). As researchers, we lived the experience of being included in a family fold. As I explained in Chapter 3, newcomers to the three studies were welcomed into ‘the family’ by virtue of their connection with other researchers with whom participants (be they teachers, or community elders) already had an established relationship of trust. An African belief system values connectedness: to others, a connection to nature and animals, and a spiritual connection. This is suggestive of a One Health philosophy to sustainability science (World Bank Group, 2018). The Ubuntu African philosophy denotes a relational ontology (Chilisa, 2012) of being with others, and

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what being with others constitutes (Louw, 2005). Ubuntu is equated with communalism, human(e)ness, interconnectedness, and collective values of wholeness and community indicated by respect, common membership of a community, and ensuring quality community life (Letseka, 2013; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). Ubuntu implies that no person can exist in isolation and consequently Ubuntu heralds the pursuit of consensus (Strümpfer, 2013). Connectedness extends beyond the realm of the living, and includes a spiritual realm. This spiritual connectedness is also evident in findings that spiritual coping reflects connectedness with others (Aspinwall, 2011), and that spirituality is resiliende-enabling in African cultures (Masango, 2006; Yeh et al., 2006), and in South Africa in particular (Demmer, 2007; Greeff & Loubser, 2008; Roos, Chigeza, & Van Niekerk, 2010). From the case study data it was apparent that spirituality is a comfortable merger between following a Western (Christian) religion and venerating ancestors: ‘You can believe in the ancestral powers and you can also believe in God’ (Mpumalanga, Older Women: 89). As I shared in the introductory chapter, the community maps of participants indicated churches as protective resources. Collectivism was thus expressed in the existential and social interconnectedness of indigenous people with each other, in their lives and afterlives. Collectivism is also apparent in actionable beliefs on communal distress and resources. Forbearance and fatalism are also present as collectivist values in other nonWest-orientated studies (Yeh et al., 2006). Both imply restraint, tolerance and selfcontrol to accept the status quo. The South African Life Trends Study (Møller, 2012) tracked the subjective wellbeing of South Africans in ten waves from 1983 to 2010. In 2010 the majority of South Africans still indicated that they would have a happier future if they had access to basic necessities, as well as income and employment. Thus the history and continued existence of age-old governance structures and pathways to support (including flocking as social support pathway) could be perceived as the collective acceptance of an inequality status, as acquiescing to limited services, submitting to injustice. Rather than actively engaging in the positive disruption of injustice, leveraging tried and trusted cultural governance practices has made it possible to live with inequality, buffering against limitations. Depending on a heritage of decision-making and resource-distribution practices has proof of concept as resilience-enabling pathways. Oppression necessitated such seemingly submissive yet pragmatically supportive action so that people could be protected against deprivation, injustice and abuse at a time when state structures did not favour them, and obtain access to water and sanitation and transport and electricity where they did not have access to these services. Arguably such potentially fatalistic acceptance of inequality could be equated with avoidance coping (Elliot, Thrash, & Murayama, 2011) or disengagement coping (Carver & Connor-Smith, 2010). Ongoing structural disparity could potentially have strengthened the continued use of these cultural governance models as they are required to structure interventions for much-needed support.

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4.2 A Good Neighbour: People Around Him Know Him by What He Has Done for the Community In this section I explain evidence of cultural beliefs and practices ascribed to ‘a good neighbour’: a socio-cultural template of resilience-enabling values and strategies that bolster better than expected outcomes for in-group members. These collectivist beliefs and practices include tenets of communality, as well as interdependence and reciprocity. The essence of an African belief system is that the world is interdependently connected (Groenewald, 1996) and communal (Motsi & Masango, 2012). Interdependence implies that relationships and mutual group habits determine the self. In collectivist fashion Ubuntu, an Afrocentric world view, provides that interaction with others makes it possible for an individual to be whole, complete. In the absence of the collective, there is no self. A neighbour is therefore not only an acquaintance with whom you have a significant relationship, but also includes other significant people in that person’s social network. The pathway to resilience implication is that involvement in one another’s lives stretches beyond a nuclear family to include extended family and members of a community (Masango, 2005): A neighbour is the person you are next to. Whether it is your next door or not (North West, Younger Women: 117–118); It is a person that you get along very well with. That is being neighbours (North West, Younger Women: 120–121). The words ‘good neighbour’ made for a predictable pattern of resilience-enabling pro-social behaviour in the beadwork of case study data. A good neighbour constitutes a person who acts in resilience-enabling ways that benefit the majority. It became apparent that a good neighbour believes, and enacts such beliefs, in communal needs and values communal resources. A good neighbour aspires for interdependence, and veers away from chronic dependence. A good neighbour looks up to a power hierarchy that is gendered and aged. A good neighbour participates in collaborative consultation and consensus processes1 : He was a good person. He helped a lot of people in the community… To give them money for school. He was the man who started the project of bricks to the village where he was staying… He was sponsoring youths by buying soccer kits for the club of S [ac]cross [the] bridge. He was a good man who was living in harmony with people. All people around him know him by what he has done to the community (Limpopo, Younger Men: 273–282).

1 In Chap. 5 I expand social connectedness—implied by collectivism and interdependence. I consider

the consequences of the ‘good neighbour beliefs’, of reciprocity, and the isolating outcomes of not complying with in-group collectivist norms and standards.

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4.2.1 Communality Beliefs: If We are United, We Have More than One Set of Hands2 Communality beliefs are a resilience-enabling extension of the cultural value placed on connectedness: Firstly, we as a community, we share. We know one another in all circumstances. We chat, we see each other, we visit each other, we love one another. We share what we have. Because we know him. We stay together (Eastern Cape, Younger Women: 63–66). Being connected to each other (in life and in afterlife) by implication also means being connected to one another’s need. Need is therefore appraised as communal: Your problem is my problem’ (North West, Older Women: 40); ‘In African tradition, whatever happens to your neighbour – death, marriage, sickness, even [if] it’s problems with children behaviour – it’s also your problem. Because tomorrow it can happen, also happen to your house (Namibia, Older Women: 119–122); You go to that neighbour’s house and you make that death your problem (Namibia, Older Women: 12–13). Like others (Nsamenang, 1996; Zimba, 2002), we found evidence that a collectivist belief that resources are shared is resilience-enabling—especially when resources are constrained. As a good neighbour believes in the communality of adversity being ‘ours’, so do good neighbours accept that the capacity and resources to address adversity are communal. Consequently subscribing to the value of communality (be it of need or resources) promises the manifestation of associated resilience-enabling social responses: sharing social resources in response to shared need to attain better than expected outcomes: When I have them, we also call them his (Lesotho, Older Men: 17–18). People share what they have available, or have access to, to support one another: A neighbour would not go without food while you had food. They support each other (Limpopo, Older Women: 18–20); We come to assist… When she has problems in these times that we are living in … you assist in the way that you can assist (Gauteng, Older Women: 29–31); What we do is, we get together and collect what we have (Limpopo, Younger Men: 73–74); We pay them a visit and assist them in whatever way we can (Swaziland, Older Men: 25–26). Others have found that conjoint interdependent and collectivist cultures value beliefs and practices associated with social goals and harmony control (Markus & Kitayama, 2004; Morris, Menon, & Ames, 2001). Synonymous with duty to ingroup and other-focused goals, I have argued (Ebersöhn under review) that, from 2 North

West, Older Women: 38–39.

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an Afrocentric perspective, people privilege socially engaged emotional expressions for multiple resilience-enabling benefits: fit in and have a sense of belonging to a social group that buffers you and your kin against adversity, and have opportunities for quality of life experiences by being able to assist others.

4.2.2 Standards of Interdependence and Reciprocity: We Go Collectively as Neighbours3 As in other studies on collectivist values (Kuo, 2013; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013; Wong, Wong, & Scott, 2006), cohesion, interdependence and connectedness are expressed as fundamental to Afrocentric indigenous knowledge in flocking-case study data. In their landmark work on African, Japanese, Chinese, Hindu and Quaker cultures, Markus and Kitayama (1994) typify reciprocity as a normative imperative to maintain interdependence between people. This imperative is performed in interpersonal relationships in the ways that people aspire to fit in with meaningful others, and to fulfil and co-created duty.4 A good neighbour thus, for example, adheres to standards of interdependence and reciprocity. We are connected to each other: ‘I am because we are’ (Gauteng, Younger Men: 187), and we take turns to help each other when it is needed: ‘Poverty is curbed by you offering your neighbour support and they return the favour when the time comes’ (Namibia, Younger Men: 95–96). It is of particular note that the cultural aim to support each other in ways that do not cultivate dependence is resilience-enabling with regards to agency. Support is aimed at assisting an individual and their family to get up again (recover from adversity) and not to be dependent on assistance from the collective: A form of you showing them the way in order to be self-sufficient (North West, Younger Men: 102–103); Especially [a] person of my age who still has two legs and can walk. Who doesn’t depend on his parents. Like me. I don’t depend on my parents. I’m responsible for my wellbeing (Eastern Cape, Younger Women: 101–104); Do not give a pill. Be helpful and encourage them to go to the clinic so that you can both find out what is causing them to be sick (North West, Younger Women: 157–159). The supply of collective social support comes with the caveat that one family cannot hold onto resources only for themselves for long periods of time. This is the case as it is accepted that another family will soon enough experience need and require 3 Eastern

Cape, Older Women: 48. relatedness (signified as relatedness, reciprocity orientation, harmony, and face) is added as sixth factor to the Five-Factor Model of personality in Chinese personality assessment (Chueng et al., 2001). A similar socio-culturally relevant assessment movement is evident in personality assessment among South African indigenous groups (Fetvadjiev, Meiring, van de Vijfer, Nel, Hill, 2015; Valchev et al., 2011, 2014).

4 Interpersonal

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assistance. If one family chronically needs support, their risk places undue strain on the communal resource pool and prospectively decreases the capacity to assist another family equitably. The implied social contract of interdependent support is resilience-enabling for the collective: a family who receives support will find effective ways to buffer against risk by (i) making pragmatic and innovative plans to address their risk, (ii) thereby requiring less assistance from the collective, and (ii) being able to donate contributions to the communal coffers to assist with supporting others. The belief of reciprocating to assist others has a spiritual dimension with the belief that generosity and care is extended to include the afterlife: He is given this seed as a belief of us Basotho that wherever the deceased is going, he will do the job of planning and seeding, and that great harvest will come to us as Basotho who are left behind by the deceased (Lesotho, Younger Women: 185–189). The collectivist value of a resilience-enabling ‘good neighbour’ therefore denotes someone who respects hierarchy in social status, age and gender, which continue to be observed by older and younger women and men alike in urban and rural spaces. This respect manifests in communal gatherings (following hierarchy protocols) to consult about challenges and reach consensus about an intervention. Patriarchal dominance characterises the collectivist hierarchical power we observed in data. Alongside this culturally sanctioned, wholly male-dominant structures of power, exist the less visible, yet equally powerful and culturally sanctioned matriarchal structures in a kind of Tolkienesque ‘Underworld’ allegory which I introduced in the first chapter. The combination of these two aged and gendered power bases are resilience-enabling structures that a marginalised majority have learned to trust on in an unequal society that does not provide services and resources equitably to indigenous populations. It was evident that younger men and women, as well as older women, act in adaptive ways that challenge the accepted collectivist view of primarily deferring to governance structures dominated by older men. As more democratic spaces of civic participation emerge, women and younger men are electing to bypass the authority of older men to solve problems related to infrastructure, welfare and education. Even though they circumvent patriarchal structures to address hardship, women and younger men retain a communal strategy as they navigate towards such newly available opportunities for civic engagement. That indigenous knowledge will mutate is understandable. Briggs (2005) notes that, for survival, individuals and groups need to negotiate what they know in order to adapt. An element of the aged nature of power in indigenous knowledge is the levels of responsibility enacted by children. Although children are placed on the lowest rung of a power hierarchy, their capacity is acknowledged, valued and depended on for resilience. Contrary to the psychosocial phase in Erickson’s developmental theory (Pillay & Nesengani, 2006), it is evident that children are able to demonstrate developmental tasks earlier than predicted if hardship means that their collective kin expects this of them. Apart from children participating in livelihood activities,

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accelerated development is especially evident in children in child-headed households, and in children taking the role of caregivers to ailing parents or carers. From a Western wellness perspective, a predictable question is: what is the longterm effect of children assuming responsibilities and developmental tasks on their lifetime health and wellbeing? The other side of the coin may very well be to ask: what is the long-term effect on the lifetime health and wellbeing of children when cultural practices regarding their valued input in communal wellbeing are negated?

4.3 Hierarchies of Power: Leadership, Governance and Decision-Making It is self-evident that a high demand on social support requires a refined social technology to supply social resources that can be resilience-enabling to a collective. In this section I argue that the supply-chain management system of social support grafts onto socio-cultural values related to power and roles and responsibilities with regards to decision-making and implementation of decisions. It follows that resilience-enabling affordances of social support are conditional: to benefit from social support individuals and their families need necessary to subscribe to in-group norms. In this regard I foreground data that indicate the relevance of collective resilience that functions within a space that respects age- and gender hierarchies.

4.3.1 Respect for Aged and Gendered Hierarchies One cultural value which is evident in social support pathways to resilience relates to beliefs on a hierarchy of decision-making that respects age and gender. Traditionally hierarchy is established as typical of collectivist cultures (Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, 2008; Smith, 2010; Yeh et al., 2006), and denote hierarchy regarding social status, gender and age (Kilpatrick, 1997). As the social context is intrinsic to Afrocentric developmental processes, it is an accepted cultural view that children acquire developmental opportunities by engaging in everyday activities (Jahoda, 1986; Weisner, 2002). The social context provides access to and opportunities for complex and nuanced development in social networks—functionally and relationally unique to every child (Lewis, 2005). Given extensive hardship we found that it is customary that age is honoured for support to a ‘good child’, who adheres to social norms of an age hierarchy. A ‘good child’ is seen as one who is: ‘well-mannered’. They even greet [an adult] in plural when you are alone (North West, Older Women: 65–67),

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and such a ‘good child’ can reciprocally count on social support from a kinship that buffers them against challenges and provides pathways to unpredicted outcomes given a high need context children are privileged for support: Whatever I have, I give first to a child. Because it is not enough [what children have]. Because if it were enough [what I have], I would have divided it into two portions. Because it is a bit, and only enough for one hand, I opted for giving to a child (North West, Older Women: 47–51). As was apparent in the Lungi-bricolage in the introductory chapter, contextually and culturally appropriate child development is enabled by children who do household chores, contribute to livelihood initiatives, and take over take care and household duties when caregivers are helpless due to illness. From an indigenous knowledge perspective children are not protected from hardship. They are trusted to be resourceful and agentic in mediating the effect of hardship. As is evident in other studies (Pence & Nsamenang, 2008; Nsamenang, 1992), elders especially value ways in which to socialise children into expectations related to age and, in regulating their behaviour, to comply with valued in-group standards: A parent is not only your parent, but a parent for the nation. Every parent, when you look into their eyes and see that this person could be my mother’s age or my father’s age, you must respect them (Gauteng, Older Women: 68–72); We sit these children down and tell them the rules … that they need to respect their parents (Gauteng, Older Men: 16–17); … while the elders keep an eye on them to see if they are doing a proper job (Swaziland, Older Women: 81–82); Whether ancestral beliefs and practices will continue to be transferred intergenerationally of course requires consideration. As Aristotle lamented about the young and old and the successive degradation of values through the ages of man, elders in our studies also lament the intergenerational transfer of respect being problematic: Never mind the children of these times, because they are not given that teaching of respecting elders. But it is something that we were taught growing up. We all know that (Gauteng, Older Women: 73–75). This insight is strengthened by younger men and women being silent on valuing respect based on age in the data derived from the Imbeleko study (Ebersöhn et al., 2014). The gendered structures of communal roles reflect patterns of patriarchy which are mirrored in the provision of social support. Although female power is acknowledged: You strike a woman, you strike a rock (Eastern Cape, Older Men: 1; Gauteng, Younger Women: 186–187), women are expected to be subordinate in a hierarchy and must respect your husband and your children (Gauteng, Older Women: 116–117). Manhood denotes the capacity to be a functional breadwinner:

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The men slaughter…This is how the men help the women with the pots [food] (Gauteng, Older Men: 5–7); The young men go out to get wood (Swaziland, Older Women: 62–63); Traditionally, what we used to do between the ages of 10 to 15 years, I went to the fields to look after the cattle, look after the goats. And after that I go to the dam to collect water (Namibia, Older Men: 25–27). We found that a cultural practice to position women in matriarchal roles of providing household care, support and nutrition were significant for scripting social support responsibilities and thus structuring social resource distribution: They must prepare food, they must wash the dishes, they must wash the clothes and they must go to the fields (Namibia, Older Men: 31–32); Some women lend a helping hand by fetching water (Swaziland, Older Men: 27–28), Women fetch water (Swaziland, Younger Men: 117), The women help out with the pots [food]. They console (Gauteng, Older Men: 4). As was evident with male-orientated roles, age also matters with female responsibilities that are resilience-enabling to buffer against household-level need where others are not able to care for themselves and their families: The youth or young women do the daily chores. (Swaziland, Older Women: 47–48)

4.3.2 Working Hand in Hand—Hierarchical Governance It is significant that resilience-enabling social support practices are grounded in cultural beliefs on hierarchical structures of problem-solving and decisionmaking that have been refined over time and appear to be morphing as a postcolonial space progressively affords more opportunities for civic participation by a previously excluded indigenous majority. Gendered collective social structures are powerful organising structures to plan, implement and manage accountability during social support endeavours. The male and female-dominated spaces work in unison so that they can act on communal commitment to identify need and supply support and thus scaffold better than expected outcomes. It is acknowledged that indigenous hierarchical authority is at the foundation of African cultural life (Wanasika, Howell, Littrell, & Dorfman, 2011). The collectivist hierarchical process to mobilise social support is structured around place, phases and roles. In earlier chapters I explained how the acknowledged value of the power of women is enacted in female-driven power structures (societies) that matter for social support as pathway to resilience. Such female authority has also been found in other work (Hudson-Weems, 2005).

