ABSTRACT
The discourse on the indigenization of the social sciences, particularly where anthropology, psychology and sociology are concerned, has been in existence for a little over twenty years. Indigenization was and continues to be a response to what many non-Western social scientists perceive as the inability of Euro-American social science to constitute a relevant and liberating discourse in the context of Asian, African and Latin American societies. This problem was exacerbated by the fact that much of such social science was assimilated uncritically outside of their countries of origin among students, lecturers, researchers and planners. While the problem of irrelevance and its concomitants raised in the discourse on indigenization had been recognized by non-Western scholars as early as the beginning of this century, the term ‘indigenization’ has only gained currency since the 1970s. It could be said that indigenization is a relatively new term that addresses a problem recognized quite some time ago.
