Chapter 6. Conceptions of the make-up of a human person in Ewe

Abstract

Humans everywhere construct ethnopsychological models of a person which involves a physical body and non-physical aspects. There is variation in how the non-physical parts of a person are construed. Invariably, it is assumed that this other part is “invisible inside” (Goddard, 2018, p. 168; Levisen, 2017; Peeters, 2019a). The question of what the components of a human person in African culture(s) are has been discussed, and debated in the literature (see e.g., Cotzee & Roux, 2004). In this paper, I examine the conceptual model of a person in Ewe communities of practice in West Africa through the prism of language and the meanings of the terms for the ethnopsychological constructs of a person.