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Photographs 4.1 and 4.2 Older women in Limpopo identified tribal royalty as significant protective resource, (2012)

The respected place of ancestral authority is significant as a space where people convene for decision-making. As I indicated in photographs in the first chapter, participants in remote settings where we generated data identified the enclosure of a chief, as well as tribal council buildings as significant protective resources. Similarly, older women in Limpopo indicated the royal house as protective resource (Photographs 4.1 and 4.2). Governance is regulated according to formalised procedures: If you have a problem, you first go to … one of the chief members. If the problem is not over, he can take it to the head chief. If the problem is not solved from the head chief, it goes to the police’ (Mpumalanga, Combined group member-checking 2014: 131–133); These people, those who are working with the chief, they have their own gatherings once a month. But should there be an emergency problem to be solved, they are going to gather together. It depends on which structure is going to solve the problem. If it is maybe conflict between the people it is going to be solved by those people (the communers). If the people fail to solve, it goes to the messenger. The communers are those called by the chief (Limpopo, Combined group member-checking, 2014: 494–501). When risk is identified a governance protocol (recognising age, gender and leadership position) directs decision-making on best routes to enable mutually beneficial outcomes.: And this one, it is controlling the community itself. And take maybe message from the community…They are lodging their grievances to the messenger. And if the problem is hard to be solved by the messenger, it goes to the headman. If the message is failing here also, they take it to the head of the traditional leaders (chief). If it fails, it should be dealt by with the government, the police. That is how it works (Limpopo, Combined group member-checking); If someone has made a mistake in the community, you don’t just go to the headman. You just gather as a community and the elder[s]. Then discuss

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Photograph 4.3 Explaining decision-making Photograph 4.4 Explaining decision-making structures, member-checking, Limpopo (2014) structures, member-checking, Mpumalanga (2014)

it and they take it to the headman (Limpopo, Combined group memberchecking). Culturally scripted male-powered hierarchies matter for roles and responsibilities related to decisions regarding social resources required, support strategies to address risk and relevant monitoring and evaluation that is accountable to a collective: It is expected of us to report it to the chief, because we respect him as our leader (Swaziland, Older Men: 19–20); At the headman’s yard, that is where they receive motivations and attend their meetings under the control of the headman (Limpopo, Older Men: 119–120); We cannot do anything any time. We must tell the chief (Mpumalanga, Younger Men: 160). Photographs 4.3 and 4.4 illustrate how participants explained governance structures in remote Limpopo and Mpumalanga during member-checking discussions of the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience project in 2014. The male-dominated hierarchy has been refined over time and with intergenerational use. This organisational structure directs decision-making to address adversity. An acknowledged male community leader, say a tribal chief, has the mandate: To control the village as a whole … in charge of, to make sure that all services reach his kraal. He will then inform the community of what is to be done (Limpopo, Younger Women: 42–44). This male-leader works with a team. The male community-head and his chief members (including village or neighbourhood headmen) are assisted by a messenger and communers, all of whom the male-leader appoints: If I got a problem, the community have some members. Chief members. (Mpumalanga, Combined group member-checking: 129); Each chief governs several villages, each of which has a headman, who is a chief member (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012).

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More equitable service delivery implies having the option of both traditional, as well as democratic pathways of civic engagement. In a postcolonial society people from indigenous communities could not vote. They could not participate formally in decision-making regarding opportunities, services and resource distribution. They needed the presence of an indigenous governance structure to regulate decisions informed by cultural norms. It appears as if pathways are forming to merge traditional and democratic structures of decision-making to promote resilience. In this regard it was obvious that the male spaces of decision-making incorporated participation at municipal level in order to mobilise new avenues to state-governed support previously, under apartheid, not accessible to a majority: We have structures that work hand in hand with the chief… We have chairperson, secretary, treasurer… For the chairperson there should be assistant and for the secretary. Except for the treasurer… And we have structures. We have civics… This structure works. It is like municipal(ity) messenger…They are working hand in hand with the municipality… We have chair, secretary and treasurer. This group, they are taking information from the councillor. The councillor takes information from the municipality (Limpopo, Combined group member-checking: 469–479); Because the chief, at that time, he was taken as the one who held all the power… Now, because we have got structures within the community, the coming in of politicians, now … it differs (Mpumalanga, Older Women: 419–423). The increased provision of local state-ordained structures thus provides an avenue for participating in a non-traditional, alternative pathway of civic engagement. Though still characteristically collective, there is evidence of instances that, given an option, people may steer away from traditional, protocol-guided pathways of governance. They disregard the protocols of revering social status, age and gender in managing challenges. Nor do their actions convey that they require intercession to bring about results: Anytime there is a problem, we used to tell the chief. And when he is slow, we will tell other people. Like youths, we will go to meet the ward councillor. And he will tell the municipality to solve our problem (Mpumalanga, Younger Men: 112–114); The road … last year the road, it had stones. It had lot of potholes. So the community had a meeting with the councillor. And we tell the councillor that we have a problem with the road. And the councillor go to the government. And the government help people clean the road (Mpumalanga, Younger Women: 239–244); We will write a letter to the municipality to help us provide good water (Limpopo, Younger Men: 151); If there is a problem they can also consult social workers and police… Say, like child maintenance…You know that women go to social workers for maintenance for their children…Theft, murder, rape and beating… the

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police come and arrest that person… Then go to court. That person must go to court (Limpopo, Younger Women: 71–88). Even though participation in governance is evolving it is evident that collectivism remains normative during problem-solving pathways. This plausibly typifies flocking as collectivist coping pathway (Chun, Moos, & Cronkite, 2006). Morling and Evered (2006) also found that primary control during adaptation may be the result of enacted collective cultural orientation. As services become progressively more available to previously marginalised indigenous groups, people may start using traditional structures less. Further investigation is necessary to determine, what I ruminated on earlier, the implications of ‘changing the grain of grit’. Can the entrenched hardiness of structures that enable social support be rerouted? Can cultural values and practices of flocking be used to disturb unequal services, resources and opportunities rather than using flocking to buffer against ongoing inequality?

4.4 That Is Where Everybody Gets Together In this section I explain how the deliberate use of communal gatherings are resilienceenabling to promote social support processes. Such communal gatherings provide spaces to consult on challenges and available social resources to address the risk. Following inclusive consultation (with protocols observed regarding status, gender and age) there are processes to reach consensus on which challenges to address, which social resources are required, identifying custodians of these social resources, deciding on most appropriate ways of disbursing resources and ensuring accountable use of social resources.

4.4.1 You Ring a Bell at the Royal House—Communal Gathering for Consultation Designing a life-world to intentionally spend time together is a cultural practice that reflects a value of interdependent kinship.5 Photograph 4.5 show how older men in Limpopo foregrounded a communal space as protective. These gatherings also enable communal deliberation on social support: … where we gather around for any cultural event…You find that the chief sometimes slaughters a cow. So all the peoples of the community go there

5 Funke Omidire, a Nigerian colleague, friend and co-researcher in both the Imbeleko and Indigenous

Pathways to Resilience studies, shared with our research team the Yoruba saying ‘Ajojel’odun’, which indicates that when we share food, when we eat together, then the food is delicious and people are truly nourished.

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Photograph 4.5 Older men in Limpopo identified a spot next to a Mopani tree as a protective resource in their community, (2012)

to the chief’s homestead. There are cultural dances (Mpumalanga, Older Women:13–15) (Photograph 4.5). The cultural expectation is that people will gather to consult about challenges communally. This makes sense given from an interdependent perspective where problems are not viewed as private, but rather as the concern and responsibility of the collective. As is evident in the Photographs 4.6–4.9, spaces used for communal gatherings are assessed as protective resources: This place is more important because everything that is happening around the village is talked [about] here – agreements (Limpopo, Older Men: 19–20); the community hall … that is where everybody gets together. Having community meetings about something concerning the community. We go to the community hall and we discuss it (Mpumalanga, Older Men: 124–127). You ring a bell at the royal house so that we gather together and discuss the problem that is water. So then we can collect money from the community so that we can go and make a borehole for ourselves (Limpopo, Younger Men: 55–57); The headman will call the people for the gathering and then negotiation start (Limpopo, Younger Men: 241–242); Like a problem of the community. Like farming. We can solve it by coming together (Mpumlanga, Combined group member-checking); I think that if you have a good neighbour. Maybe in my home my mother is talking to me and I don’t respect her. And then if my mother, maybe she

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Photographs 4.6 and 4.7 Older women in Limpopo indicated the kraal of the chief as protective, significant place to gather (2013)

Photograph 4.8 Younger women indicated the community hall as protective, Mpumalanga (2012)

Photograph 4.9 Younger men identified the centre (homestead) of the chief as protective meeting space, Mpumalanga (2013)

thinks I will respect my neighbour. And maybe my neighbour has good ideas on how to encourage me. Then my neighbour will talk to me (Mpumalanga, Combined group member-checking); For instance, if I am drinking liquor, and I am drinking until very late … so when I come back home, I’m singing my song very loudly. And the villagers, they don’t like that song. They come to me first. And if it continues, they take the matter to the headman (Limpopo, Older Men: 76–83).

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Observing a hierarchical protocol for consultation when there are challenges mirrors a collectivist coping model (Yeh et al., 2006) that respects authority (as indicated by gender, age and social position) and manifests in (coping) behaviour to consult with elders. The observed cultural protocol to consult on challenges and pathways process is that one first speaks with someone in your home, then an elder, then a headman (or acknowledged village or neighbourhood-level male leader), who can send a messenger to a collectively ordained leader (traditionally a chief) to request a consultation. The latter partners with local municipalities to address issues outside of the scope of their power. In each instance it is only after consultation that a challenge is referred upwards in the hierarchy for further consultation, counsel and eventual consensus: Like if someone has made a mistake in the community. You don’t just go to the headman. You just gather as a community and the elder[s] then discuss(es) it. And they take it to the headman (Limpopo, Combined group member-checking). A village or neighbourhood-level male leader (traditionally headman) will confer and may decide to refer the problem to a chief. Gatherings in the courtyard of such a traditional headman are thus formal and have the purpose of officially consulting and sharing ideas on high and low points in life: If someone steals my cow, I will tell the chief and he will ask the person to pay me back. Or I will ask for what I want back in return from the person that stole my cow. Most of the times things like that is a community problem (Mpumalanga, Younger Men: 286–294). Being able to provide counsel at communal gatherings is viewed as a virtuous responsibility: Some people advise and guide their communities for good (Limpopo, Older women: 995); It is their duty to talk to the people involved in order to maintain peace and harmony (Swaziland, Older Men: 33–34); To sit down with a person who made a mistake and to show him the way (Limpopo, Older Men: 279); We meet the community. We have a meeting and we talk to them. … to our councillor to make a plan to provide (Mpumalanga, Younger Women: 276–277). Not only are communal gatherings spaces to report concerns and share perspectives on how to give and receive wise counsel. As in the work of others (Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013; Memela & Makhaba, 2013), communal gatherings also serve as spaces where the intergenerational transfer of indigenous knowledge is possible: The chief is important because our children learn their culture and tradition. We gather and make meetings there (Limpopo, Older Women: 490–491). Letseka (2013) also found that indigenous education is intentional. He notes that the transfer of indigenous knowledge includes social, cultural, artistic and religious teachings.

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4.4.2 They had an Agreement so They Wrote a Letter—Communal Gathering for Consensus Similar to what Markus and Kitayama (1994) found with regards to compromise, we also found that consultation on relevant pathways to resile culminate in consensus. As is the case with intracultural coping, in collectivist coping (Chun et al., 2006) communal networks include members collaborating to solve problems. Following a cycle of consultative meetings, the aim is to reach communal consensus on how to manage a challenge: They must first discuss. Each (as if) explain. And then after that they must reach an agreement (Limpopo, Older Men: 101–102). Actionable pathways to address adversity and bolster positive outcomes for the collective result from communal consensus: We agreed amongst ourselves that each representative of the household can contribute a certain amount of money for that borehole. Then, we sat down again as a village and agreed that each household in the village should contribute an amount of R106 for the diesel. We didn’t rely on the municipality for the diesel… And now we are not running short of water (Limpopo, Younger Women: 114–123); It all started at a communal meeting. They had an agreement from there. So they wrote a letter and they all agreed on it (Limpopo, Older Men: 61–62). Regarding a challenge about access to electricity, older men in Limpopo explained: We used to gather at the communal gathering. We made agreements. We wrote letter to … municipality. As they were not responding, we then pass on to the provincial government. That’s where our problem get solved. In the introductory chapter I provided photographs to show students walking to school in Mpumalanga until government introduced a school bus to transport both students and teachers from far afield to the local high school. Older women in Limpopo also explained how they reached consensus about a plan to address the challenge of unreliable transport that made it difficult for children to attend school: The problem was that our children travel long distance with [on] foot when going to school… We sat down with the school governing body, government and the municipality. They decided to provide a school bus to take children to school. It appears that it is not only cultural practices related to hierarchical decision-making that are being adapted in the advent of democratic opportunities. Age-old ways that prescribe consultation and consensus strategies also appear to be adjusting and merging with new democratic pathways to bolster outcomes as a majority negotiate around gradual transformation away from inequality.

6 ZAR10,00

= US$1,00.

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4.5 Conclusion: Collectivist Pragmatism or Romantic Nostalgia I return to cautionary notes regarding the romantic nostalgia of indigenous knowledge which I touched on in Chap. 2. It suggests an ethos of accountability for indigenous psychology studies. And herein lies the dilemma. If one answers the call to document indigenous knowledge, what are the consequences? Is the intent to establish how things were done in the past and then retain it as something that is sacred? Is the purpose to investigate what the foundations of beliefs and practices are that promote human wellness? Is the aim to have age-old models of intervention that may have articulation value for future crises? What might the expected and unexpected benefits and penalties be? A core question is: to what end is indigenous knowledge (or memory) investigated? Hooks (1994) states that restorative nostalgia is indulgent and heralds apathy, merely longing hopelessly for a better past. In contrast Boym (2001) calls for reflective nostalgia and Blunt (2003) for productive nostalgia. Reflective or productive nostalgia represents the use of memory, or indigenous knowledge, which provides a kaleidoscope of symbols and metaphors to use in order to construct new stories. This emphasis on productive reflexivity links up with a democratising research position (Vallaincourt, 2006) in indigenous research: how can indigenous knowledge enable equity and equality? And in respect of indigenous psychology, from a democratising position, the question is: how can indigenous knowledge enable equity and equality in research and intervention in the subjective health and wellbeing of marginalised people? In the flocking-case study data it is evident that indigenous knowledge morphs in response to a transforming milieu with additional opportunities to participate in decision-making and access more evenly distributed services. Indigenous knowledge challenges the conceptualisation of children and women as essentially vulnerable. Children are valued and the collective invest in their development. Women and children are appreciated as valuable contributors to a community, and are not protected from hardship (Crewe, 2003). The principles of communality mean that women and children assume roles of responsibility in times of strain. Furthermore, indigenous knowledge shows that femaleness denotes resistance to dominance and resourcefulness in powerful structures that exist irrespective of indigenous or Western authority. To what end did we investigate indigenous knowledge, memory or cultural resources? How can indigenous knowledge enable equity and equality in research and intervention in the subjective health and wellbeing of marginalised people? In this chapter I substantiated the claim I made that, despite cultural marginalisation, interdependent cultural beliefs and practices are continue to inform resilience responses to structural marginalisation. I also argued that the interdependent cultural beliefs and practices predispose the choice of flocking as a preferred pathway to resilience. I concluded that flocking demonstrates the resilience-enabling opportunities of leveraging indigenous knowledge (cultural resources) in unequal spaces where there is structural and cultural marginalisation of indigenous populations and indigenous

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epistemologies. From a reflective and productive nostalgia stance, I considered resilience-enabling cultural beliefs and practices that drive decisions on familiar and trusted pathways to resilience that promote better than expected outcomes to a majority of indigenous people given an interdependent culture and an unequal context. I explained that the implications for the relationship-resourced resilience theory when ‘indigenous’ denotes an interdependent, collectivist world view by using the case of Ubuntu, and Afrocentric perspective. I justified that flocking beliefs and practices are informed by concomitant interdependent cultural beliefs and practices. I argued that flocking is a preferred pathway to resilience as the intergenerational transfer of interdependent socio-cultural beliefs and practices (indigenous knowledge or cultural resources) motivates relational and collective endeavour to address communal challenges. I demonstrated that ancestral beliefs and associated practices enable flocking as a resilience-promoting strategy that bolsters unexpected positive health and wellbeing outcomes. I argued that flocking is premised on a collectivist view that both human need and assistance are normative experiences. I validated a position that flocking affords opportunities for positive quality of life outcomes that align with an interdependent cultural value to respond to human need. I corroborated that flocking enables pathways to conform to cultural beliefs that reward agency rather than long-term dependence on social support. I verified that flocking leverages collectivist social structures (with hierarchies of age and gender) to identify need, appraise available resources and administer resource distribution and resource management. I showed that the mobilisation of social resources for collective gain benefits from refined decision-making structures that acknowledge beliefs related to age, gender and status, as well as consultation and consensus patterns. I authenticated the claim that flocking beliefs and practices that structure social support appears to be evolving given additional democratic pathways to access state-regulated resource provision. In the next chapter I engage with the proposition that the interdependent cultural beliefs and practices which I discussed in this chapter predicts both the presence of relational dimensions in socio-ecological resilience processes, as well as values and practices that constitute socio-emotional competence required for normative prosocial interaction. I consider consequences for resilience pathways to people who do not have in-group membership or do not ascribe to cultural beliefs and practices such as social usefulness and responsibility, duty to in-group beliefs and practices, other-focused goals or harmony control.

