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1
Curry, Tommy J. "The Derelictical Crisis of African American Philosophy: How African American Philosophy Fails to Contribute to the Study of African-Descended People." Journal of Black Studies 42, no. 3 (November 29, 2010): 314–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021934710367899.
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Iguisi, Osarumwense. "A Cultural Approach to African Management Philosophy." International Journal of Virtual Communities and Social Networking 10, no. 3 (July 2018): 23–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/ijvcsn.2018070102.
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Despite acknowledging the existence of indigenous management capabilities and skills in Africa, management practice in precolonial African societies was seen by the colonizers as primitive management. Africans have ways of exercising power and authority at the workplace, ways of motivating and rewarding people to make them work harder. Neither the institutions nor the political structures put in place by the colonizers acknowledge these indigenous knowledge structures, but much of them have survived in the traditions and cultural values of the African people. However, unlike in Europe and most parts of Asia, the attempted modernization or Westernization after independence has completely neglected the indigenous sociocultural knowledge and tried to transplant western management theories and models to traditional African societies. This article draws attention to the relevance of cultures to management philosophy with the purpose of contributing to a culturally appropriate practice of management in Africa. It has been shown that the different management theories in the form that they have been developed in the West reflect western philosophical thoughts which may not fit culturally in Africa management practice. However, in developing theories and building models of management theories in Africa, it is unlikely to pay Africans to throw away all that the West has to offer. Rather, the approach to appropriate management theorizing is to reflect on assumptions of Western management theories, compare Western assumptions about sociocultural values with African cultural values to rebuild the theories and models. The use of anthropological and philosophical concepts in this context will help in the development of appropriate management practice.
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Kelbessa, Workineh. "Environmental Philosophy in African Traditions of Thought." Environmental Ethics 40, no. 4 (2018): 309–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics201840431.
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Besides normative areas, African environmental philosophy should pay attention to the epistemological and metaphysical dimensions of the worldviews of the African people in order to understand the environmental attitudes and values in African traditions of thought. Unlike mainstream Western ethics, African environmental philosophy has renounced anthropomorphism, anthropocentrism, and ethnocentrism and recognizes the interconnectedness of human beings with the natural environment and its component parts. In African worldviews, the physical and the metaphysical, the sacred and the secular, the natural and the supernatural are interrelated. Human beings are part of the natural environment. African philosophers should continue to explore the potential for a strong African environmental philosophy in African traditions of thought that can contribute to the solution of current environmental crises.
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White, Shane, and James Oliver Horton. "Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community." Journal of American History 81, no. 2 (September 1994): 701. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2081269.
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Thompson, Leonard, and Peter Warwick. "Black People and the South African War, 1899-1902." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 16, no. 1 (1985): 169. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/204353.
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Fayemi, Ademola Kazeem. "African Sartorial Culture and the Question of Identity: Towards an African Philosophy of Dress." Uchenie zapiski Instituta Afriki RAN, no. 2 (June 30, 2021): 66–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.31132/2412-5717-2021-55-2-66-79.
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This paper is a critical interrogation of the apparel culture as a marker of African identity in traditional and contemporary Africa. The article philosophically discusses the sartorial culture of sub-Saharan Africans in the light of its defining elements, identity, and non-verbal communicative proclivities. Focusing on the Yoruba and the Ashanti people, the author argues that African dress expresses some symbolic, linguistic, and sometimes hidden, complex and immanent meaning(s) requiring extensive interpretations and meaning construction. With illustrative examples, he defends the position that the identity of some cultural regions in Africa can be grouped together based on the original, specific techniques and essence of dress that they commonly share. Against the present absence of an African philosophy of dress in the African sartorial culture and knowledge production, he argues the imperativeness of an African philosophy of dress, its subject matter, and connections to other cognate branches of African philosophy, and the prospects of such an ancillary African philosophy.
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Mashingaidze, Sivave. "Cosmovision and African conservation philosophy: indigenous knowledge system perspective." Environmental Economics 7, no. 4 (December 9, 2016): 25–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.21511/ee.07(4).2016.03.
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Cosmovision is the worldview of a society that is deeply imbedded in the way in which that society is organized and evolves over time. It is a society’s attempt to explain and better understand all that surrounds it, including its place within the cosmos, or universe and how it conserves it environment. In Africa, like elsewhere, indigenous knowledge systems (IKSs) were used to administer peace, harmony, and order amongst the people and their physical environment. However, with the advent of colonialism in Africa, IKSs were not only marginalized, but demonized leaving their potentials for establishing and maintaining a moral, virtuous society, unexploited. It is in this light that this article argues for a correction to the vestiges of colonialism. The article adopts examples of IKS success stories in pre-colonial era showing the beauty of the undiluted African indigenous knowledge systems and their potential for establishing a moral, virtuous society. To this end, the article argues that Africa, today, is in the grips of high crime rates, serious moral decadence, and other calamities because of the marginalization, false, and pejorative label attached to the African IKSs. This article criticizes, pulls down, and challenges the inherited colonial legacies, which have morally and socially injured many African societies. Keywords: cosmovision, indigenous, knowledge, conservation, philosophy, taboos. JEL Classification: D83, O13, O15
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Matshabane, Olivia P., Megan M. Campbell, Marlyn C. Faure, Paul S. Appelbaum, Patricia A. Marshall, Dan J. Stein, and Jantina de Vries. "The role of causal knowledge in stigma considerations in African genomics research: Views of South African Xhosa people." Social Science & Medicine 277 (May 2021): 113902. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2021.113902.
