The Effect of Metaphysics in Confounding Social and Community Development in Africa: Eclectic Contexts
Simon Murote Kang’ethe 
Issue: Vol.5 No.16 Issue Article 65 pp.3500 – 3509
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.202451665 | Published online 30th December, 2024
© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
The article discusses the effects of metaphysics on social and community development in the eclectic contexts of Africa. The researcher sourced information through a literature review of data across many English-authored journal articles, monographs, books, and book chapters. The journal papers were accessed from diverse Google search engines such as Google Scholar, EBSCOhost, Research Gate, Web of Science, ResearchGate, Scopus, Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), and Google Scholar. The findings presented the following metaphysics-related hurdles confounding social and community development: religious fanatism, faith from traditional healers in South Africa and Botswana, the unconventional practices of the white garment churches (Vapositori) of Zimbabwe and Bazezuru of Botswana, and the mythical environment embedded among the people of South Africa and Botswana. The paper concludes that people’s metaphysical beliefs influence social work development paradigms perniciously. This is because people see and interpret developmental reality from their metaphysical lenses. The paper challenges the African governments, in collaboration with other development partners, to strengthen their advocacy campaign to communities that subscribe to unconventional beliefs and ideologies so that they can undergo a paradigm shift to change their anti-developmental beliefs. The findings also widen the literature on the domain of metaphysics.
Keywords: Metaphysics, African Indigenous churches, traditional healers, pandemics, mythical environments, stigma and stigmatization.
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Simon Murote Kang’ethe works at Walter Sisulu University as a full Social Work Professor, and he is also a C2 NRF-rated researcher focusing on culture, health, children, social enterprises, and geriatrics. He has supervised close to fifty master’s and PhD students, and has authored many book chapters.
Kang’ethe, Simon Murote. “The Effect of Metaphysics in Confounding Social and Community Development in Africa: Eclectic Contexts,” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 5, no.16 (2024): 3500 -3509. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.202451665
© 2024 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