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Ungar, M. (2011). The social ecology of resilience: Addressing contextual and cultural ambiguity of a nascent construct. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 81(1), 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1111/ j.1939-0025.2010.01067.x. Valchev, V. H., Van de Vijver, F. J., Alewyn Nel, J., Rothmann, S., Meiring, D., & De Bruin, G. P. (2011). Implicit personality conceptions of the Nguni cultural-linguistic groups of South Africa. Cross-Cultural Research, 45(3), 235- 266. Valchev, V. H., Van De Vijver, F. J. R., Meiring, D., Nel, J. A., Hill, C., Laher, S., & Adams, B. G. (2014). Beyond agreeableness: Social–relational personality concepts from anindigenous and cross-cultural perspective. Journal of Research in Personality, 48, 17–32. Vallaincourt, Y. (2006). Paper prepared for the Carold Institute project “Building Local and Global Democracy” (2004–2006), www.carold.ca. Van der Berg, H. S., George, A. A., Du Plessis, E. D., Botha, A., Basson, N., De Villiers, M., et al. (2013). The pivotal role of social support in the well-being of adolescents. In M. P. Wissing (Ed.), Well-being research in South Africa (pp. 415–438). New York, NY: Springer. Wanasika, I., Howell, J. P., Littrell, R., & Dorfman, P. (2011). Managerial leadership and culture in Sub-Saharan Africa. Journal of World Business, 46(2), 234–241. Weisner, T. S. (2002). Ecocultural understandings of children’s developmental pathways. Human Development, 45, 275–281. Westaway, M. S., & Gumede, T. (2001). Satisfaction with personal and environmental quality of life: A black South African informal settlement perspective. Curationis, 24, 28–34. Wong, P. T. P., Wong, L. C. J., & Scott, C. (2006). Beyond stress and coping: The positive psychology of transformation. In P. T. P. Wong & L. C. J. Wong (Eds.), Handbook of multicultural perspectives on stress and coping (pp. 1–26). New York, NY: Springer. World Bank Group. (2018). One health: Operational framework for strengthening human, animal, and environmental public health systems at their interface. Washington, DC: World Bank Publications. Yeh, Y. J., Lai, S. Q., & Ho, C. T. (2006). Knowledge management enablers. Industrial Management & Data Systems, 106(6), 793–810. Zimba, R. F. (2002). Indigenous conceptions of childhood development and social realities in Southern Africa. In H. Keller, Y. Poortinga, & A. Schölmerich (Eds.), Between biology and culture: Perspectives on ontogenetic development. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Chapter 5

When You Live, You Live with Others: The Culturally Salient Relational Dimensions of Flocking

Abstract Flocking is dependent on relationships (social opportunities in kinship systems) and therefore require relational adeptness (socio-emotional competence). In this chapter I describe salient Afrocentric socio-emotional competence indicated for flocking. I argue that the presence of such socio-emotional competence enables flocking, and equally, the absence thereof constrains flocking. These culturally salient values frame Afrocentric social conventions for ‘what’ constitutes socio-emotional competence, ‘how’ emotional regulation processes unfold, and the goal of these (‘why’: normative pro-social interaction). The flocking-endpoint of emotion regulation is social harmony which serves as an end to the means of attaining social usefulness. In this regard, I suggest that emotion regulation during flocking aims at socially engaging emotions with a prevention focus in order not to transgress social norms, nor violate social rules. I posit that the interdependent relationships in flocking indicates salient interdependent values and practices that mirror other-focused and outside-in perspectives that are self-distancing. I put forward that collective consultation and consensus spaces are indicative of both adult relational co-regulation of emotions, as well as socio-emotional learning spaces. I indicate that flocking implies considering tenets of social connectedness for social inclusion and exclusion that could enable or constrain resilience opportunities. I claim that the emotion regulation endpoint of social inclusion is especially significant in a highly unequally structured environment to access life-sustaining social support. I suggest that, given that structural opportunities afford or suppress emotional experiences, the potential for culturally acceptable emotional experiences change in accordance with beliefs about the (un)predictable or (un-)controllable nature of the world. I conclude by suggesting that social welfare and development initiatives that leverage cultural resources and mirror familiar social conventions may hold promise in interdependent-dominant societies. Keywords Salient Afrocentric socio-emotional competence · Emotional regulation · Other-focused and outside-in perspectives · Social harmony and usefulness · Socially engaging emotions · Social connectedness · Solidarity · Social welfare · Agency · Social entrepreneurship

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_5

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5.1 Power Through Relational access to flocking is enabled or constrained by the presence or absence of culturally salient socio-emotional competence to maintain culturally valued relationships. Sibo,1 a teacher at one of the remote high schools with which we partner, did not receive a salary for close to two years. Yup, you did not misread the previous sentence. I meant to say ‘two years’. There was an administrative mix-up. A teacher with the same initials and a similar national identity number had been appointed in another town in the same province and was receiving ‘their’ salary. Sibo could not be paid until the clerical error was resolved. Yet he showed up to teach every day. Even though the school buildings were derelict. Even though the early-morning bus-rides from his home town to school, and back home in the afternoons, were long and slow on dusty, potholed gravel roads. Even though the classrooms were filled to the brim with students sitting mostly on the floor, a few lucky ones sharing the odd desk. Even though he did not have enough textbooks for every subject he taught. In spite all of this he showed up to teach. He would always welcome us warmly when we visited the school. He was a committed member of the school-based STAR implementation team. In our educational psychology Flourishing Learning Youth (FLY) study many young people identified him as their favourite teacher. I know about the hardship friends endure when they are retrenched. I have firsthand family experience of what a system goes through in the struggle to supplement a household income while seeking employment. I know what effect it has on family wellbeing and self-esteem. Whenever we made small talk in those particular two years, I would ask Sibo if the salary issue had been sorted out yet. Time and again he would answer patiently, in a resigned way, that he knew at some stage it would all work out. I asked how he and his family were coping without his salary. He was baffled by my question. And I was baffled by his answer. He said that there was food at their home every day. Their municipal fees were paid every month. School community members, and members of his own community, as well as family and friends had been making sure that he and his family did not suffer due to a lack of income. As with the Lungi bricolage in the first chapter, a web of relationships linked Sibo to others. Rather than being isolated, relational dimensions of an interdependent worldview nested him in a web of care and protected him and his family from the negative impact of pending financial disaster. It was inconceivable to him that he would not be supported by this strongly forged relationship network. He was ‘powering through’.2 His social connectedness meant he was not alone. He was not isolated from support. His pathway to teacher resilience was triadic (Ebersöhn, 2014), reminiscent of Bandura’s (2006) reciprocal determinism. First off, 1 This

is a pseudonym. Omidire, whom I referenced in an earlier chapter, often uses this phrase when we face multiple tasks and short time lines, or when there is difficulty with service-delivery, or political questions regarding corruption: ‘power through colleagues’, she would say, ‘power through’.

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based on intergenerational lived experience in a society that has suffered inequality for a long time, he knew that eventually the powers that be would ‘come to the table’ and that he would receive his salary. In addition, he knew that he could count on support from an extended kinship system (Carsten, 2000, 2004; Van der Geest, 2004) to moderate the impact of this extreme challenge on him and his family. Finally, the former two concepts required of him personally patience and optimism to persevere, and socio-emotional adeptness to nurture his family’s lifeline, namely social connections. Sibo’s pathway to resile, buffered by knowledge that flocking would provide him and his family with resources, reflects the forbearance and fatalism I mentioned in the previous chapter and which is also evident as a collectivist value in other non-West-orientated studies (Yeh, Inman, Kim, & Okubo, 2006). Even amidst his vulnerability he knew that his social usefulness was valued in the school community, his neighbourhood and his kin. He knew he could count on his social connectedness to serve as blueprint for others to flock to his family and come to their aid. He knew that as his need for support increased so would the flock of connectedness to include more people, with their associated resources, to assist. Sibo’s story is not a solitary (pun intended) example of social connectedness. Pride in a social identity of social responsibility and social usefulness is obvious in the affirmation of an older Lesotho man, who claimed that: We are known for supporting each other (45–46). An older Swazi man noted that their support was evidence that: the neighbour may feel the warmth of having both men and women as neighbours (28–29). In the same way an older woman from the Eastern Cape remarked on the solidarity of: how we assist as community so that the person concerned won’t go alone (37–38). The low probability of experiencing social isolation is evident in the words of an older woman from Swaziland who shared that: we do not leave them to sort themselves out, but we give them the utmost support we could offer (75–77). The same commitment to social connectedness was also apparent among young people: So that your neighbour can realise they are not alone. After all they have good neighbours (North West, Younger Men: 180–181); So when you’re there you also feel that your neighbour cares for you (Namibia, Younger Men: 257–258); We give them our support if they are faced with such a situation as soon as we hear the news (Swaziland, Younger Women: 128–129). In this chapter I explain how knowledge of social connectedness, relationships and culturally relevant socio-emotional competence is relevant to understand flocking as social support pathway to resilience.

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5.2 Whatever Happens to Your Neighbour, It’s also Your Problem Emotions have an interdependent nature in as much as interactions with others shape our emotional experiences (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012). Emotions and emotion regulation are socialised in cultural contexts (Trommsdorff & Heikamp, 2013). De Leersnyder, Boiger and Mesquita (2013) argue that patterns of emotional experiences are congruent with culturally valued relationship models and that these depict cultural differences in valued relationships. It is emotional regulation that enable emotional experiences to align with culturally valued ways of relating (Saarni, 1999). Particular social conventions determine which emotional experiences are promoted or suppressed during social interactions. It follows that culturally accepted pro-social behaviour denote emotional experiences that are regulated to align, or be about, the most significant cultural values. In the previous chapter I argued that values and practices ascribed to ‘a good neighbour’ indicate the ideal for culturally valued relationships from an interdependent and Afrocentric Ubuntu perspective. These cultural beliefs and practices thus constitute the Afrocentric, cultural salient values that are readily available as standards of evaluation of emotional experiences. An interdependent cultural perspective, imply that relationships are valued when people are interconnected, adjust to one another’s expectations (Oishi & Diener, 2003), and promote social harmony by aligning social behaviour with social rules and relational embeddedness. It is acknowledged that there are cross-cultural differences in lived cultural patterns of emotional experiences with associated endpoints of emotion regulation (Kitayama & Markus, 2000). Social harmony constitutes an endpoint of emotion regulation that is socially rewarded in interdependent cultures. Germane to the case of Ubuntu is the discussion on viewing need and help as normative and giving assistance as a most esteemed virtue. Here social harmony becomes a means to an end: social harmony enables people to manifest a cultural endpoint of social usefulness. In this regard, high frequency and intensity of socially engaging emotions (friendliness, forbearance) are usually predicted to attain the endpoint ideal of social harmony (Kitayama, Mesquita, & Karasawa, 2006). Emotion regulation draws on culturally salient socio-emotional competence and manifests in culturally valued and rewarded pro-social behaviour. In this regard three sources of emotion regulation merits mention, namely individual, relational and structural-level sources (De Leersnyder et al., 2013). On the individual level cultural appropriateness of an endpoint of emotion regulation influences individual tendencies regarding emotional experiences of people (Gross, Sheppes, & Urry, 2011)—say in terms of what is expected of a younger woman or older man. With regards to relational co-regulation I explained in the previous chapter how gatherings constitute spaces where consultation and consensus prescribe how close others impact on emotion regulation. Our systematic empirical evidence that adults assist one another in re-appraising situations (Mohamed, 2018) is novel. Beyond anecdotal evidence, co-regulatory processes have seldom been ascribed to life phases

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beyond childhood (De Leersnyder et al., 2013). Such adult, or mature relational co-regulation, differs from more conventional ideas that co-regulation pertains to parent-child, or caregiver/teacher-child relational co-regulation (Campos, Frankel, & Camras, 2004; Holodynski & Friedlmeier, 2006). In this way gatherings to consult and aim for consensus are deliberate pathways that model social referencing (Boiger & Mesquita, 2012) and intentionally align the emotional experiences of the collective to culturally desired endpoints of emotion regulation. Such gatherings therefore enable people to successfully navigate social relationships. Much like parent-child co-regulation (Whiting & Whiting, 1975) the gatherings are social learning opportunities to exemplify certain emotional experiences that lie at the heart of the culture’s relationship ideals, or explore consequences when there are rule violations or transgression against social norms. The consultative spaces afford an opportunity to reinforce a preference for social, or relational harmony and obligation together with a prevention focus to avoid negative social outcomes that may lead to failure to meet social expectations (Lee, Aaker, & Gardner, 2000)—as in the Lungi-depiction in the introductory chapter. Similarly, consultative forums are proactive to encourage people to experience emotions that are socially engaging. This is the case as these spaces affirm an other-focused orientation (De Leersnyder et al., 2013) where experiences of appropriate social behaviour that is expected are appraised in terms of structured cycles of mutual perspective taking (Trommsdorff & Kornadt, 2003). In this way, considering outside-in and self-distancing perspectives (De Leersnyder et al., 2013) is central to consultation and consensus processes to emphasise third party-meanings of emotional situations. As I have argued, structural ways in which everyday life is organised affords or suppresses particular emotional experiences—as depicted in Sibo’s anecdote. In the everyday life of structural and cultural marginalisation the experience of certain emotions is more or less likely. And as the structural organisation changes so does the potential for a new normative regarding acceptable emotional experiences. Beliefs about the (un-)predictable or (un-)controllable nature of the world guide appraisals that elicit emotions refers (De Leersnyder et al., 2013). Forbearance may be predicted when you need to accept that structural disparity does not favour you and that you are required to wait your turn in service provision. Anger and frustration are significantly associated with the appraisal dimension of controllability (Kuppens, Van Mechelen, Smits, & De Boeck, 2003). Aggressive assertiveness may however result with knowledge that you can disrupt an unequal system which supposedly affords you equal access to services—experiencing anger denotes beliefs that a situation can be controlled and fixed. The emotion regulation endpoint of social inclusion is especially significant in a highly unequally structured environment to access life-sustaining social support. Lack of socio-emotional adeptness that mirror social conventions signal barriers to access opportunities for social support. Inability to align emotion regulation with culturally salient values implies social exclusion. Resulting isolation from an ingroup also precludes benefits from social support. The absence of both state- and social support exacerbates existing high levels of vulnerability. Consequently, cul-

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turally salient socio-emotional competence become essential to promote better than expected outcomes. Relational co-regulation is especially relevant with regards to interdependent valued relationships and reminds of social connectedness (Putnam, 2000; Kilpatrick, Johnson, King, Jackson, & Jatrana, 2015). In this regard Taylor and Stanton (2007) also found that social support is premised on connectedness to others, together with mutual assistance and obligation. As Lewis (2010) appropriately notes: ‘At the heart of Ubuntu lies an understanding of identity as it emerges through relationships; that is, the principle of interconnectedness’. Older women explained the centrality of social connectedness as pathway to resilience in their way of living: People should help each other. When you see struggling, even if they did not call you, you go to them to help. Illness that is in the family, you come and offer support. That is why we say people should help each other. If we are united we have more than one set of hands (Eastern Cape, Older Women: 35–39); In that particular home the community come and give their support…This family does not cook any food, but their neighbours cook various meals and offer whatever food they can offer as a way to show their love, support and sympathy. The youth or young women do the daily chores to help, like cleaning (Swaziland, Older Women: 43–48); And then we also have the helping, caring hand. Where, as a neighbour, I am responsible for coming into my neighbour’s house, give her a helping hand, wash the baby because the mom is sick (Namibia, Younger Women: 370–373). Kagitcibasi (2000) explains that, from an African world view, social and emotional ties constitute obligations carried by each individual in a community. Ontologically speaking a lonely individual is unimaginable from the African perspective: You cannot be a single person. You need other people to support you, to believe them, to share with them whatever you have in your head (Mpumalanga, Younger Women: 324–326); In African tradition, whatever happens to your neighbour – death, marriage, sickness – even if it’s problems with [the] children[‘s] behaviour – it’s also your problem. Because tomorrow it can also happen in your house (North West, Older Women: 119–122). Social connectedness is obviously not the sole privilege of an interdependent culture. Putnam (2000) posits social connectedness as a cultural template of social capital and values. Kilpatrick et al. (2015) note that social connectedness is rooted in attitudes, language, values and norms, and the acquisition of knowledge. Social connectedness goes beyond culture and extends to human development, health and wellbeing. Attachment is after all a universal need to form affective bonds with others (Becker, Billings, Eveleth, & Gilbert, 1997; Bowlby, 1969, 1973). Social connectedness is a basic human driver for lasting and positive attachments with other human beings (Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Smith & Mackie, 2000). From a social psychology perspective, social connectedness is the need and striving for

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Photographs 5.1 and 5.2 Teacher teams opted for group-identities that reflected interdependent self-construal: Let’s help each other (Masiphilisane) and Let us build together (Masizakheni)

connectedness that act as drivers of social behaviour (Smith & Mackie, 2000). Social connectedness therefore signifies being connected to meaningful others and belonging to a group and so has been likened to a sense of belonging (Antonovsky, 1987) and social inclusion. It follows that social connectedness has a direct, negative effect on psychological distress (Lee, Draper, & Lee, 2001). Commitment to social connectedness beliefs and practices were evident in the names that teachers picked for their school-based teams (as visible in the in Photographs 5.1 and 5.2). The names carried messages of interdependent self-construal (Markus & Kitayama, 1991), other-focused perspectives, and social usefulness and promised communal effort, agency, reciprocity, as well as hope and optimism. In the Eastern Cape the isiXhosa names chosen for school-based teacher interventions were Masizakheni (Let us build together), Masiphilisane (Let’s help each other), Ixhnati le sizwe (Pillar for the nation). In Gauteng the Sepedi teacher-led interventions were labelled Tshwaraganang (Let’s work together to achieve this goal) and Retladira (We will work). In Mpumalanga the isiZulu labels for teacher interventions were Tsemba letfu (Our trust), Siyoncoba (We will conquer), and Likusasa letfu (Our future).

