Cluster IV — Chapter 55

Ubuntu

¹ Groningen University, the Netherlands ² Ubuchule Resource Centre NPC

Keywords: african philosophy, commons, environmental ethics, global south, mutual aid

On this page

Definition
History
Different Perspectives
Applications
Further Reading

Definition

Ubuntu is an African philosophy most closely associated with the Zulu/Xhosa expression “umntu ngumntu ngabantu” – which translates as “a person is a person through other people”, or “I am because we are” or “I am because you are”. Similar across all nine recognized languages of South Africa, and evident in various forms in other African nations, Ubuntu expresses a fundamental belief that a person’s relations with other people are foundational in creating personal identity and significantly contribute to the flourishing of the community. The community precedes the individual, and the self is shaped by relationships with others.

History

Societies across the world have always generated norms and processes that regulate their internal and external interactions and that are embodied in their lived experiences and daily lives (see Social Norms, Values, and Consumption). In the African context, this consciousness is often created within the social-cultural context of Ubuntu. Ubuntu was first documented in written form in the 1800s in South Africa, though it is believed to stretch back millennia and is found today in a variety of forms in different Bantu languages of southern Africa (Hailey, 2008).

Ubuntu is often put in historical contrast with the emergence of Western notions of the self, largely derived from René Descartes (1596–1650) who influentially posited, “cogito ergo sum” (“I think, therefore I am”). This idea is said to have engendered individuality and promoted the self as the starting point of individual and social life. Ubuntu instead fosters ethical and moral values that are other-regarding and that build common bonds and communitarian ethos, for the benefit of society and all other living things such as plants, rivers, and animals.

Early in the 20th century, Ubuntu was already seen to have implications and threads of connection around the world, also outside Africa. Mahatma Gandhi’s (1869–1948) work in India, for instance, emerged from his experiences with community-based practices in South Africa and may have been influenced by it. His Sarvodaya (meaning “upliftment of all”) philosophy and practice holds similarities to the philosophy of Ubuntu. After the fall of the South African Apartheid regime, Ubuntu was popularized in the English language through the work of archbishop Desmond Tutu (Hailey, 2008). Tutu was the chairperson of South Africa’s post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), which has been seen as an attempt to implement the empathy, unity, and sense of collectivity inherent in the concept.

Different Perspectives

While seemingly focused on human relations, various scholars and commentators have noted that the philosophy of ubuntu has key sustainability implications. A cornerstone of Ubuntu, for instance, is the recognition that we are who and what we are because of the interconnections with nature that provide for our sustenance, shelter, and existence.

However, while Ubuntu is held up as a challenge to Western philosophies, social frameworks, and environmental ethics, its broader application has also come under scrutiny. For instance, Ubuntu is often portrayed as a universal framework emerging from Africa, in a way that overlooks the sheer size and ecocultural diversity of the African continent. In relation to sustainability in particular, it is also often discussed in a very broad, philosophical, and impressionistic way, relating to anthropocentrism (a philosophy that centers the human over wider ecology) and environmental ethics, rather than being seen as having direct and concrete implications for sustainable living (see e.g., Etieyibo, 2017).

Concerns have also been raised regarding the manner in which Ubuntu foregrounds the collective over the individual. Depending on the dominant political dispensation in communities, this could reinforce collective tendencies and conformity in a way that may be oppressive of individuality. This, it has been claimed, can result in the quelling of dissent, but also potentially the maintenance and perpetuation of social inequalities and chauvinistic nationalism, with particularly detrimental impacts on women.

Applications

If present lifestyles are all-too-often characterized by competition, materialism, and striving for individual excellence, adopting more of the values central to Ubuntu could mitigate overconsumption and inequality. By providing an alternative and shifting the values underpinning consumption (see Alternative Hedonism), Ubuntu has been viewed as a framework and philosophy that might lead to tangible innovations and improvements in various domains. These could extend to the governance and practice of sustainable consumption, oriented around:

Sharing
Cooperation
Compassion
Empathy
Collective responsibility
Respect for others (including the elderly)
Healing
Harmony with nature

Given the global nature of pollution and resource depletion, Ubuntu is thought to reorient environmental ethics away from competitive or divisive politics, toward ecological citizenship (see Citizen-Consumer). Given its relevance to social support, care for humans and nature, and collective well-being (Letseka, 2012), Ubuntu could also provide the grounds for radical social and environmental policies that reach beyond social or ethnic identities, as seen in innovations such as Universal Basic Income, Universal Basic Services, Foundational Economy, and Well-being Economy.

Another practical instance of Ubuntu would be the arrangement of consumption and lifestyles around commons and the distribution of wealth, rather than unsustainable consumption, privatization, and processes of enclosure (Etieyibo, 2017). Commoning involves the collective stewardship and management of cultural and environmental resources, from shared grazing land or woodlands to water resources or collective infrastructures. In a Commoning system, ecological intelligence and sustainable practice do not reside in one individual but are rather shared and practiced across a community (Shumba, 2011). In everyday life, Ubuntu can be seen operating through the various traditional practices of mutual aid evident in African societies, whereby neighbors take turns helping each other with agricultural planting, harvests, and other labor-intensive activities. By doing so, more work can be done collectively than would be possible individually. For some practical enactments, see Box 55.1.

Box 55.1 Some practical enactments of Ubuntu

Ubuntu and Ukraine

Research scientist Dzvinka Kachur at the Institute for Transition Studies at the University of Stellenbosch and poet Oksana Kutsenko, former cultural secretary of the Ukrainian Embassy, laid the foundation for Ukrainian cultural diplomacy in South Africa and later in other African countries with Ukrainian missions. The policy resulted in an exchange of Zulu poets to Lviv. Ukrainian authors translated indigenous African stories into richly illustrated books in Ukrainian. They are convinced that Ubuntu can contribute to the restoration of humanity in a region now devastated by war. In South Africa, this project resulted in the opening of a special bookshelf in the Main Public Library in Cape Town, which displays the results of this exchange.

Ubuntu and family constellations

In Zulu communities in the province of KwaZulu Natal, Ubuntu and family constellations are closely related. As fellow humanity, we belong to the same field of energy. Problems in families and communities are interrelated. They originate in ancestral bloodline relationships that can go back many generations. These are probed in constellation gatherings in which a whole village participates. In this approach, role players represent the carriers of traumas that have to be probed. This work developed into worldwide practices through the work of Anton “Bert” Hellinger (1925–2019) who stayed in the 1970s for 16 years among the Zulus. He developed a therapeutic method best known as Family Constellations and Systemic Constellations, which aims to heal the wounds of traumas.