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Badru, Ronald Olufemi. "Distant Poverty, Human Vulnerability, and the African Ethics of Character." Philosophy Today 65, no. 1 (2021): 1–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/philtoday202122380.
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This African moral framework discusses distant poverty as human vulnerability. Contextually, if vulnerability means human frailty, relative to some opposing facts of life, and that poverty makes the human person frail, relative to some largely unrealized/unrealizable desirables without assistance, then distant poverty as human vulnerability invariably connects, significantly, with poor dependency: poor people are vulnerable as dependent on the assisting other. Some fundamental questions arise: 1) What is the ontology of distant poverty as human vulnerability? 2) In what ways does the idea of poverty as human vulnerability essentially and morally connect with the idea of dependency? 3) Is the issue of addressing the problem of distant poverty as human vulnerability a question of perfect or imperfect moral duty or both? 4) In what ways do the perfect or imperfect moral duty (or both) connect to positive and negative moral duties? 5) What moral framework best accommodates, all things considered, moral duties? Considering these questions, this work advances that African ethics (AE) as character ethics, fundamentally serves as a better moral framework, compared to the Western ethics (WE) that has dominated the debates on addressing the questions for years.
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Asamoah, Kwame, and Emmanuel Yeboah-Assiamah. "“Ubuntu philosophy” for public leadership and governance praxis." Journal of Global Responsibility 10, no. 4 (October 23, 2019): 307–21. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jgr-01-2019-0008.
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Purpose Leadership and governance are all about “people” and the “common welfare”. Africans have an Ubuntu philosophy which culturally calls on individuals to promote the welfare of collective society. It is therefore paradoxical to note how African leaders and governance regimes perform poorly when it comes to the usage of public resources to create conditions for collective human welfare. Why do leaders instead of championing societal advancement rather advance their selfish, egoistic and sectional interests? This study aims to unpack a prevalent paradox and discuss a new approach of linking the rich Ubuntu philosophy to Africa’s governance and leadership discourse. Design/methodology/approach This study discusses from secondary sources of data, mainly drawn from journal articles, internet sources and scholarly books relevant to leadership and public administration in developing African countries and how Ubuntu African philosophy can be deployed to ensure leadership ethos. In attempt to obtain a more comprehensive and systematic literature review, the search covered all terms and terminologies relevant to the objective of the study. The search process mainly comprised four categories of keywords. The first category involved the concept as approximately related to leadership: “leadership and civic culture”, “Ubuntu culture” and “African collectivist culture”. For the final category, words such as “crisis”, “failure” and “experiences” were used. Findings This study contends that the preponderance of corruption and poor leadership in Africa is anti-cultural, anti-human, anti-ethical and anti-African; hence, those individuals who indulge or encourage leadership paralysis are not “true Africans” by deeds but merely profess to be. Linking the African Ubuntu philosophy to public leadership, the study maintains that the hallmark of public leadership and governance is to develop the skills of all and caring for the society. Practical implications This study draws attention to the need for leaders to espouse virtues so that leadership becomes a tool to promote societal welfare. The hallmark of public leadership and governance is to develop the skills of all and caring for the society. It involves weighing and balancing professional and legal imperatives within a democratic and ethical context with an ultimate responsibility to the people and public interest. It is not a responsibility to a particular set of citizens, but a commitment to be just and equitable to all. The preponderance of corruption and bad leadership is anti-cultural, anti-human, anti-ethical and anti-African; hence, individuals who indulge or encourage leadership paralysis are not true Africans by deeds but merely profess to be. Originality/value This study draws a clear link between indigenous African cultural value system and ethical public leadership. It draws congruence between Africa's Ubuntu philosophy of civic virtue and Africa's leadership/governance. This will bring about a renewal of thoughts and practice of public leadership on the continent, as it has been demonstrated that a true African seeks collective social welfare and not selfish interest.
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Ipadeola, Abosede Priscilla. "The Subaltern in Africa’s Political Space: African Political Philosophy and the Mirror of Gender." Journal of Black Studies 48, no. 4 (March 16, 2017): 391–407. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021934717696793.