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5.3 Everyone Will Put in Something: Social Capital and Flocking As is evident in the photographs above, culturally valued interdependent relationships conveys an interpersonal closeness with the social world and includes social capital and values, networks and trust in these networks that has been learned over time, from generation to generation. Social capital is significantly linked to subjective health and wellbeing (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004). Social capital is the resource package built into the social connectedness network of relationships between individual actors (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004). To buffer against adversity, flocking capitalises on the promised goodwill of shared social resources which is inherent to interdependent social capital. As I explained in the first chapter, the elements of social capital with particular Afrocentric relevance (Kuku, Omonona, Oluwatay, & Ogunleye, 2013) were observable in flocking and include social resources, collective resources, economic resources and cultural resources. The excerpts below show how the wealth of especially social resources (embedded in social capital) are mobilised through relationships during flocking: You will look at the financial problems. Everyone will put in something. Everyone will look where she or he can help (Namibia, Older Women: 128–130); We also give financial contribution. We also assist with the funeral arrangement (Namibia, Younger Men: 242–243); In case of poverty also, neighbours will also help out with food and clothes. It is not uncommon that when you have something that you don’t use anymore you don’t think about throwing it away (at) first. First you think who can I give it to that may use it again. Who can I give it to? My neighbours might use this food or this old clothes to wear, and so on (Namibia, Older Women: 151–155). As I have said, hunger lies at the heart of severe poverty. The extracts below show how social connectedness links the social capital that exists in relationships to address the heart-wrenching problem of hunger in families: What we do is, people will bring whatever they have and we give to the family. One will bring tinned fish. Another one tinned corned beef (Limpopo, Younger Women: 67–69); In hunger you can share with them the little that you have. Whether it being food, or if you have a bit more, you can share with them (North West, Younger Women: 134–135); If a person is having problems and cannot feed their family, we assist them with whatever is available (Limpopo, Older Women: 22–24); We share everything. You take what you have and give it to a person or house that is affected by hunger (Eastern Cape, Older Women: 26–27).

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5.4 Relationships as Privileged Pathway to Resilience The value of relationships for wellbeing across the lifespan is lived knowledge in interdependent-prone Southern Africa. There is, for example, evidence of flocking in our case study data derived from our association with South African teachers (Olivier, 2010): We want to share. Share information. Share pain. Share everything. That is why we must have a relationship (Eastern Cape, female primary school teacher: 235–237); We don’t hide anything from each other. We share our feelings. We talk to one another. Whenever everyone has a problem. So then we look at ways of helping one another (Gauteng, female primary school teacher: 36–39); In a relationship there are the ups and downs and how people help each other to get through whatever hurdles they have in life (Mpumalanga, female high school teacher: 36–39). Structural and cultural marginalisation mean that generations of marginalised indigenous people have lived, survived hardship and thrived despite expectations to the contrary. During household visits in one of the remote Limpopo sites I was struck by the way life reflected commitment to social wellbeing, and the centrality of relationships. From the position of my own privileges I had expected to find people who lived withdrawn from the world, that I would encounter isolation and gloom, people with little interest in life. Yet what I observed was households arranged around adorned spaces that were inviting, that welcomed people to commune. For our discussions we were welcomed into these decorated communal spaces (pictured in Photographs 5.3 and 5.4) be it under the shade of a baobab tree, or underneath a bougainvillea pergola at an entrance gate. What each of these spaces heralded was the confident knowledge of everyday lives intentionally structured around not being isolated and excluded, but of being attached to others. This signifies a guaranteed knowledge of being attached, being in meaningful relationships with others: It involves care. Caring for someone… Loving one another, supporting each other in different situations. Supporting each other emotionally and otherwise (Mpumalanga, male high school teacher: 180–183). Despite heart-wrenching HIV and AIDS-related illness, in the face of hunger, in spite of unemployment, regardless of bereavement each of these homesteads showed that the people in their homes knew that they could depend on other people showing up at their homes to assist them in their hardship. There is unequivocal acceptance of being socially connected in relationships: ‘You cannot be a single person’, said the female teacher in Mpumalanga. This differs from a Western perspective, where effective attachment (and consequent health and wellbeing) is based on autonomy, independence and self-efficacy. Yet Yamaguchi and Ariizumi (2006) note that not all cultures value these characteristics equally highly. Gale and Bolzan (2013) found in their work with young people from an indigenous Australian population that, rather than autonomy, independence and self-efficacy,

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Photographs 5.3 and 5.4 Spaces are designed around relationships and social inclusion, Limpopo (2013)

young people actually valued civic connectedness and belonging to a responsive community. In the same way young indigenous people in Canada expressed that their own health and happiness was connected to community and cultural tradition (Tait & Whiteman, 2011). From a social capital perspective, social networks take on different forms and include family, marriage, friendships, and neighbourhood ties, which also extend to workplace connections and those in individual and collective civic engagement (Helliwell & Putnam, 2004). Such relationships constitute key drivers for the developmental, adaptive processes that are fundamental to transactional-ecological resilience processes. In a synthesis article Osher, Cantor, Berg, Steyer, and Rose (2018) argue that relationships and contexts can be risks and resources for healthy, reciprocal actions between individuals and their contexts and culture. Psychologically the influence of ways in which individuals appraise and interpret risks and resources is observable across generations and can produce intra—as well as intergenerational assets and risks—or indigenous knowledge, if you will. The intergenerational transfer of sociocultural values is rooted in pride and the aspiration that human development will be grounded in the knowledge of preferred sets of norms: When a child lacks cultural values, he won’t be a good child. For children to have manners, they learn from us, their elders, how we do things for them to also do things right in life (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 513–518); When you are going to the ploughing fields, you do something there to help. To encourage youth to go there (Mpumalanga, Older Men, 2012: 659);

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To learn about culture is very important, because it is like rules and manners when you grow up. You have to learn our culture, where we come from. It is where you learn about manners so you can live good. And you can learn traditional dance so that you learn [teach]your future generation (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 434–441); Some white people, when it’s come to kill a cow, they use a gun. And us, we not use a gun. We use a knife. Like it’s very important to know the different culture[s] (Mpumalanga, Member-checking, 2014: 428–431); It is important to know our history. Because it is important that we must know where we are coming from so that we can tell the next generation about our history (Mpumalanga, Member-checking, 2014: 507–510). In a later section on Afrocentric salient socio-emotional competence, I revisit discussions in the previous chapter on how children are socialised into becoming ‘a good neighbour’ who can emulate duty to in-group beliefs and practices—predisposing them to continue flocking traditions. In their landmark review of the causes of disease that influence a population’s health, epidemiologists Pickett and Wilkinson (2010) found that, over a lifespan, a lack of meaningful relationships was one of the most significant drivers of negative objective and subjective health and wellbeing outcomes. In fact, they found that health and wellbeing outcomes are less aligned with economic wealth. They provided evidence that what matters for health and wellbeing, across societies, were relational welfare together with high self-esteem and a functional childhood. Their analysis focused on affluent societies.3 It would appear that flocking proves that their thesis holds true in a country with an emerging economy, where there is extreme and ongoing hardship. Flocking shows that in a postcolonial society, one rife with poor service delivery, dominant interdependent worldviews provide supportive and trusting relationships with access to social resources that bolster use of limited services that are required for health and wellbeing development. A robust social fabric (appropriated in social support behaviours) moderates against the effects of limited policy implementation for health and wellbeing services. In addition, the social support behaviour of flocking plausibly encourages positive collective self-esteem: people live with the assured, trusted knowledge that their meaningful relationships give them access to social support that make a difference to their health and wellbeing during challenging times. In the Grant and Glueck studies4 (the Harvard Adult Development Studies) (Vaillant, 2012) it is also evident that what matters most for health and wellbeing in life are 3 They

only studied those countries where population health is no longer linked to average levels of income levels. Their sampled data set included countries for which a comparable income distribution measure was available in the United Nations Human Development Reports and, in the end, comprised the 50 richest countries (as indicated by the World Development Indicators Database, World Bank, April 2004). They excluded countries with populations of fewer than 3 million. 4 Grant Study: a 75-year longitudinal study of 268 healthy (physically and mentally) Harvard college sophomores (classes of 1939–1944). Glueck Study: a second cohort of 456 disadvantaged, non-delinquent inner-city youths who grew up in Boston neighbourhoods between 1940 and 1945.

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relationships. Longitudinal data showed a powerful correlation between the warmth of your relationships and health and happiness over your lifespan. The close and physical relationship with caregivers in early relationships were especially significant for health and wellbeing outcomes. Besides these early attachments, they found that significant relationship connections also transcended family relationships to include teachers, friends and colleagues. These extended social connections are characteristic of kinship systems in interdependent, collectivist social systems (Carsten, 2000, 2004; Van der Geest, 2004). A socio-cultural tendency to engage in extended kinship systems (like some in a social group do) possibly alludes to being predisposed to health and wellbeing. As with the Wilkinson and Picket study, the origin of the Harvard Adult Development Studies is not similar to that of flocking data. It would thus appear that, it may be plausible to claim that, irrespective of culture and context, the relevance of relationships for health and wellbeing is indisputable. Flocking posits the value of relationships for resilience where relationships become the vehicle for social support (as discussed in the first chapter). Flocking also illustrates how knowledge on the value of relationships for resilience can have intergenerational value as it is transferred across generations as an effective pathway to adapt to challenges. Flocking arguably shows that, besides the value of relationships for health and happiness throughout a lifetime, relationships may hold the key for the intergenerational health and happiness of those for whom behaviour is prescribed by their social connectedness beliefs.

5.5 ‘It Is not Easy to Help Someone Who Is Difficult’—Culturally Salient Socio-Emotional Competence and Flocking Relationships are the water towers for resilience support in flocking. And establishing and maintaining relationships require socio-emotional competence. As I argued earlier in this chapter it is known that that which is valued with regards to relationships is determined by culturally salient values. Cultural emotional competence (Friedlmeier & Trommsdorff, 2002) indicates that culturally adequate regulation occurs in accordance with respected cultural values. A young Namibian man shared the following vignette: This happened when I was a young child and we did not have enough food in my house. And it was a Saturday afternoon when they were preparing this nice, beautiful lunch. And you could smell the nice food coming from the neighbour’s kitchen. So I would go over and pretend to be playing with my friend because I know it is almost lunchtime. So basically I had been waiting until the family starts serving food. Because I’m there, no one would chase me to go home. And that’s the spirit and the love that we have been receiving from our neighbours (272–283).

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The anecdote of this young man reminiscing about how he was invited to share a sweet-smelling lunch alludes to the necessity of socio-emotional competence to establish and maintain relationships within a web of social connectedness. Similarly, a socially savvy older Swazi woman remarked: When the neighbour has nothing, their neighbours come and give their support. Provided the neighbour is a good person who has no problem or issues with his or her neighbours. Because it is not easy to help someone who is difficult. The neighbour has to be a good person (55–60). A male high school teacher from Mpumalanga reflected on the socio-emotional capacity to maintain relationships: You must not take a relationship for granted. You must go all out so that relationship can be sustainable. I have learnt that you should go the extra mile if you can so that you keep the relationship going. Sometimes you must sacrifice a lot of things for a relationship (378–385). Culturally salient socio-emotional competence can bolster or prevent the use of promised resources inherent in these relationships when needed. Socio-emotional competence is an intrapsychic resource which lie at the heart of resilience processes and which individuals or groups require to navigate towards and negotiate access to resources (Ungar, 2012; Masten, 2007, 2014): You have to listen. You must be a good listener and listen to other people’s views. You respect their views. I think that is the basic of a good relationship: understanding and respect (Mpumalanga, male high school teacher: 220–224); You can discuss problems and maybe you didn’t know this person had a problem of this sort. We could solve this problem very easily. Relationships bring ideas from different people and thinking differently (Gauteng, female primary school teacher: 162–165). It is culturally salient socio-emotional competence that enable individuals to establish and maintain relationships (Deci & Ryan, 1985), which is fundamental to flocking: … the manner in which you are going to relate … let the people get closer to you (Eastern Cape, female, primary school teacher: 195–196); There must be trust if you are going to have a relationship. I talked about care first. So there must be trust, honesty, respect. We need to respect each other. And there must be guidance (Gauteng, female, primary school teacher: 78–81). Flocking as pathway to resilience thus relies on the capacity of individuals as part of a collective to self-regulate emotions, cognitions and behaviour in unison with the environment. Besides the obvious conclusion that socio-emotional competence relates to how individuals connected to other people, it also includes meta-processes of how people appraise and interpret such relationships and experiences, and the agency that results from this (Slavich & Cole, 2013). As such socio-emotional competence is the adeptness to harmonise self-, social and environment systems by regulating emotions, behaviour, and cognition (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Murray, Rosanbalm, Christopoulos & Hamoudi, 2015).

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In a collectivist society meta-affect (Saarni, 1997, 1999) and meta-cognition (Biggs, 1988; Lai, 2011), which are inherent in socio-emotional competence, need to be interpreted through a social usefulness and reciprocity lens. A good neighbour therefore, for example, adheres to standards of interdependence and reciprocity. We are connected to each other: I am because we are, (Gauteng, Younger Men: 187) and we take turns to help each other when it is needed: Poverty is curbed by you offering your neighbour support and they return the favour when the time comes (Namibia, Younger Men: 95–96). Relational reciprocity (other-focused and outside-in perspectives I discussed earlier) thus requires of individuals to be mindful (Harvey, Pauwels, & Zickmund, 2005) regarding one another’s linked thoughts, feelings and behaviours. When such connectedness goes out of synchronisation, it augurs bad tidings for individuals who may not have the socio-emotional competence to steer through relationships: … it does not mean that I should just go to that person, being angry, showing my emotions (Gauteng, Female primary school teacher: 77–78). Earlier in this chapter I attended to the prominence of collective processes of consultation and consensus inherent in collective decision-making. I claimed that, rather than individual meta-affect and meta-cognition, it appears that collective or co-regulatory strategies are present during flocking (Malan-Van Rooyen, 2015; Mohamed, 2018). Relatives, friends or networks consult together for the collective appraisal of risk, available resources and plausible ways to intervene with a view to moderating against risk. As is evident in the data provided in the previous chapter, the aim of the consultation is to reach consensus about a resilience-enabling strategy that could lead to collective agency and collective positive outcomes. The endpoint of emotion regulation (De Leersnyder et al., 2013) is social harmony so that social usefulness is possible and people can support each other in ways that do not cultivate dependency. Support is aimed at assisting an individual and their family to get up again (recover from adversity) and not to be dependent on assistance from the collective permanently: Especially person of my age who still has two legs and can walk. Who doesn’t depend on his parents. Like me. I don’t depend on my parents. I’m responsible for my wellbeing (Eastern Cape, Younger Women: 101–104); Do not give a pill. Be helpful and encourage them to go to the clinic so that you can both find out what is causing them to be sick (North West, Younger Women: 157–159). In his review of self-regulation studies in South Africa, Botha (2013) also found evidence of self-regulation as a social resource, and a communal process, similarly promising closer scrutiny of relational co-regulation that may underpin socioemotional competence in Southern Africa. As socio-emotional competence can be learned (Tajfel & Turner, 2004) the relational spaces of a collectivist society afford opportunities to model, appropriate and enact the required competences to resile in a group and in response to adversities.

