Apprendre à Aimer la Mondialisation ? French, Agni, and Attitudes About Globalization in Africa

Nelson Mandela said, “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.” Whether Mandela had in mind specifically the language of an oppressor (e.g., Afrikaans) or something more general is perhaps less important than the broader idea that language matters for political, economic, and other matters. Language shapes how people see the world. With globalization, languages have spread all over the world and several of them have become dominant like English. Across the developing world, many people today speak several languages including colonial languages, like French in West Africa, as well as their own indigenous languages. Does language influence their views of the world? If they are spoken to in the language of the colonizer versus their own indigenous language do they have different views of their world? In this analysis, we consider this question focusing on views of globalization. As a process that has been pushed by former colonial powers, and/or dominant western powers like the U.S., it is conceivable that people will react to globalization differently than when asked in their own language. In general, we hypothesize that when presented in French people will be more supportive of globalization compared to when asked the same questions in a local African language. French represents the global while an African language like Agni represents the local and people are likely to be affected accordingly in terms of how they view globalization. We do acknowledge the possibility that French will cause a backlash against globalization but our working hypothesis is in the other direction or in favor of globalization. To our claim, we will conduct a survey experiment in Côte d’Ivoire amongst an Akan group in the southeastern part of the country known as the Agni. In Côte d’Ivoire, the Agni are a major Akan group and serve as a good way to test this claim as their language is still widely spoken amongst themselves as well as other Akans and even non-Akan groups. Building on existing research in international political economy, we have five questions on globalization including trade, investment, and immigration, and we have two versions of the survey one in French and the other in Agni. We will sample in Aboisso which is a city known to be dominated by the Agni. The surveys will be randomly assigned either in French or Agni to respondents.