Educated urbanites and their links with their ancestral root, a case study in Kumasi Metropolis.

In modern cities, the penchant for urban elites to delineate themselves from their indigenous culture and traditional values is chronic. This is of utmost concern considering the fact that there is a widening gap between the villages and the cities or urban centers in terms of development in Africa and Ghana in particular. Educated urbanites by keeping themselves and their children from their ancestral roots keep their expertise and influence to the cities which invariably makes rural development a problem and at the same time rendering indigenization in development irrelevant. Despite the fact that a lot of studies have been conducted to demonstrate urban-rural interaction particularly on remittances and filial elderly care, the socio-cultural effects of urbanization, particularly among educated rural migrants in the city, has not gained much attention in the literature. The study sought to ascertain, the growing effects of modernity and urbanization on the traditional or cultural orientation of the elites of African society with particular reference to Kumasi metropolis in Ghana. In view of this, a mixed method approach was employed to study this phenomenon. The reason for triangulating the two approaches was to allow the researcher to corroborate the results of the same phenomenon with different methods concurrently. A sample size of 340 was chosen, 305 for the quantitative study and 35 for the qualitative study. Purposive and convenience sampling techniques were used to collect data. This was to help the researcher to study the kind of link that exists between educated urbanites in the Kumasi metro and their ancestral traditional roots and values, the effects of urbanization on the educated migrant’s links with their indigenous roots and values in the Kumasi metropolis and how educated urbanites in the Kumasi metropolis keep link with their indigenous roots and values. The study found out that, the higher one’s educational level in the city, the lesser he or she has attachment to indigenous values. Higher educated urbanites significantly have less links with their ancestral roots as compared to those with lower education. However, it was also noticed that the urbanites within the age of 50 years and above have significant links with their ancestral roots than those below this age. It was further revealed that educated urbanites with no urbanite parents have strong links with their ancestral roots and this indicate that first generation migrants (urbanites) hold strong links with their ancestral roots compared to the subsequent generations. The study again revealed that, the extended family system and its values are losing their significance among educated urbanites. It also became clear that, the most common mode of interaction is funerals and marriage ceremony. The researcher recommends that, educated urbanites should take active role in improving, developing and building their villages which will make it attractive to them when they retire. It was recommended that, the provision of basic social amenities and relevant infrastructure at the rural level must be a matter of urgent concern to attract and retain urban elites.

Source: KNUST