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Many of the excerpts shared in this and other chapters in the book show that the intergenerational transfer of socio-cultural practices include norms and standards for using socio-emotional competence to belong to the group and ensuring the capacity to access relational resources. And being a ‘good child’ implies reflecting what is valued by others who are significant: To learn about our culture is very important. It is like the rules and manners. When you grow up you have to learn our culture – where we come from. It is where you learn about manners so you can live good and so that you can learn your future generation (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 431–444); Maybe there are some that do not know about ancestors. So they don’t know how to deal. So they can ask and see how others do. Because maybe they weren’t taught when they were still growing (Mpumalanga, Memberchecking, 2014: 267–278); When a child lacks cultural values, he won’t be a good child. For children to have manners they learn from us, their elders, on how we do things right in life (Limpopo, Member-checking, 2014: 513–518). As was evident from the previous chapter, what emerged from the flocking data was that one ‘does things right’ is governed by a cultural context of interdependent relationships with social connectedness. And how one does the right thing from a collectivist perspective is to be in relationships and be good at relationships. It is through relationships that the collectivist values of communality and collaboration manifest.

5.6 If You Laugh, Don’t Expect Me to Help: Social Exclusion and Not Being ‘A Good Neighbour’ Not being part of the social fabric of people you know implies that individuals in dire need of support exist out of reach of the social support which citizens might offer. To be considered for social support from friends and family is conditional. It rests on the obligation to conform to collectivist norms and standards: The kind of help we give to a good neighbour… you can only tell if one is a good neighbour through their actions (Swaziland, Younger Women: 108–109); Another way of helping your neighbour would be lending them a helping hand if they find themselves in such a situation as death and natural disasters. You help them in whatever way you can if you are a good neighbour (Swaziland, Older Men: 8–11); We donate twenty rand… and state my case that when I’m not okay financially he will give me something if he’s got something (Eastern Cape, Older Men: 7–12).

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The subscript of interdependent relationships is therefore the negative consequences of social exclusion when you do not adhere to collective practices. In the language of flocking data this implies that you can expect to be isolated and excluded from social support if you are not ‘a good neighbour’. Those who conform to the socially agreed-upon norms and standards of collectivism as ‘good neighbours’ can count on being eligible to receive because of being included and reap the fruit of such socially acceptable behaviour, ergo social support. Cohen, Gottlieb, and Underwood (2000) explain that when people belong to a certain social network, they subscribe to particular social mechanisms to maintain their group-prescribed, normative, healthy behaviours. Worldwide societies struggle with the social inclusion of migrant workers, immigrants (Abrego & Lakhani, 2015) and refugees (Nash, Wong, & Trlin, 2006). The result is that governments and non-profit organisations alike have to put structures in place to vigilantly monitor for isolation and deliberately enable inclusion in order not to exacerbate vulnerability and potential maladaptation of ‘new-comers’ in societies (Baines, 2017; Jacobs, Flaam, Fowlis, & Pangburn, 2017). This may be even more challenging in a postcolonial and collectivist society. Even in affluent societies services to such displaced groups have limitations (Cheng, Drillich, & Schattner, 2015; Cheng, Vasi, Wahidi & Russell, 2015). The effects of risk are increased in a resource-constrained society where there is limited service delivery to people from low socio-economic circumstances. Marginalised citizens have family roots as well as proximal social capital and they are used to counting on social support. But marginalised, displaced people cross borders without proximal social capital and as outsiders to the new home-country ‘collective’ they cannot assume to be eligible to receive social support—and certainly not of already stretched government-services. In fact, protectionist actions may mean that displaced people can expect xenophobia, which can result in deliberate social exclusion actions: We are experiencing a big big problem of people from Zimbabwe. When they come to South Africa they just come and steal things from us. Even cows, goats and donkeys. Stuff like that. And they just steal from us. And the we suggest to government that in order to avoid that kind of problem, the government send soldiers to the Limpopo River to make fence so that the Zimbabwean people will not be able to come here to South Africa (Limpopo, Older women: 813). Needless to say, whereas social connectedness has a direct, negative effect on psychological distress (Lee, Draper & Lee, 2001), the opposite can be presumed in respect of social exclusion. Besides loneliness, a lack of connectedness can have detrimental psychological outcomes (Pakenham, Bursnall, Chiu, & Okochi, 2006; Pakenham, Chiu, Bursnall, & Cannon, 2007). People who are perceived to be socially disconnected also experience stigma and discrimination (Rotenberg, 1998). In many other societies a Sibo doppelgänger may not have been baffled when I asked him what he and his family were doing for support. It may not be common

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around the world to presume that ‘when you live, you live with others’5 —as the helper in our house, Eva Matebula, remarked when we shared the food that a colleague had sent home with me after a function at work. Globally, social isolation is a blight on societies (Cacioppo, Cacioppo, Capitanio, & Cole, 2015; Holt-Lunstad, Smith, Baker, Harris, & Stephenson, 2015; Kent, Hawthorne, Kjaer, Manniche, & Albert, 2015; Matthews, Danese, Wertz, Odgers, Ambler, Moffitt, & Arseneault, 2016; Parigi & Henson, 2014; Smith, Jackson, Kobayashi, & Steptoe, 2018). In Japan elderly loneliness means that many older people die isolated from others, with a substantial amount of time passing for anyone realises they have passed away, or reports their deaths (Franck, Molyneux, & Parkinson, 2016; Shankar, McMunn, Demakakos, Hamer, & Steptoe, 2017; Weldrick & Grenier, 2018). In Britain loneliness is such a grave social ill that a Minister of Loneliness was instated. This appointment followed a finding that more than nine million Britons often or always feel lonely (Cox, 2017). Interestingly, from a resilience perspective, the prevalence of social isolation was higher where the adversity and vulnerability rate of the population was higher (and where additional resources are especially required to moderate against the effect of a challenge). This twelve-month-long investigation in Britain showed that the more you were in need, the less connected you were with others. This differs from data that merged from flocking where, as described in the previous chapter, social connectedness is prominent even where there is high need: ‘Maybe that person is alone. A single mother with her kids. And her kids is young, they cannot even help. So we help that person. And we cook for that person. We give food. We look after the person by washing’ (Namibia, Older Women: 92–96). Other studies with African participants also found that rather than isolating individuals who struggle, responses were characterised by solidarity (Kagitcibasi, 2000; Letseka, 2013). The counter-loneliness practices and policies which resulted from findings on loneliness in Britain include volunteer knock-on-door enterprises to socialise with lonely folk in their homes, as well as customising public spaces (parks, community allotments, leisure centres, libraries) to encourage people who are lonely to gather, foster conversations, friendship, and empathy. These policy directives mirror the lived collectivist and communal flocking behaviour discussed earlier and is reflected in the musing of a young man from the Eastern Cape: … when he is sick, we see mos that the family suffer. It is our duty to look out (Eastern Cape, Young Men: 70–71); If my neighbour is sickly, as a neighbour I must check on him daily so that if he needs my help, I must assist him (Limpopo, Older Men: 106–108).

5 As

jy lewe, jy lewe saam met die ander. Jy kan nie alleen lewe nie [While one is alive, one lives with others. One cannot live alone.].

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5.7 You Cannot Be a Single Person. You Need Other People to Support You You consolidate what you have in solidarity. Solidarity to capitalise on networking was evident in the flocking-case study data—specifically solidarity to garner social support. Solidarity is one of many well-known social responses during times of hardship (García-Carrión, Molina-Luque, & Roldán, 2018). Gale and Bolzan (2013) note that solidarity rises significantly in times of high need. Universally solidarity characterises hardship responses. In a flocking scenario solidarity is graced with longevity. Flocking-solidarity does not constitute a social action reserved for only acute social disruptions—say student uprisings (Mngomezulu, 2015) or opposition to increases in toll-fees (Dipa, 2017). It was the pathway of choice for chronic adversity. Social support is an easily identifiable characteristic of hardship given an interdependent, Afrocentric worldview. Flocking-solidarity is evident in the humane, social support responses to hardship—which, besides citizen-level strategies, includes responses of churches, non-profit organisations. Social support in the form of flocking, is created by and supported by individuals to provide services or opportunities to acquaintances—unlike state-level social welfare programmes that may be pro-poor (I deliberate government-level support to structure opportunities further in the next chapter). Flocking occurs in the absence of policy interventions by governments. Flocking support is the responsibility of individuals, their families, local institutions and communities. Whether or not this is fair appears to be irrelevant to those providing and receiving the flocking support. Rather social support has a tradition of being appropriated by a collective who pragmatically do what needs to be done in the absence of historical limitations in government services—think of Sibo’s story. Rather than a social welfare programme providing assistance to the elderly, the unemployed, the disabled and the destitute, it is citizens who are the resilience-enabling actors. State-level social welfare programmes have been criticised for their high cost, serving as a disincentive to economic participation, appropriating too much power to governments, and negative effects on the economic impact of a society to deliver goods efficiently (Mankiw, 2013). It may take some time for state-governed social welfare services to replace citizen-driven flocking-social support. The reason is that many of the well-known disadvantages lobbied by opponents of social welfare (Mankiw, 2013) fall by the wayside when citizens run such support initiatives themselves. Implications for high cost to government spending is shifted—from governments to citizens. This may act as disincentive to governments to cost-share the burden of social support with citizens. The prescriptive, normative model of flocking entails that social support pathways intentionally aim at creating agency incentives for underemployed or unemployed people alike to be inventive, to initiate collaborative income generation schemes, supplement livelihood, or even find employment in a severely stretched job market. In this way an argument that social welfare acts as disincentive to agency and innovation (Mankiw, 2013) becomes debatable.

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When social support incentivises agency rather than dependency, citizens engage in economic activity. So the feared danger of social welfare that will encourage individuals to lose the incentive to produce (with accompanying negative effects on a nation’s productivity and income) (Garrison, 2017; Mankiw, 2013) is countered by a narrative that the social convention is that of agency (given opportunity structures). In addition, the economic activity in citizen-directed social support is mostly in the informal market system of social entrepreneurship (Mair & Marti, 2006). Thus, as more workers produce more goods in an informal economy of bartering, lending, and smart partnerships, the economic output of a society increases. A last criticism against exclusively depending on government social welfare policy is that it provides spaces where government has too much control over citizens (Mankiw, 2013). However, with citizen-directed social support, whether good or bad, the power is appropriated by acquaintances and friends. Rather than citizens relying on government for income, sustenance, or health- and education- support, friends may have to allow family or neighbours to have too much say in their individual choices. Governments do not stand the danger of being scripted as bullies who impose rules on everyday decisions of grant-recipients because government is not paying for many of the services that friends and family provide. Tried-and-tested benefits of Afrocentric social support practices may remain marginalised in interventions by related governments, donors and development workers. I am proposing that interventions can graft onto culturally salient norms in interdependent societies to buffer against inequality and bolster better than expected health and wellbeing outcomes. Leveraging cultural resources of social support promises social welfare policy benefits: cost savings to resource constrained civic chests, incentivising economic participation, power-sharing between citizens and governments, and a positive effect on the capacity of a society to proficiently deliver necessary goods for economic impact.

5.8 Conclusion Relational access to flocking is enabled or constrained by the presence or absence of culturally salient socio-emotional competence to maintain culturally valued relationships. Thus insights on the interdependent beliefs and practices inherent to culturally valued relationships and associated social support have significance for theory, intervention, research and training and, where relevant, policy for services that ensure health and wellbeing. It is not only in affluent societies (Vaillant, 2012; Pickett & Wilkinson, 2010) that meaningful relationships are significant for health and wellbeing. The social fabric of social connectedness moderates the impact of chronic and cumulative adversity, and buffers against shocks to the social system. The long-term flocking case study data bear evidence of the importance of relationships in a highpoverty and low service-provision setting to resile. In fact, one could assume that in

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an unequal society, one without any social fabric that privileges social connectedness, relationships, and the associated social support, the frequency of negative health and wellbeing outcomes may be even higher for marginalised (often indigenous) people. In a collectivist society it is knowledge of interdependent relationships and associated culturally salient socio-emotional competence that matters most for psychological intervention to bolster resilience. Scholars, professional practitioners and healthcare policymakers in comparable interdependent-focused societies may benefit from being well-versed in especially these content areas to provide meaningful mental health services and training. This obviously does not preclude knowledge of other foci. It merely situates relational knowledge at the centre of usefulness in psychology to a dominant interdependent client base with existing relational resilience pathways that have proven useful for addressing a range of prolonged daily challenges. A point of departure for resilience interventions and research is that an interdependent perspective does not equate provision of support with cultivating dependence. Flocking evidence shows that amongst the sampled Southern African populations, support is levelled at generating agency. The agency that typically results from collective structures challenges the simplistic acceptance or passive fatalism of those scripted as marginalised victims. Theory on family matters for psychological intervention in Southern Africa. Kinship relationships (families) are at the heart of interdependent processes of connectedness, consultation, consensus and collaboration. It follows that a clear understanding is needed of what is ‘normative’, culturally salient for family resilience and wellbeing in an interdependent society. Although many have been active in this field (Makiwane, Makoae, Botsis, & Vawda, 2012; Mampane, 2016; Greeff & De Villiers, 2008; Suarez & Baker, 1997), the Western understanding of families (McCubbin & McCubbin, 1996; VandenBos, 2007; Walsh, 2003) and family-orientated measures (McCubbin, Thompson, & McCubbin, 1996) often frame such studies, or continue to be used with interdependent-orientated groups in family intervention (DolbinMacnab, Jarrott, Moore, & O’Hora, 2015). Theorising on indigenous psychology theories of family resilience can enrich the relevance and utility of wellbeing interventions in collectivist settings. Resilience interventions in an interdependent society can graft onto pre-existing knowledge on preferred relational pathways to resilience. Relationships mobilise community-level protective social resources. In a resource-constrained setting resilience-related knowledge exists regarding established and maintained relationships with positive institutions that have access to services. Resilience interventions and studies therefore require baseline information on this existing knowledge: how are positive institutions (Seligman, 2002) already mobilised at community level, which relationships are mobilised for support, who is being supported, who is excluded from support (falls outside the web of social connectedness), which social capitals are used to target which challenges, which agreements to receive support have been made, and who is monitoring and evaluating agency. This extends assetbased strategies (Kretzmann & McKnight, 1993) to that of mapping processes and relationships rather than inventorying possible protective resources. In this regard

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psychological intervention to support resilience can benefit from insights on support due to collaborative relationships with caregivers (Nxumalo, Goudge, & Manderson, 2016; Omidire, Mosia, & Mampane, 2015), school community partnerships between families and teachers (Penn & Osher, 2007; Tate, 2012), social workers (Lombard, 2014), as well as clinics and nurses (Franklin, Bernhardt, Lopez, Long-Middleton, & Davis, 2015; Nxumalo et al., 2016; VanderWielen et al., 2015). Resilience interventions in an interdependent-prone society can include content on relational co-regulation with regards to social conventions of consultation and consensus. This recommendation requires further investigation into what constitutes ‘relational co-regulation’ amongst adults or throughout the lifespan (collaborative meta-affect and collaborative meta-cognition). Insights from interdependent societies on valued relationships, socio-emotional competence, social connectedness and social support practices can be leveraged to assist societies struggling with social isolation and exclusion. As the world moves towards the politics of exclusion and protectionism, it may be prudent to consider proactive strategies for health and wellbeing, to borrow knowledge from age-old practices of maintaining cohesion irrespective of political and structural support. Not belonging to a dominant group, or conforming to general practices, excludes you from the privileges and buffering effects of interdependent, social connectedness during times of need. Across the world displacement and the possible isolation of people is on the increase. Together with the loneliness of being disconnected from one’s usual social networks comes the threat of being targeted for xenophobia and concomitant stigma or even discrimination. From a migration perspective an absence of socio-cultural norms and standards foretells the breakdown of social ties and imply depleted social resources along with social constraints (Bronwell & Schumaker, 1984). Yet, even in circumstances of cultures blending, social connectedness moderately mediates the connection between wellbeing and acculturation. And, in ethnic communities, social connectedness fully mediate the relationship between wellbeing and acculturation (Yoon, Lee, & Goh, 2008). Health and wellbeing professionals in an interdependent society have to be vigilant for the presence of social exclusion and limited culturally salient socio-emotional competence. These are indicators of negative health and wellbeing outcomes universally. Structural and cultural marginalisation may however increase the intensity to demonstrate these opportunities and capacities. But in an interdependent society they may add a considerable burden. It can indicate constraints in attaining wellbeing as an expected socio-cultural norm to form part of the collective. It can also indicate constraints in accessing social support. The implications for science need to be considered when using adapted forms of psychology constructs. Relevant examples in this chapter are instances of insight into conceptualisations of attachment and personality amongst people in an interdependent population. Attachment is viewed as civic connectedness, belonging to a responsive community, and cultural tradition rather than autonomy, independence and self-efficacy. The Chinese personality assessment includes interpersonal relatedness (relatedness, reciprocity orientation, harmony, and face). Scholars may be tempted to use a Western lens as analytic framework when looking at data gen-

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erated with indigenous groups and merely add ‘collective rhetoric’ to constructs: ‘collective’ autonomy, ‘collaborative’ independence and ‘communal’ self-efficacy. Authentic, emic-derived insight is required to enable resilience processes in populations that may not understand, live or aspire to health and wellbeing constructs in the same way as privileged discourses assumed to be universal. In this chapter I substantiate the claim that interdependent cultural beliefs and practices predict relational pathways to resilience as signified by flocking. I explained, from an interdependent and Afrocentric perspective, that social harmony serves as an end to the means of attaining social usefulness. I argued that culturally relevant relational adeptness (socio-emotional competence) can enable or constrain resilienceenabling opportunities for individuals and kinship systems. I suggested that such culturally salient values imply a prevention focus in emotion regulation that favours socially engaging emotions in order to conform to social norms and rules. Similarly, flocking signifies emotion regulation with other-focused and outside-in perspectives that are self-distancing. I put forward that collective consultation and consensus spaces are indicative of both adult relational co-regulation of emotions, as well as socio-emotional learning spaces. I argued that the emotion regulation endpoint of social inclusion is especially significant in a highly unequally structured environment to access life-sustaining social support. I suggest that, given that structural opportunities afford or suppress emotional experiences, the potential for acceptable emotional experiences change in accordance with beliefs about the (un-) predictable or (un-)controllable nature of the world. Interdependent societies may be under-acknowledged as world leaders in evidence that relationships matter for positive health and wellbeing outcomes despite the damning inequality that predicts the opposite. This is not an argument to view indigenous communities in Southern Africa as ideal Xanadu or Mapungubwe spaces of harmony and innovation. Indigenous communities, like non-indigenous communities, are fraught with internal divisions and conflict. However, the social fabric of kinship nevertheless fortifies the agility of adaptation for those with affiliations with groups who can mobilise social capital to assist during hardship.

