Bullying in the Name of Care: A Social History of ‘Homoing’ Among Students in Ghanaian Boarding Schools

Abstract

This article historicises the Ghanaian boarding secondary/high school students-owned bullying praxis, culture and tradition of ‘homoing’. Studying the phenomenon within the longue duree of the history of schooling in the colonial and postcolonial space and place of the Gold Coast and Ghana, respectively, this article draws information from disparate primary and secondary sources to discuss the historico-ideological foundations of the boarding house system and how these foundations are intertwined with the roots ‘homoing’. The origin and meaning of the name is also examined historically and etymologically. This article demonstrates that, firstly, the genesis of homoing is rooted in a history of domination and violence—colonialism. Secondly, an intersection of certain routinised endogenous colonial and indigenous local logics of control and mechanisms of discipline in the boarding house sustained homoing. Lastly, when read within the bigger context of the history of the school type of education and socialisation in both colonial Gold Coast and postcolonial Ghana, the boarding house programme and homoing facilitated certain forms of social exclusion and social inclusion among students.