African Indigenous Knowledge and Social Security of the Elderly in Rural Tanzania: The Case of Bukoba Rural District

Abstract

This article explores the possibility of utilizing the local knowledge in social policy development in Tanzania and its potential for improving the welfare of the elderly in Haya society in Bukoba rural district. Since independence in 1961 the development of social policy in Tanzania has marginalized and at times completely ignored the usefulness of   cultural and social fabric of indigenous societies. As a result, the policy framework of the country lacks much input from rural grassroots communities specifically on issues around old age and social insecurity. Based on first hand ethnographical field data gathered in Bukoba rural district this article attempts to demonstrate some of cultural sensibilities and traditional practices as preserved in Haya society like in many other ethnic groups in Tanzania. These cultural sensibilities and traditional practices are referred to in this article as indigenous knowledge or local knowledge. In doing so, the article demonstrates the potentiality to identify features in the cultural heritage of the rural peasants in Bukoba district in an attempt to draw from them social underpinnings for improving the Tanzanian social policy. The author recognizes the ideological theoretical approach in the effort to revitalize an experience from the historical period in which nationalromantic ideas influenced strongly the creation of nation’s identities. It is assumed to have relevance since Tanzanian nation misinterpreted her initial ideal efforts to build on its own heritage of Ujamaa, which partly drew some ideas from cultural heritage of indigenous societies.