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Chapter 6

Gathering Under the Mopani Tree: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of an Interdependent Resilience Pathway

Abstract This chapter situates a the relationship-resourced resilience theory, a Southern African indigenous psychology of interdependent resilience, within existing resilience knowledge. I revist all propositions by substantiating that, given the wide range of pathways to resilience known to be used during hardship, social support is a preferred pathway to resilience among interdependent, Afrocentric participants in Southern Africa. I align the theory with resilience thinking that embraces resilience as transactional ecological process and positions culture centrally in adaptive processes. I revisit Ubuntu as relevant Afrocentric world view that favours interdependence as form of kinship. I position the theory in existing knowledge on social resilience, collective resilience, relational resilience, socio-emotional competence and positive social functioning. I propose that relationship-resourced resilience supplements mainstream resilience thinking and offers an empirical perspective on how people with an interdependent world view choose to adapt to adversity that is ongoing and multifarious. Keywords Inequality debates · Equal-opportunity egalitarian debates · Cultural mismatch · Cultural moderation · Conservation of resources · Kinship systems · Social resilience · Collective resilience · Community resilience · Relational resilience · Positive social functioning · Pro-poor policy

6.1 Introduction In this chapter I address theory that relates to propositions on culture, interdependence, social connectedness and social support with relevance to the relationshipresourced resilience theory. As the theory is documented from a psychology perspective, it follows that analysis through different disciplinary lenses (such as anthropology, sociology, history, political science, economy) may afford alternative views on patterns of resilience considering constructs of indigenous, culture, ethnicity, race, class and gender. The relationship-resourced resilience theory resonates with knowledge of resilience as transactional ecological process (Ungar, 2012; Sameroff, 2009) and © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 L. Ebersöhn, Flocking Together: An Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience in Southern Africa, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16435-5_6

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acknowledges structural and cultural forces as significant for flocking. In particular, the relationship-resourced resilience theory aligns with knowledge that situates culture in the centre of transactional ecological process (Khumalo, Temane, & Wissing, 2012; Koen, van Eeden, & Rothmann, 2013; Strümpfer, 2007; Theron & Donald, 2012; Theron & Malindi, 2010; Theron et al., 2011; Theron, Theron, & Malindi, 2013; Van de Vijver & Rothmann, 2004). In the sections that follow, I engage with knowledge on resilience as it pertains to an indigenous psychology theory of interdependent resilience in Southern Africa. I start by describing the centrality of cultural resources as significant protective resources in resilience-enabling processes. I proceed to engage with the resilience implications of an unequal context with structural disparity for an indigenous psychology theory. Then I deliberate existing knowledge on pathways to resilience by attending specifically to proponents of social, relational and collectivist perspectives on resilience. To acknowledge the interdependent roots of the relationship-resourced resilience theory knowledge on collective resilience and community resilience is relevant for theorising. My theorising on resilience was informed by relational tenets related to social connectedness (Adler & Kwon, 2002; Antonovsky, 1987; Baumeister & Leary, 1995; Carsten, 2000, 2004; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Kilpatrick, Johnson, King, Jackson, & Jatrana, 2015; Lee, Draper, & Lee, 2001; Lewis, 2010; Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004; Putnam, 2000; Pakenham, Bursnall, Chiu, & Okochi, 2006; Pakenham, Chiu, Bursnall, & Cannon, 2007; Smith & Mackie, 2000; Van der Geest, 2004; Vaillant, 2012; Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010) social support (Campbell & Foulis, 2004; Harvey & Omarzu, 1997; Ebersöhn & Loots, 2017; Ebersöhn, Loots, Mampane, Omidire, & Malan-Van Rooyen, 2017; Ebersöhn et al., 2014; Kaschula, 2008; Kuku, Omonona, Oluwatay, & Ogunleye, 2013; Masten & Wright, 2010; Nurullah, 2012; Osher, Cantor, Berg, Steyer, & Rose, 2018; Taylor, 2011; Thompson & Goodvin 2016; Ungar et al., 2007) social resilience (Bloom, 1996; Evans, 2005; Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013; Obrist, Pfeiffer, & Henley, 2010; Strümpfer, 2013), relational resilience (Coleman & Ganong, 2002; Daiute, 2013; Gu, 2013; Jordan, 2004; Le Cornu, 2009; Mkhize, 2006; Strümpfer, 2013; Walsh, 1996), social capital (Campbell & Foulis, 2004; Lewis, 2010; Oh, Chung, & Labianca, 2004; Taylor, Dickerson, & Klein, 2005), socio-emotional competence (Baxen & Haipinge, 2015; Oh et al., 2004) and positive social functioning (Hobfoll, 2011; Ryff, Keyes, & Hughes, 2003; Strümpfer, 2013; Taylor, 2002). I conclude by revisiting knowledge on social support and social connectedness, which form the focus of preceding chapters.

6.2 Protective Resources and Interdependent Pathways to Resilience A central tenet in resilience theory is the capacity to adapt successfully (Rutter, 2012) to disturbance (Masten, 2014) that manifests in adaptive processes (Lerner, 2006; Sameroff, 2009; Ungar, 2012). From an ecological perspective (Brooks, 2006; Ungar, 2008) resilience not only denotes a propensity to return to a state prior to

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shock (rebound or recover) (Dent & Cameron, 2003; Mandleco & Peery, 2000), but also the potential to recalibrate and move forward (Walsh, 2002). The notion of resilience as capacity to rebound or recover is also evident in the work of others (Dent & Cameron, 2003; Mandleco & Peery, 2000). As I discuss in subsequent sections in this chapter, key assumptions of resilience therefore include that there are the following: (i) shock in a system (risk factors), (ii) protective resources (environmental, interpersonal and intrapersonal) are available, (iii) socio-ecological processes where available resources are used to adapt to the challenges or mediate and buffer against the effect of the risk, (iv) the outcome of adaptive processes will be positive, and (v) the particular context where resilience unfolds matters (Rutter, 2012; Ungar, 2008; Ungar et al., 2007). Given the structural disparity of a resource-constrained setting the options for resilience-enabling capacity are sparse. In addition, of the limited resources that are available, many are less available to those most in need of support. Naturally, available and accessible resources in an environment carry the promise of being health-enhancing or resilience-enabling. Conversely sparse resources may constrain resilience. Viewed from a developmental psychopathology perspective, protective factors are factors that modify the effects of risk in a positive direction (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000). Consequently protective resources (as explained in Ungar’s (2012) semantic) need to be present in a context for resilience to manifest (Masten, 2007). In resilience discourses such resources are known as protective resources and signify human, social, material and spiritual capacity in individual, group or environmental systems (Masten, 2007; Masten & Reed, 2005). Masten (2007) determined that the following constituted probable and general factors associated with good adaptation. At an intrapersonal level systems include learning systems of the brain, an attachment system, a mastery motivation system, a stress response system, and a self-regulation system. Socio-cultural systems include the family system, the school system, the peer system and cultural-societal systems. Tugade and Fredrickson (2004) found that habitual and abundant positive emotions can assist coping. Belsky (2013) found that, given their development and emotional affect, people are differentially susceptible to experiences and the qualities of stress in their environment. Collectivism may have a role to play in how people are socialised into such assemblages of differential susceptibility. Sameroff and Rosenblum (2006) found that mental health and cognitive competence can act as psychological constraints during adaptation. Seligman similarly (2011) noted the supportive role of positive temperament, together with positive affect and positive institutions. Gunnestad (2006) also found that existential supports can buffer against adversity. Socio-cultural belief systems (norms, values, spirituality) manifest in external support (interpersonal), and are strengthened by internal support (intrapersonal traits). It is established that resources need to be accessible and provided in culturally salient ways to play a meaningful protective role in pathways to resilience (Ungar et al., 2007). This is significant to motivate theorising Afrocentric, indigenous knowledge on resilience. The availability of protective resources can act as enablers to enhance adaptation. Conversely, the nature of available resources can also constrain adaptation. In an unequal country the availability of resources are limited. Certain

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demographic profiles may have the privilege of more resources available to them, with more opportunities for access to quality education, employment, and health services, and less need for welfare support. Where resources may be available to certain marginalised groups (given rural space, age, race, class, and religion), access to such sparse services may be elusive.

6.3 Social Conventions of an Interdependent, Ubuntu Culture and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience Acknowledging the transactional nature of resilience (Sameroff, 2009; Ungar, 2012) includes the assumption that cultural capital is significant for culturally infused meaning-making in resilience processes. Likewise, from an indigenous psychology perspective culture is perceived as central to life. In a postcolonial space, cultural resources may be available but their significance may be structurally marginalised—as I have argued in several instances in this book. In particular, in Chap. 2, I explained the notion of cultural mismatch synonymous with globalisation and postcolonialism where Western and non-Western discourses coexist with more or less power. I also argue that science requires a lens of pluralism to democratise research so that knowledge is meaningful contextually and conceptually to address the extensive hardship experienced by marginalised groups, of whom indigenous populations often constitute the majority. The implication is that resilience studies will include the views of an ‘African way of life’ informed by the indigenous nature of the context perceived by many different indigenous groups (Chilisa, 2012; Mearns, Du Toit, & Mukuka, 2006). Much work has been done in Southern Africa to study resilience by taking culture into account (Khumalo, Temane, & Wissing, 2012; Koen, van Eeden, & Rothmann, 2013; Strümpfer, 2007; Theron et al., 2011; Theron et al., 2013; Theron & Donald, 2012; Theron & Malindi, 2010; Van de Vijver & Rothmann, 2004). In a random control trial to promote resilience (as trait) in children (whose mothers were HIVpositive), it was found that one of the reasons the intervention was effective was specifically due to the intervention being informed by the Afrocentric context (Eloff et al., 2014). However, building indigenous psychology theory on resilience remains elusive. Resilience studies often look at psychological constructs and processes ‘in comparison to’ (Strümpfer, 2013), rather than to conceive of indigenous knowledge and culture from an emic perspective, inductively elicited as alternative pathways of knowledge. From an indigenous psychology (Allwood & Berry, 2006; Evenden & Sandstrom, 2011) position, resilience can be viewed as a process where people leverage cultural capital aligned with their indigenous knowledge systems to adapt to extreme adversity. As I have argued throughout the book, the relevant cultural lens that matters for the relationship-resourced resilience theory is that of an interdependent perspec-

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tive as espoused in Ubuntu, an acknowledged Afrocentric cultural world view that subscribes to collectivism (Letseka, 2013; Owusu-Ansah & Mji, 2013). From a cultural capital perspective, it is social capital (Lewis, 2010) that is especially valued in Ubuntu. In this regard Odora-Hoppers (2002) claims that the collectivist nature of African culture predicts a high value of care and support. The significance of culture for resilience is visible in the proposition of cultural moderation (Ungar, Ghazinour, & Richter, 2013). Here a specific culture influences the socio-cultural meaning-making of an individual (or, in the case of flocking, a collective), the pathways followed to navigate towards and negotiate access to available resources (Ungar, 2011). In order to consider Ubuntu in terms of cultural moderation, I gave full consideration to Ubuntu as relevant interdependent cultural lens for the indigenous psychology theory in Chap. 4. Navigation denotes personal agency (Ungar, 2011) to move towards resources that are available and accessible in a particular context. Negotiation implies the meaning that individuals (independently or in groups) ascribe to available resources (Ungar, 2011). As I argue below (and substantiate in earlier chapters), an interdependent cultural lens suggests that navigation includes collective agency and that negotiation denotes the collectivist conventions of communality and mutuality, a hierarchy of consultation and consensus, as well as collaborative strategies. As I discussed, Ubuntu collectivism is relational (Chilisa, 2012), communal (Motsi & Masango, 2012) and collaborative (Strümpfer, 2013). Therefore, from a Southern African indigenous perspective on interdependence beliefs and practices, resilience is an interdependent process-response to communal risk where social support buffers against continued risk by providing resource management for better than expected positive communal outcomes. In particular, an interdependent Ubuntu resilience ideal is ‘better than expected outcomes for many’. Ubuntu implies that the collective needs of families, neighbourhoods, villages and communities surpass individual needs. Earlier I explained how an Ubuntu culture implies that resilience-enabling pathways are opted for whereby the negative effects of shared risk is mediated collectively for shared benefits. As pathway to resilience, flocking shows that collective Ubuntu-positive outcomes follow social support collaboration and are resilience-enabling for communally beneficial food and nutrition, health and wellbeing, education and spirituality-based wellbeing outcomes. Ubuntu also includes relational principles (Chilisa, 2012). As I explained in Chap. 4, the essence of existence, from an Ubuntu perspective, is connectedness to each other, ancestors and nature, which I argue in Chap. 5 is synonymous with social connectedness (Lewis, 2010). An Ubuntu indigenous view of interdependence proposes that there is existential meaning in social connectedness to others and that it is unimaginable to exist in independent or isolated ways—disconnected and isolated from each other. Ubuntu elevates the value of relationships to a most valued socio-cultural position. Consequently, knowledge on interdependent relationships and social connectedness becomes central to indigenous discourses on adaptive processes. The relationship-resourced resilience theory provides evidence that there is value in understanding how, from an indigenous, sociocultural perspective, values

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and practices regarding interdependence is leveraged as cultural resource during resilience-enabling socio-ecological processes. Ubuntu collectivism assumes communal principles (Motsi & Masango, 2012) that include the principle of reciprocity (Groenewald, 1996). Resources associated with people in a social network are communal. By virtue of social association people have access to these shared commodities, the shared protective resources. It is accepted that in times of need the collective will draw on this joint pool of protective resources to assist adaptation. In a web of social connectedness, relationships act as conduits of social support along which resource management occurs. The communal quality of Ubuntu implies the mutually positive outcomes of resilience processes. From an interdependence perspective resilience is not acceptable if the collective does not share in health, wellbeing and developmental gains. Thus Ubuntu implies that culturally valued relationships and culturally salient socio-emotional competence are significant cultural resources (significant protective resources) from relational, communal, and collaborative perspectives. At a collaborative level social connectedness and relationships enable social engagement, following culturally prescribed age, gender and authority protocols, to appraise risk and decide on and administer social support strategies. At a relational level those who conform to cultural expectations associated with social connectedness and relationships are buffered against vulnerable isolation in times of shock. From an interdependent, social capital (Oh et al., 2004) perspective this is the case as belonging to a network of relationships presupposes access to the benefits of social support. At a communal level relationships and socio-emotional competence assume access to shared stockpiles of social resources that are required during adaptation. Relationships and socio-emotional competence drive collective resilience by being (a) vessels of available social resources, (b) agentic to mobilise social resources for social support, and (c) entail social structures forged through generations for resource management.

6.4 Structural Context and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience As has been evident throughout the book, structural forces in a context is relevant not only with regard to available protective resources. Context is also significant for the range and scope of structural disruption and the normativity of challenges. Context qualifies the nature of structural constraints and enablers of capacity to adapt. Context privileges particular structural repertoires of adaptive processes (pathways to resilience). And context sets structural norms and standards to evaluate if an adaptive outcome is positive of maladaptive. In all of these cultural mismatch imply that the cultural discourses of some may not be represeneted in that of power—be this the result of postcolonialism or of people displaced due to migration (forced or not).

