The Economic Underpinning of Social Science Methodologies in Development Discourse in Africa
Abstract
It has evolved into norm the professional activity aimed generally at enriching and enhancing individual and group development or the admission by social workers, the methodological approaches of the natural sciences by the social science disciplines has remained elusive. Much as the focus of the natural scientist differs from that of the social worker, it is worrisome to attempt to study, via observation and
experimentation human values and feelings for the sake of regularity and prediction by the social science. Through critical analysis, this research employs the approach of economics to show that in her attempt toward using the methods and goals of the natural sciences in studying the economic relations among humans in the society. The present study uses idea of ‘technicism’ as it presents itself in the writings of Claude Ake to show that much as the social sciences aim to admit the universal character of the natural sciences, it fails and becomes a tool for Western hegemonisation of Africa. Hence, the journey toward the use of the method of the natural sciences for the social science disciplines, such as social work, will not yield universal results that are pliable in other climes. This is precisely why the development question has remained elusive for Africa. The excessive reliance on the method of the natural sciences by the social sciences has led to the use of needless and fruitless economic theories emerging from the global north but which has not been able to mediate the much-sought development in the global south. The implication therefore is that the goals and methods of the social sciences and natural or pure sciences differ and hence the former needs to revise her method and refuse to be tempted by the latter’s approach.