Armchair Empiricism: A Reassessment of Date Collection in Survey Research in Africa.

The article discusses various issues related to empiricism in Africa. An examination of the practice of sociological research in Africa shows that an disturbing gap has become institutionalized between the activity of, first, data collection, which is perceived as unskilled work, suited to natives, and second, data analysis and interpretation, which is perceived as highly skilled work, often performed by outsiders. This holds true for research projects which use official figures as well as those which solicit original data. The historical forces behind this practice, both political and economic, are considered in this article. The typical social relationship between the analyst and the data collector is analysed, with emphasis on the production of socially structured misunderstandings. The damaging consequences for the quality of much sociological research are argued and illustrated with examples in this paper. Criticism of social research practice, particularly in the Third World, in the last decade has tended to focus on its ideological shortcomings. When social survey techniques are exported to Africa, that different context raises new problems which have not been properly addressed. The social survey technique with its assumptions about the proprietary and legitimacy of strangers to pry into all kinds of intimacies in the pursuit of the vague interests of remote others, remains a Western cultural product.