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Consequently, to understand resilience implies studying the interplay of socioecological processes between risk and protective resources that influence a developmental path (Cicchetti, 2010; Theron & Donald, 2012), rather than merely as a study of identified risk factors and protective resources (Rutter, 2006, 2012). Masten (2007) posits such processes as ordinary processes that do not require people with extraordinary capacity. Of relevance for the study of indigenous pathways to resilience is the shift in focus from individual to context that is evident in both Rutter’s (2013, 2006) interactive view of resilience, and Ungar’s (2012) socio-ecological view of resilience. Here resilience is posited as combined individual and ecological qualities that depend on both individual capacity, as well as physical and social context. Resilience, from this perspective, is more than the sum total of positive transactions between person and environment (Rutter, 2012), which are also known as protective transactions (Cicchetti, 2010; Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000; Masten, 2007). The positive transactions, posited by Masten and Wright (2010), are pertinent when considering flocking as social support pathway to resilience. Flocking requires constructive attachments as capacity to build (and maintain) supportive relationships. Flocking is a manifestation of (collective) self-regulation where the given ecology (of challenge and collectivist culture) prescribes the pro-social regulation of emotions and behaviour. Flocking entails (collective) meaning-making of hardship. Flocking leverages (collective) problem-solving to capitalise on (collective) resources, experiencing (collective) agency mastery, as indicated by (shared) experiences of success, and growth as an outcome of goal-directed (social support) behaviour. Context naturally also predicts variability in understanding positive outcomes. Rutter (2012) found, the outcome could be better than expected despite the risk, the adversity could be overcome, or the vulnerability could be reduced given contextual risk. A positive outcome for people living in high-challenge settings may greatly surpass expectations regarding their adaptation to constitute flourishing (Keyes, 2002), or thriving (Strümpfer, 2013), or to be viewed as positive deviance, where the adaptation was surprisingly different from expected (Moore, 2001). Here cultural mismatch also matters. Which perspective determines an outcome as ‘positive’ or ‘adaptive’? How are these discourses affirmed or not in science and structures of opportunity? As I explained, I found great variability in the outcomes of teacher resilience in school communities, where teachers need to cope with the disruption of chronic and cumulative risk every day (Ebersöhn, 2014b). In this poverty-saturated context positive outcomes in teacher resilience, denoted mostly by positive outcomes, with some instances of extraordinary exultation (peer support, assisting a student to access higher education, good academic results of students), as well as instances of maladaptation (absenteeism from work, unprofessional conduct with students and peers).

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6.5 A Challenged Context with Structural Disparity: Risk Factors and an Indigenous Psychology Theory of Resilience For some resilience essentially refers to a process of risk management and development in the face of adversity (Strümpfer, 2013). In fact, some contend that the emerging prominence of resilience studies in Southern Africa is exactly because of the chronically adverse conditions in this region (Tchombe et al., 2012). From a developmental psychopathology stance, risk factors denote factors that exacerbate the negative effects of risk conditions (Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000). Risk factors provide the critical answer to the question: resilience in response to what? I made the case that, as in other comparable postcolonial, and especially Global South settings, the particular context of resilience in Southern Africa is that of continuous structural turbulence, which has multiple origins. In transforming away from inequality, the distribution of resources remains negatively skewed as it does not favour indigenous populations. Historically indigenous people would not have been at the centre of power. After democracy, indigenous people still often remain on the margins of decisions regarding access to resources, with negative consequences in respect of the intergenerational transfer of poverty (Moore, 2001). When studying resilience in a context of inequality, Hobfoll’s (2011) theory on the conservation of resources (COR) is significant. His work is placed in contexts with major and traumatic stress, for example relating to the effects of terrorism, war, economic upheaval, and military occupation. He argues for assuming objective elements of adversity, thereby placing greater emphasis on circumstances where clear stressors are occurring—as is the case with poverty, I would argue. He posits that people who share biology and culture have common appraisals of threat or loss. He stresses environmental conditions that foster or impoverish the protective resources of individuals, families and organisations. He also acknowledges that people with more opportunities and resources experience less psychological and physical distress after a significant life challenge. With regard to resilience, Hobfoll (2011) contributes significantly by his finding that thriving, instead of capitulating to risk, is possible as adaptive outcome in contexts of massive and chronic stress. He emphasised engagement, and found that people could remain committed and involved in life tasks despite extreme contextual stressors. Just as we found that flocking as social support enabled people to remain engaged as mothers, fathers, teachers, elders, and young people despite the hardships associated with inequality, he found that partners, workers, citizens, and parents remained absorbed in and committed to their life’s work. Given the resource-constrained contexts of case studies used for theorising, and the pathway of social support for resource management, which is evident in the relationship-resourced resilience theory, it makes sense to consider how Hobfoll (2011) attends to aspects of resource loss and gain cycles. He considers stress as an active process of striving to fulfil important roles, to achieve important goals and offset a sense of despair, rather than considering stress as static. This conceptualisation

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resonates with the relationship-resourced resilience theory. From this perspective it recognises how participants strive to fulfil important Ubuntu-associated cultural roles, how giving and receiving social support and sharing social resources are important goals to achieve, and how social connectedness enables people to engage in social roles to offset the despair of major and chronic risk. Many scholars who work in contexts of poverty (Branson & Zuze, 2012; Laryea-Adjel & Sadan, 2012; Palardy, 2013) agree that a lens of inequality provides a balanced vantage point to consider poverty. As is evident in my discussion in Chap. 2, more unequal societies (where vast differences between highestand lowest-income groups characterise the society) have prolific negative educational, health, social and economic outcomes. Maladaptation due to chronic stressors are exacerbated by low social status, early-life stress and isolation (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). Rutter (2013) foregrounds the complexity of mediating mechanisms that underlie the context in which risk and protective factors are nested. Some such mediating mechanisms include political structures that perpetuate inequality in spaces characterised by poverty. Whereas beating the odds (Seccombe, 2002) may show resilience, in unequal settings it is changing the odds (Walsh, 1998),—perhaps by being intentional about structurally mediating mechanisms and resilience-enabling socio-ecological processes that promise longevity—especially for the wellbeing of many. I argue that the issue of political opportunity structures is central to understanding resilience (Ebersöhn, 2017). I favour Roemer’s (1998) perspective on opportunity. Irrespective of a society being more or less equal, or being indigenous or not, people have a legal right to access supportive services. In less equal societies, policy must be used intentionally to level the playing field. This implies pro-poor strategies to equalise coverage of, for example health, welfare and education services, as well as access to such services. Inequality paradigms advocate for policy where the central role of the state is to reduce social and economic inequalities. Important for resilience in this debate, as often embraced in liberal and socialist stances, is that the prominence of predominantly fiscal provision of resources by the state overshadows the role of individual agency—or, as would be the case with flocking, collective agency. Such a policy position neglects findings on capability per se, and human capital, human capability and human wellbeing in particular (Nussbaum & Sen, 1993). Studies on ‘equality of opportunities’ (Page & Roemer, 2001; Roemer, 1998; Roemer et al., 2003) have influenced egalitarians, equal-opportunity political philosophers. Of significance for resilience knowledge is that proponents of equal opportunities thinking assert that the state only intervenes in issues of inequality when the inequality is caused by circumstances outside of the influence of individuals, and which, consequently, individuals are neither able to change, nor responsible for changing. This position acknowledges capability and that agency (whether individual or collective) can be instrumental to ‘beat and change the odds’ in challenging circumstances.

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Inequality and egalitarian debates therefore differ according to the individual (or collective) accountability of citizens to change inequality. However, both emphasise state provision of (especially) fiscal resources for reparation. Analyses based on these frameworks seldom include data from emerging-economy countries (Moore, 2001). In countries outlined in Table 2.2, chronic poverty causes less equality. In these societies the chances of reaching Sustainable Development Goals (World Bank Group, 2018: 14) for accelerated progress towards the more equal distribution of services are slim. What is interesting (and which I touch on in the previous chapter) is that epidemiologists Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) found in a meta-analysis that economic riches are less aligned with factors that correlate with objective and subjective health outcomes at societal level. Instead enablers of objective and subjective health and wellbeing at societal level are more aligned with (i) individual self-esteem, (ii) being connected to meaningful others and belonging to a group, as well as (iii) experiencing a happy, functional childhood. The relationship-resourced resilience theory similarly supports a view that wellbeing may be less dependent on economic abundance—even in a highly unequal and extremely challenged society. As I indicated in a previous section on Ubuntu perspectives of interdependent beliefs and practices, the social support of flocking shows how an indigenous pathway to interdependent resilience is especially informed by meaningful social connectedness. In addition, flocking shows that collective self-esteem matters from an Ubuntu perspective, and that the instrumental social support enables strained communities to support children so that they may experience a functional and happy childhood. Economic development in poorer countries can impact significantly on human wellbeing (Wilkinson & Pickett, 2010). However, it appears in the long term that increased living standards as such do less for health. Once a certain threshold of a material standard of living is reached (not the case in unequal societies, of course), there are fewer health benefits attached to additional economic growth. With regard to subjective health and wellbeing, Wilkinson and Pickett (2010) note that in affluent societies there are increased rates of anxiety, depression, and anti-social behaviour. They also found that, irrespective of affluence or inequality, as far as objective health and wellbeing are concerned, there are increased incidences of heart disease, obesity, and stroke. A risk-saturated setting is also an opportunity for positive disturbance. This brings to mind Kumashiro’s (2002) call for critical and humanising pedagogy that commands researchers to look towards margins to be more relevant and responsive. From this perspective indigenous psychology is a mechanism for evidence that supports a social justice agenda.

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6.6 Pathways to Resilience: Using Resources in Adaptive Processes to Address Adversity and Achieve Positive Outcomes 6.6.1 Introductory Notes In order to situate flocking within existing resilience knowledge, I took note of work on social resilience, collective resilience, relational resilience, community resilience, and positive social functioning. In preceding chapters I included perspectives on social connectedness, social support and solidarity. I concur with South African scholar Strümpfer (2013: 17) that, as an environmentally embedded process, resilience is ‘a pattern of activity, starting with the appraisal of demands, which arouses motive to be strong in the face of inordinate demands, followed by goal-directed behaviour for coping and rebounding, with accompanying emotions and cognitions’. I therefore also included knowledge on coping (as one protective resource that can be leveraged as pathway to resilience), as well as evidence from regional African resilience studies with relevance for flocking.

6.7 Social, Collective, Relational and Community Resilience Whereas ecological resilience denotes what is characteristic of ecosystems, that they are able to maintain themselves in the face of disturbance (Holling, 1973), social resilience focuses on the capacity of groups or communities to cope with external stresses and disturbances as a result of social, political and environmental change (Bloom 1996; Evans, 2005; Obrist et al., 2010). Social resilience indicates that social actors have dimensions that include coping capacity (to cope with various adversities), adaptive capacity (to learn from prior experiences and alter oneself to cope with everyday and future challenges), and transformative capacity (to create circles of institutions that are resilience-enabling in respect of future crises, as indicated by individual wellness and societal robustness) (Keck & Sakdapolrak, 2013). From a social resilience perspective, political pathways to resilience are important—as I demonstrated in the discussion on inequality and opportunity paradigms—to disturb states of poverty. It follows that it may be conceivable to consider that elements of eudaimonic wellbeing are present among those engaged in flocking as social support pathway. Eudaimonic wellbeing is indicated by an individual’s ability to self-actualise and to be fully functioning (Ryan & Deci, 2001), “the striving for perfection that represents the realization of one’s true potential” (Ryff, 1995, p. 100), not simply the attainment of pleasure. In De Gouveia’s (2015) doctoral work in the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study, we argued that living in accordance with roles and responsibilities

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avowed by an Ubuntu interdependent belief system may constitute functioning fully in a self-actualised manner. When considering the social domains of eudaimonic wellbeing, knowledge on positive social functioning (Ryff et al., 2003) is relevant given the social nature of both Ubuntu as overriding world view, and the resulting preference for flocking as pathway to resilience. In a discussion on the social nature of life and life’s challenges Keyes (1998) argued that the very social nature of such challenges might in fact constitute criteria that individuals apply to assess the quality of their lives. He posits five social domains (integration, contribution, coherence, actualisation and acceptance) that are meaningful to meet challenges or social tasks in an individual’s social structure or community positively. As I argued in a previous section, like Hobfoll (2011), we found that people could remain committed to and absorbed in an Ubuntudirected life to assist others. Being engaged in processes to provide (or receive) social support plausibly enabled positive social functioning. Also in De Gouveia’s (2015) contribution to the Indigenous Pathways to Resilience study, we found that no matter where they were on the spectrum of receiving or contributing to flocking strategies, people could experience the benefit of social integration, social contribution, social coherence, social actualisation and social acceptance. As I described in the earlier chapters, opportunities for positive social functioning may be severely compromised for those who do not conform to cultural expectations, or for those who are outsiders. It is in the juncture of social resilience and ecological resilience that flocking capitalises on indigenous knowledge systems (cultural resources) for positive (Rutter, 2012), protective transactions (Cicchetti, 2010; Luthar & Cicchetti, 2000; Masten, 2007). For various reasons, as I indicate throughout the book, flocking resonates well with the tenets of a transactional-ecological, and socio-ecological theory of resilience (Ungar, 2012; Sameroff, 2009). Flocking as a pathway to resilience reflects how indigenous people opt to adapt in interdependent transactionalecological (Ungar, 2012) ways. In flocking indigenous people use indigenous knowledge systems from an interdependent perspective to engage in bidirectional processes (Lerner, 2006; Ungar, 2011) that are transactional in nature (Sameroff, 2009) so that resources in the environment can enable positive outcomes. Flocking is not only group capacity as isolated collective trait. The social dimensions of flocking are also evident in work on relational resilience—with a view of resilience as a social relational process (Daiute, 2013). Relational resilience is allied with relational cultural theory (Jordan, 2004). Relational resilience takes context and culture within context into account. From a relational resilience perspective, context provides a space for patterns of connections, and is therefore reminiscent of social connectedness. Cultural relational connectedness is significant during the developmental processes of making sense of oneself and the world (Daiute, 2013). Socio-emotional and cognitive responses emerge in interactions (language and symbolic) through relationships with family, community, and nation. Emphasis is especially on the awareness of relational resources that are resilience-enabling and assist people in their development. Studies on family resilience (Coleman & Ganong, 2002; Walsh, 1996) also imbue relational resilience with insights on family relations as enabling or constraining in respect of resilience. In

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this way relational resilience also reminds of knowledge on kinship systems (Mkhize, 2006), which are relevant for an African collectivist belief system. In work on teacher resilience relational resilience has also provided a theoretical footprint for understanding how teaching, learning and development can be enabled by positive relationships between teachers, their peers and students (Gu, 2013; Le Cornu, 2009). A socio-cultural underpinning of flocking is that people are connected—among others socially connected. This is an existential understanding—that ‘being’ denotes ‘being to the extent that being is linked to others’. Relational resilience therefore resonates with how flocking is a manifestation of this existential commitment to connectedness. Being able to adapt because of being in relationships with others is an expectation that drives flocking. Relational resilience is socio-culturally scripted. Individual people conform to this expectation or are isolated, disconnected from their space of belonging, affiliation to a socially connected kinship, and the privilege (and expectations) of social support. Although the nature of the adversity to which flocking responds is not acute, and world view may not be the grounding driver in this pathway of collective action, knowledge on collective resilience is valuable when contemplating flocking. Collective resilience is often used as theoretical framework in studies on disaster and shock, in so doing foregrounding the notion of the propensity of a crowd to lobby together to deal with a national disturbance, be that after a bombing (Drury, Chris Cocking, & Reicher, 2009; Freedman, 2004) or supporting refugees (Fielding & Anderson, 2008). Collective resilience assumes that community structures would buffer against shock. In collective resilience ‘collective’ does not denote a world view in which adaptive processes are embedded. Instead the focus is on ‘collective’ as combined action, given the nature of a joint disturbance. Requirements for building collective resilience include a reduction in risk and resource inequalities, engaging local people in moderating the effect of the adversity, creating organisational ties, bolstering and safeguarding social supports, and having adaptive strategies that include flexibility, decision-making skills, and reliable sources of knowledge that persist during times of unfamiliar challenge (Norris, Stevens, Pfefferbaum, Wyche, & Pfefferbaum, 2008). One could argue that flocking is just that: a collective reaction to the collective chronic disturbance of inequality. However, the socio-cultural history of using, by default, flocking to address a range of risks rather than a singular disaster, plausibly typifies flocking as a customary interdependent, indigenous psychology pathway of choice that reflects collective resilience, although not merely constituting collective resilience. Flocking provides evidence of a world view tendency to use interdependent community structures as indigenous knowledge of choice to respond to a multiplicity of needs, not only to a national disaster. Flocking knowledge on how to structure community support to enable resilience evolved over time and is contextually and socio-culturally created and recreated. Flocking typifies how a collectivist belief system is operationalised in community structures to identify risk, as well as supply and manage resource distribution as an effective and classic social innovation (Westley, 2013). Flocking shows how the requirements to build (or maintain) collective resilience (Norris et al., 2008) manifests in a space of inequality. The robustness of flocking

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as interdependent indigenous knowledge system is especially significant in a context where structural disparity prevails. It is not plausible to reduce risk and resource inequalities (a requirement for building community resilience) as an attainable shortterm goal in a highly unequal society. Moreover, such a goal is not attainable at community level. Instead it falls within the ambit of structural, political action combined with civic agency, the egalitarian opportunity discourse. In flocking local people (sometimes dominant-indigenous) maintain established (community) organisational ties as a consequence of a belief system founded on principles of interdependence. Similarly a salient cultural value of viewing vulnerability and assistance as positive ways of being boost and protect social support in flocking. Flocking beliefs and practices include socially adaptive strategies that are regulated especially by the elders, who are revered for their previously demonstrated capacity to address uncertainty. Evidence of the scope of social support for resource management shows the flexibility and pragmatic decision-making in flocking to address the cumulative and chronic nature of need. Like collective resilience, community resilience (Norris et al., 2008) also studies adaptation after a disturbance by foregrounding processes in networks of adaptive capacities (protective resources). What is interesting relating to flocking, community resilience understands adaptive outcomes in terms of community adaptation, as manifested in population (not individual) wellness. Sets of adaptive capacities that are significant for disaster readiness, from the perspective of a community resilience pathway, include economic development, social capital, information and communication, and community competence.

