Ubuntu and the Reconstitution of Community

Description

Ubuntu is premised on the ethical belief that an individual's humanity is fostered in a network of human relationships: I am because you are; we are because you are. The essays in this lively volume elevate the debate about ubuntu beyond the buzzword it has become, especially within South African religious and political contexts. The seasoned scholars and younger voices gathered here grapple with a range of challenges that ubuntu puts forward. They break down its history and analyze its intellectual surroundings in African philosophical traditions, European modernism, religious contexts, and human rights discourses. The discussion embraces questions about what it means to be human and to be a part of a community, giving attention to moments of loss and fragmentation in postcolonial modernity, to come to a more meaningful definition of belonging in a globalizing world. Taken together, these essays offer a rich understanding of ubuntu in all of its complexity and reflect on a value system rooted in the everyday practices of ordinary people in their daily encounters with churches, schools, and other social institutions.

Acknowledgments

Introduction / James Ogude

1. The African Bantu Concept of Ubuntu in the Christian Theology and Praxis of Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and its Implications for Global Justice and Human Rights / Aloo Osotsi Mojola

2. Crafting Ideal Conditions: "Ubuntu" and the Challenges of Modern Society / D. A. Masolo

3. The Art of Personhood: Kinship and Its Social Challenges / Bhekizizwe Peterson

4. The Philosophy of Ubuntu and the Notion of Vital Force / Niels Weidtmann

5. Rethinking Ubuntu / Dirk J. Louw

6. Ubuntu and Oruka's Humanitarian View of Punishment / Oriare Nyarwath

7. Ubuntu and Buen Vivir: A Comparative Approach / Anke Graness

8. Ubuntu and Christianity / Augustine Shutte

9. Ubuntu, Reconciliation in Rwanda and Returning to Personhood through Collective Narrative / Anna-Marie de Beer

10. Utu/Ubuntu and Community Restoration: Narratives of Survivors in Kenya's 2007 Post-election Violence / James Ogude and Unifier Dyer

Index

Sujets

• Philosophie
• Philosophie politique
• Philosophie de la psychologie
• African Studies
• Ethnic Studies
• Christian Theology
• Human Rights
• Political
• PHILOSOPHY
• Philosophie et théologie
• África
• Desmond Tutu
• African philosophy
• Politics
• Africa
• Social
• Ubuntu
• Justice

Informations

• Publié par: Indiana University Press
• Date de parution: 16 mai 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9780253042149
• Langue: English

Extrait

UBUNTU AND THE RECONSTITUTION OF COMMUNITY
WORLD PHILOSOPHIES
Bret W. Davis, D. A. Masolo, and Alejandro Vallega, editors
UBUNTU AND THE RECONSTITUTION OF COMMUNITY
Edited by James Ogude
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRESS
This book is a publication of
Indiana University Press
Office of Scholarly Publishing
Herman B Wells Library 350
1320 East 10th Street
Bloomington, Indiana 47405 USA
iupress.indiana.edu
2019 by Indiana University Press
All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1992.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ogude, James, editor.
Title: Ubuntu and the reconstitution of community / edited by James Ogude.
Description: Bloomington, Indiana : Indiana University Press, [2019] |
Series: World philosophies | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2019010093 (print) | LCCN 2019013581 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253042125 (ebook) | ISBN 9780253042101 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780253042118 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Ubuntu (Philosophy) | Philosophy, African. | Humanism-Africa. | Social groups-Philosophy.
Classification: LCC B5315.U28 (ebook) | LCC B5315.U28 U27 2019 (print) | DDC 199/.68-dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019010093
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments

Introduction / James Ogude
1 Ubuntu in the Christian Theology and Praxis of Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Its Implications for Global Justice and Human Rights / Aloo Osotsi Mojola
2 Crafting Ideal Conditions: Ubuntu and the Challenges of Modern Society / D. A. Masolo
3 The Art of Personhood: Kinship and Its Social Challenges / Bhekizizwe Peterson
4 The Philosophy of Ubuntu and the Notion of Vital Force / Niels Weidtmann
5 Rethinking Ubuntu / Dirk J. Louw
6 Ubuntu and Oruka s Humanitarian View of Punishment / Oriare Nyarwath
7 Ubuntu and Buen Vivir : A Comparative Approach / Anke Graness
8 Ubuntu and Christianity / Augustine Shutte
9 Ubuntu, Reconciliation in Rwanda, and Returning to Personhood through Collective Narrative / Anna-Marie de Beer
10 Utu/Ubuntu and Community Restoration: Narratives of Survivors in Kenya s 2007 Postelection Violence / James Ogude and Unifier Dyer

Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
T HIS PUBLICATION WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN POSSIBLE WITHOUT the support and generous funding that we received from the Templeton World Charity Foundation to undertake a research project aimed at deepening our understanding of the southern African concept of Ubuntu. The funding was given in honor of Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu in 2013 for a University of Pretoria project I am heading called The Meaning and Value of Ubuntu in Human and Social Development in Africa. The aim, according to the foundation, was to increase the knowledge and awareness of Ubuntu, and in the process contribute to the transformation of African communities and societies. This book, I hope, constitutes one such important attempt at extending our grasp and understanding of the relational idea of personhood, our connectedness as human beings, and the totality of our environment-Ubuntu. Thanks too to the vice chancellor and principal of the University of Pretoria, Cheryl de le Ray, who had insisted that I become the principal investigator of the Ubuntu project, barely four months into my job at the university. I hope the publication of this book will be a vindication of your confidence in me.
The majority of the chapters published in this book originated from a colloquium held at the University of Pretoria on June 4-6, 2014, on theorizing the concept of Ubuntu in relation to notions of personhood, self and community, interstate relations, and spiritual values in Africa. I am deeply indebted to D. A. Masolo, one of Africa s foremost philosophers and an authority on discourses about self and community in Africa, who gave the keynote address and set an important tone to the colloquium and many others that followed in subsequent years, as we wrestled with what Desmond Tutu meant when he insisted that Ubuntu teaches us, among other things, that ethical responsibility comes with a shared identity. Thanks too to the late Augustine Shutte (may God rest his soul in peace), whose pioneering work on Ubuntu inspired my initial thoughts on this project. Until his death, Shutte remained an avid supporter of this Nguni concept, insisting that there was much that this philosophical thought could contribute to the world and European mainstream philosophies in general. My gratitude also goes to the contributors to this volume, many of whom remain Ubuntu Fellows at the Centre for the Advancement of Scholarship at the University of Pretoria, where the Ubuntu project is housed. Their participation at the colloquium added immense insights to the debates on the concept. Thanks also to the other cluster leaders on the project, professors Julian Muller, Christof Heyns, and Maxi Schoeman, for having shown faith in my leadership and for your insights as we battled to put together the proposal for funding.
Some of the chapters in this book have been published before, and we wish to thank the editors for having granted us permission to reproduce those chapters in this volume. Aspects of chapter 5 by Dirk Louw have been published in the following outlets: C. W. Du Toit, ed., Power Sharing and African Democracy (Pretoria: Research Institute for Theology and Religion, 2010); Tijdschrift voor Filosofie 77, no. 1; and Dennis Sullivan and Larry Tifft, eds., Handbook of Restorative Justice: A Global Perspective (London: Routledge, 2006). Chapter 10 by James Ogude and Uni Dyer was first published in a German journal, Polylog 34 (2015), and the paper has been reproduced here in English with some minor modifications.
Finally, thanks to my research assistant, Uni Dyer, whose invaluable work in undertaking a deep literature review for my work on Ubuntu, organizational skills during the range of colloquia we convened, undying commitment to indigenous knowledge systems, and rare insights into the broader implication of the project made her more than an assistant researcher. She also helped put the chapters together and communicate with the contributors. When Uni left for her PhD studies at the University of Wisconsin, she handed her duties over to the center s project assistant, Kirsty Agnew, who was equal to the task and continued to support our ongoing activities with dedication. Last, but not least, thanks to the center s administrative assistant, Cecelia Samson, who was responsible for the travel and accommodation arrangement for our delegates when they attended each and every colloquium.
UBUNTU AND THE RECONSTITUTION OF COMMUNITY
INTRODUCTION
James Ogude
I N 1994, WHEN A RCHBISHOP E MERITUS D ESMOND T UTU EVOKED the concept of Ubuntu in the course of mediating the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a process whose primary objective was to initiate the nation s healing by coming to terms with painful narratives and memories of a past that continued to manifest itself through racial schism and socioeconomic inequality, little did he know that he was introducing a new grammar framing South Africa s postapartheid politics and its many possible futures. Soon the concept of Ubuntu, at least in his view, promised to capture and provide the theological and philosophical lexicon for a society groping for precisely the kind of language that was both humane and capable of rallying together once-antagonistic national groups and constituencies for a fresh social and political beginning that recognized the past as a distant and repudiated moment while committing to define and build a new future. On his part, Tutu was also searching for a possible synergy between Christian and African value systems by injecting the idea of Ubuntu, understood by him as a special gift from African modes of thought, or gnosis , as Mudimbe (1988) would have it, whose core meaning bore a special relevance within contemporary South Africa. Tutu was groping for a language that would point to the basis of the common humanity and shared identity of all humans while acknowledging contingent differences that allow people to live their humanity with the richness of cultural diversity. The idea of Ubuntu, premised on the belief that the full development of personhood occurs only in circumstances of already-established human conditions of mutual dependency, provided Tutu with a second handle on South Africa s tortured political past.
Central to Ubuntu is the idea that an individual s humanity is fostered in a network of existing human relationships, as captured aptly in the Zulu proverb that he helped make popular, though it is by no means conceptually absolute or univocal: Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu , which roughly translates as I am because you are; we are because you are. Put differently, the idea of Ubuntu forces us to ask what makes human experience possible. As D. A. Masolo writes, If there were to be differences in views regarding the principles on which our beliefs about the world are based, they most probably would be traceable to beliefs about what the constitutive nature of the person is, which we often trace back to a pool of axiomatic beliefs within the respective systems of our cultural heritages (2010, 12). In his search for new and fresh ways of reconstituting a divided South African society, Tutu fell back on ideas embedded in the beliefs of his people in order to find the right concept with which to frame relational forms of personhood. Yet he also guided