6.8 Coping as Protective Resource for Resilience Existing knowledge on coping assists with understanding how collective coping repertoires form part of flocking. Rutter (2006) proposes that coping in its totality is a protective resource that can be used to promote positive outcomes in resilience. Certain coping strategies can also constrain positive outcomes during adaptive processes and have maladaptive outcomes. A central human action in adaptive processes is that people choose a range of coping behaviours, implying that coping and resilience are conceptually linked (Skovdal & Daniel, 2012), although they are not synonymous (Cicchetti & Rogosch, 2009). Discourses on coping foreground the particular human behaviours, or pathways, followed during resilience. Scholars have noted the adaptive function of coping processes in contexts where chronic risk factors act as chronic stressors that require adaptation (Moore & Constantine, 2005; Skinner & ZimmerGembeck, 2007; Yeh, Inman, Kim, & Okubo, 2006). Skinner and Zimmer-Gembeck’s (2007, 2009, 2011) work situates coping within a complex, adaptive system of stress, appraisal, resilience and capacity. They posit that coping denotes interactional, episodic and adaptive processes. The sum of these coping processes have relevance for understanding resilience processes. Interactional coping processes refer to real-time action and reaction processes between

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person and context as influenced by physiological, emotional, attentive, cognitive, motivational, and behavioural factors. In Lungi’s bricolage in the first chapter these are the everyday collective actions where support is provided to address a real-time need for food and nutrition, health care, and household support. Episodic coping processes occur over periods (days and month) and accept that previous episodes influence current (interactional) coping. In the bricolage an example would be the appraisal that the smart partnership gave Lungi’s family chickens the month before, which supported their need for food, and consequently this month the collective will supply a cow as part of the deal. Adaptive coping processes have a developmental time inference. Here coping is not only dealing with adversity, but also implies mediating the adverse effects of adversity with positive outcomes as a consequence of the adaptive coping processes. An example of an adaptive coping process is the long-term developmental nature of flocking as responsive to changes in structural and cultural marginalisation. Interdependent, collective coping behaviours buffer against the effects of chronic adversity, and enable positive developmental outcomes for collective health, livelihood, and education. Collaborative coping has relevance in a discussion on adaptive coping. Collaborative coping infers shared problem-solving (Revenson & DeLongis, 2011). Collaborative coping also implies that, when confronted by adversity, there is active engagement with one another’s resources (Berg et al., 2008). Similar to flocking, collaborative coping includes shared strategies to solve challenges by focusing on the use of joint resources. As I argued, Hobfoll’s (2011, 2001) COR-theory of stress and coping is of particular relevance given the severe resource constraints in which we documented flocking. This theory not only suggests that risk or loss of resources signals the need to cope. In addition, as is the case in flocking, communal ways are used to manage resources. Kuo (2012) noted that the collectivist view inherent in COR is similar to that found in an African, collectivist cosmology. In both the individual is perceived as being nested, connected within a family group. In both the collective wellbeing of the group is prioritised above that of the individual. Studies on coping in non-Western contexts challenge accepted links between personal control, stress and psychological wellbeing (Daly et al., 1995; Van der Walt, Potgieter, Wissing, & Temane, 2008). In several studies it was found that collectivist groups privilege emotion-focused coping strategies more than problem-solving and personal control, the latter of which Western counterparts tend to favour (Heppner et al., 2006; O’Connor & Shimizu 2002; Utsey, Adams, & Bolden, 2000). As I discuss in the previous chapter, social connectedness, social capital and sense of belonging are significant constructs in collective coping (Campbell & Foulis, 2004; Taylor et al., 2005). Collectivist coping (Yeh et al., 2006) thus resonates with flocking and illustrates the significant role that collectivist norms and values play in adaptive processes considering adversity. Flocking aligns with collectivist coping by highlighting the value of interdependent cultural norms as pathways to cope with risk (Yeh et al., 2006). Kuo (2012) argues that collectivist coping provides insight into the physical and psychological wellbeing of culturally diverse people. As is evident in flocking, collectivist coping acknowledges collectivist characteristics significant

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for adaptation, namely traditional hierarchy, interconnectedness, interdependence and interdependent self-construction, as well as relationships and privileging group goals above individual goals (Kim, Yang, & Hwang, 2006; Smith, 2010). As is evident in flocking, communal and relational values and norms drive collectivist coping behaviours (Kuo, 2013). The spectrum of collectivist stress responses are evident in flocking and include value-driven coping, interpersonally-based coping, culturally conditioned affective and cognitive coping, as well as religion-based coping and spiritually-grounded coping strategies. The transactional theory of stress and coping resonates with the transactional principle assumed in resilience thinking and privileges culture as pathway in adaptation. This theory acknowledges the influence of culture on adaptation, together with the influence of individual-environment interaction (Chun, Moos, & Cronkite, 2006; Kuo, 2012). The interaction of culture and physical environment recognises ways in which culture affects individual interaction with risk and resources rooted in the context (Moos, 2002). From a flocking perspective, for example, risk would be viewed as a natural event in life that requires collective intervention, and resources would be viewed as available for communal use to alleviate risk. In addition, this theory posits that culture also influences intrapersonal factors (identity construction, traits, attributes, motivation), which in turn affect coping repertoires. The implication for flocking is that the identity of ‘a good neighbour’ would be someone who is motivated towards collective agency to provide social support. Culture is similarly relevant for appraisal processes: (i) life events that may be stressful, and (ii) for cognitive appraisal and coping skills. The theory acknowledges that culture is significant when evaluating outcomes as positive or maladaptive.

6.9 Southern African Studies on Pathways to Resilience As I stated, there is evidence, based on regional studies in Africa and Southern Africa, of pathways to resilience. Some of these studies acknowledge the influence of cultural practices and philosophies on resilience conceptualisation. The studies are often deductive, comparing regionally generated data from Africa and Southern Africa with existing Western and Global North metrics and conceptualisations of resilience (Wissing & Temane, 2013; Wissing, Temane, Khumalo, Kruger, & Vorster, 2013). Some have challenged accepted views in psychology–as in the case of Pillay and Nesengani (2006)—questioning the relevance of Erikson’s psychosocial phase during the adolescent developmental phase, given the enacted capacity of young people heading families in rural Limpopo in South Africa. Others have argued for positioning culture as an issue of ethics at the centre of resilience studies (Theron, 2012). I argued that, in the main, regional studies do not generate data inductively to theorise Afrocentric psychology pathways cognisant of a particular space of inequality and with possible transferability to similar cultures in similar contexts. Typically regional studies focus on identifying and describing risk factors and protective resources based on the particular context and/or culture, or describing the

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outcome of resilience-enabling interventions rather than theorising resilienceenabling socio-ecological processes (Eloff et al., 2014; Kruger & Prinsloo, 2008; Mampane & Huddle, 2017; Peacock-Villada, DeCelles, & Banda, 2006; Theron, Cockcroft, & Wood, 2017). Regarding intrapersonal resources, it appears that targeting positive cognitive interpretation may be resilience-enabling amongst South Africans. Children (n = 1025) in a challenged, remote South African space who reported positive cognitive interpretations also reported better psychological functioning (depression, anxiety, somatisation) (Shepherd et al., 2014). Individual personality traits that have been found to be resilience-enabling in South Africa include resilient personalities (Theron et al., 2013), being able to dream, having aspirations and being future-orientated (Lethale & Pillay, 2013; Theron et al., 2013), an internal locus of control (Ebersöhn, 2008; Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Theron & Theron, 2010), optimism (Ebersöhn, 2008; Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Phasha, 2010; Theron & Theron, 2010) high self-efficacy and self-regulation (Ebersöhn, 2008; Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Lethale & Pillay, 2013; Theron & Theron, 2010), adaptive coping repertoire (Ebersöhn, 2008), empathy, enthusiasm, extraversion, assertiveness, autonomy, and conservatism (Theron & Theron, 2010), orientation towards goal achievement (Mampane & Bouwer, 2011; Theron & Theron, 2010), as well as communication skills (Lethale & Pillay, 2013). Other intrapersonal protective resources include problem-solving skills (Lethale & Pillay, 2013; Theron & Theron (2010), positive cognitive appraisal, self-worth, and a preference for socially appropriate behaviour (Theron & Theron, 2010), as well as educational progress, acceptance of challenges, and value-driven behaviour (Theron et al., 2013). Ferreira (2008) found that faith-based beliefs served as an instrumental protective resource to enable resilience among teachers in South Africa. Phasha (2010) also found that faith was a meaningful pathway used by women who had survived sexual abuse. Respect for culture and religion was also a requirement when intervening with children after divorce (Theron & Dunn, 2010). In the family system supportive family relationships (Ebersöhn, 2008; Theron & Theron, 2010) secure attachments and good parenting practices (Theron & Theron, 2010) mattered as protective resources. In their work with children in adolescentheaded families Lethale and Pillay (2013) found that children found it resilienceenabling to bracket the challenge of their lives in their families from their lives in school. At the community level Hlatshwayo and Vally (2014) found that solidarity is resilience-enabling when confronted with xenophobia-associated isolation and discrimination. In a comparative study in Zambia and South Africa it was found that a leisure-time sports intervention with soccer was effective as pathway to build solidarity (Peacock-Villada et al., 2006). Other community protective resources include present and respected adults who have educational values, the encouragement of supportive relationships, (Abukari & Laser, 2013; Ebersöhn, 2008; Theron & Theron, 2010; Theron et al., 2013), opportunities for leisure and joy (Ebersöhn, 2008; Theron & Theron, 2010), community mobilisation and synergy, and health services (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Theron & Theron, 2010).

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The school system per se appears to be resilience-enabling, especially if the school climate is conducive to safety, care, support and belonging (Liebenberg et al., 2015; Theron, Liebenberg, & Malindi, 2014; Mampane & Bouwer, 2011). Theron (2016) delineates everyday ways in which schools can enact resilience-enhancing capacity. Some studies have even posited schools as new forms of family to children in distress (Thabethe, Mbatha, & Mtapuri, 2016), and as the only formal support to marginalised South African children (Theron & Theron, 2014). For children living on the streets (Malindi & Machenjedze, 2012) school attendance strengthened prosocial behaviour and future-orientation, and served as an opportunity for learning and restoring the joy of childhood. Human resource assets in the school are instrumental in connecting available assets that enable learning (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Eloff, Ferreira, & Maree, 2009) and provide coordinated support (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Theron & Theron, 2014). Similarly, in a comparison between a South African child and a Finnish child, it was found that the social context of a young schoolchild was nested in everyday resilience-supporting processes that were meaningful in co-constructing resilience processes (Kumpulainen et al., 2016). Other school-based protective resources include community and family involvement in schools (Ebersöhn & Ferreira, 2012; Ebersöhn, 2008), high expectations, mentorship, mutual respect between teachers and students, and opportunities for recreation (Ebersöhn, 2008). At the society level Ebersöhn and Ferreira (2012) found that policies and structures supported the resilience of teachers and the families of schoolchildren. Theron (2017) found differences between how 385 young people, and 284 adults who provided services to young people, conceptualise protective resources as resilience-enabling. Old and young alike valued a supportive community and peers, faith-based support and cultural heritage, services, and non-education-related agency as resilience-enabling. However, young people (61%) prioritised educational pathways more than service providers (27%). More adults (42%) than young people (22%) prioritised family support as resilience-enabling. Adult service providers attributed the personal characteristics of young people to resile as more important (21%), than the young people themselves did (9%). Risk factors associated with resilience have been the focus of regional studies. Isolation from social support due to orphanhood (Khanare & De Lange, 2017; Lethale & Pillay, 2013), xenophobia (Hlatshwayo & Vally, 2014), HIV and AIDS (Lopez-Bastida, Oliva-Moreno, Perestelo-Perez, & Serrano-Aguilar, 2009), or living on the street (Malindi & Machenjedze, 2012) appears significantly to constrain resilience capacity. This may be due to the absence of other formal services and support governed and resourced at policy level. If one is excluded, isolated, how can one access indigenous knowledge-level support? In their work with children of migrant workers in South Africa, Hlatshwayo and Vally (2014) found that xenophobia, isolation and discrimination constrain resilience. Johnson and Lazarus (2008) found that a variety of risk behaviours, together with limited internal and external assets, constrain the resilience of young people in already high-risk South African settings. In their work in Ghana, Abukari and Laser (2013) found that poor neighbourhood safety and absence of mentorship were risk factors. In

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a study involving 2391 schoolchildren from an extremely marginalised group (children from indigenous populations in remote settings), we (Ebersöhn, 2008) found a range of risk factors that routinely challenge the lives of children. These risk factors include: exposure to and threat of experiencing violence (high crime levels, murder and kidnapping, encouragement to engage in criminal activity, exposure to weapons); lack of adult protection and supervision (limited adult support, involvement, as well as being deprived of care and love), poor socio-emotional competence (negative emotions—anxiety, fear, worry), low self-esteem (limited future perspectives, uncontrolled anger-driven actions, suicidal or homicidal thoughts), and negative learning engagement (truancy, homework problems, poor academic performance, learned helplessness, poor problem-solving skills). Baxen and Haipinge (2015) also found in a study in Namibia that low self-esteem and poor socio-emotional competence (negative emotions, low self-confidence) due to HIV and AIDS-related stigma and discrimination constrained resilience.

6.10 Soar on Wings like Eagles How do people adapt with unexpected outcomes despite an onslaught of challenges? How do people habitually respond across generations to challenges in ways that bolster positive outcomes? From an indigenous psychology perspective we wanted to determine patterns of resilience in a young, transforming democracy where there is cultural mismatch between indigenous worldviews and structures that continue to be dominated by non-indigenous epistemologies. In this book I presented a theory positing flocking as resilience-enabling social behaviour in the form of social support that leverage culturally salient interdependent social conventions to encourage better than expected outcomes. I suggested that flocking is a manifestation of a cultural imperative to accept the normativity of social need and, reciprocally, acceptance of the normativity of providing social support. Flocking thus capitalised on a communal fondness for social connectedness to collectively provide help where need was observed. I described how flocking (used by elders and young people in urban and remote spaces) denote social technologies for resource management (reciprocal donations, shared savings in societies, partnerships, as well as borrowing and lending). As indigenous psychology researcher I wanted to document knowledge that could use markers for wellbeing and health that are familiar in the spaces where psychologists or teachers use them. Although it is therefore not new knowledge that social support is a resilience-enabling pathway to resilience (Taylor, 2002), or that solidarity arises from shared hardship (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Ebersöhn et al., 2017; García-Carrión, Molina-Luque, & Roldán, 2018; Gale & Bolzan, 2013), it is novel that flocking as pathway to resilience appeared to be the pathway that was most commonly selected by participants of indigenous origin in Southern Africa who have faced generations of hardship.

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What is novel is that, of the repertoire of known resilience responses to severe adversity, flocking was privileged as indigenous pathway to resilience among participants representing in challenged contexts. Resource management through social support appeared to be a ‘go to’ pathway for Southern African people from ethnic groups prone to interdependent perspectives (AmaXhosa, AmaSwati, BaPedi, BaSotho, BaTswana, VhaVenda, Coloured people, Herero, Owambo). The evidence of this indigenous pathway to resilience supplements knowledge on interdependent pathways to resilience in contexts with major and chronic structural adversity. A core question for knowledge generation, the training and practice of psychologists, and for policy-level support in similar contexts and among similar populations, is: to what extent do you place social support for resource management at the heart of your actions? What is the research mandate in this question? Given this question, which bodies of knowledge need to form part of the curriculum when training psychologists? What is the focus of and measures used for psychological assessment, given this question? How cognisant is therapeutic intervention, given this question? How does policy (be it social, education, labour) graft onto the essence of this focus? I used indigenous research from an emic perspective to intentionally deconstruct science not to be decontextualized, and to systematically explore and document culture-bound concepts and categories. I substantiated that, through systematic research, the relationships-resourced resilience theory brings insights on an interdependent pathway to resilience that leverages indigenous knowledge into the centre of resilience discourses. Rather than purely indigenising theories, concepts and measures the intent with the relationship-resourced resilience theory is that the norm for behaviour will not remain that of the ‘non-indignous other’. The intent is that this theory provides a pluralist perspective on a standard of wellness and illness and acceptable pathways to adapt or intervene. This theory may contribute to an aspiration to use knowledge that is rooted in social conventions that include evidence of a multiplicity of histories, heritages and daily lives—rather than misunderstandings, counterproductive measurement, as well as unaccountable policy and practice applications. ‘Let us soar on wings like eagles’ were the words with which the Chair of our academic department, Motlalepule Mampane, concluded an annual lekgotla.1 Given the centrality of spirituality and religion to African culture I find it fitting to use this religious-inspired simile to close the book. Indigenous psychology thinking need not remain fixed to the space where it originated, passive on a rock at the side of a mountain as the sun rises and sets. Instead indigenous psychology thinking could bolster the wings of existing psychology knowledge to extend and so to be relevant in places where need is extreme and with people who share beliefs that are similarly interdependence-focused as those of Afocentric people who communicated the theory they live.

1 A lekgotla (in Sepedi and Setswana) is a meeting place (courtyard) for gatherings and is used often

in Southern Africa to describe a business meeting or a conference.

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