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Politics is regarded in many parts of the world, especially in Africa, as a space meant exclusively for men. Therefore, women venturing into politics are made to believe that they are misfits, and the idea is anathematized and strangulated from the outset by those who are supposed to encourage the women. It is popularly believed that it is natural for men to rule over women, while it is considered abnormal and unnatural for women to rule over men. Although different societies have at one time or the other in history been ruled by queens and female warriors, at least, that is not usually seen as bizarre in societies that practice monarchical or imperial rule. In a democracy, however, a lot of people vehemently oppose the idea of a woman vying for a political office. In the case of Africa, two factors are responsible for this: the African people’s colonial experience and the bifurcation of the social sphere into public and private spaces. This has entrenched gender roles into the scheme of social reality held by the people. The people hold that certain roles must be performed by women while certain roles are exclusively for men. This culture has made it increasingly difficult to achieve parity and egalitarianism in gender relations in contemporary Africa and to achieve meaningful development in Africa. This article suggests ideological decolonization as a way out of the current predicament of the African women as the subaltern in the patriarchal and hostile political space of contemporary Africa.
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Miller, Randall M. "American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World." Journal of American History 107, no. 3 (December 1, 2020): 726–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jahist/jaaa357.
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Mumisa, Michael. "Towards an African Qur'anic Hermeneutics." Journal of Qur'anic Studies 4, no. 1 (April 2002): 61–76. http://dx.doi.org/10.3366/jqs.2002.4.1.61.
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The 20th century has been witness to great developments in theology, philosophy of language and the social sciences. Postmodernism has emerged as an influential philosophical thought. All of these 20th century phenomena have influenced how people approach sacred texts and how they comprehend and interpret them. Muslims have not been immune to these developments, and accordingly there has been a realisation among Muslim theorists that the existing interpretations of the Qur'an and Sunnah (imitado Muhammadi) may be limited and not able to suffice the needs of a changing world. The Islamic world has also been rapidly expanding to incorporate races, cultures and environments of various kinds. Consequently, racial and cultural problems have emerged causing a great need among progressive Muslims, particularly the youth, women, people of colour, and other concerned Muslims for a re-reading of the sacred texts so that they become existentially meaningful in the here and now. Such a reading will have to take into consideration differences of perspective and social location. Although this article proposes an African Qur'anic hermeneutics within the liberative discourse, it is not necessarily proposing an African Muslim perspective of liberation since there can be no such a thing as an ‘African perspective’, ‘feminist perspective’ or even ‘Christian perspective’ of liberation. By confirming the ‘us’ versus ‘them’, or dominant versus ‘other’ in the liberation process, it serves to confirm the status quo which we seek to change.
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Ogar, Tom Eneji, and Edor John Edor. "Creative Cultural Synergy: Towards the Africa of the Future." PINISI Discretion Review 4, no. 1 (October 8, 2020): 135. http://dx.doi.org/10.26858/pdr.v4i1.15273.
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In this paper, we discussed Creative Cultural Synergy: Towards the Africa of the Future in ensuring an enduring development in a competitive and globalized world. Africa today is far from being a viable continent – as most social institutions that should regulate socio-political life are weak and human instincts predominate individual conduct. As a result, the task of nation building has become a mirage. Rather than see these problems within their larger social and cultural context, people tend to place hope on reforms with narrow economic focus. The issue of the African future in African philosophy is that of how best to achieve freedom and development in Africa without compromising the African identity. Defining the African project today is situated in the cultural confusion generated by the assault on the consciousness of its people. Several narratives have been put forward to explain this malaise. This paper concludes that there is need for a cultural and reconstructive examination as a tool in African philosophy to set up the Africa of the future. A creative cultural synergy using some aspects of the African culture with that of others would guarantee its cultural autonomy without setting apart from others in their quest for development. Textual and content analysis approaches are adopted in this research.
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Moses, Wilson J., and Mia Bay. "The White Image in the Black Mind: African-American Ideas about White People, 1830-1925." Journal of American History 88, no. 2 (September 2001): 617. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2675114.
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Galárraga, Omar, Caroline Kuo, Bulelwa Mtukushe, Brendan Maughan-Brown, Abigail Harrison, and Jackie Hoare. "iSAY (incentives for South African youth): Stated preferences of young people living with HIV." Social Science & Medicine 265 (November 2020): 113333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113333.
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Theron, Linda C. "Researching resilience: lessons learned from working with rural, Sesotho-speaking South African young people." Qualitative Research 16, no. 6 (August 1, 2016): 720–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794116652451.
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Theories of youth resilience neglect youths’ lived experiences of what facilitates positive adjustment to hardship. The Pathways-to-Resilience Study addressed this by inviting Canadian, Chinese, Colombian, New Zealand and South African (SA) youths to share their resilience-related knowledge. In this article I report the challenges endemic to the rural, resource-poor, South African research site that complicated this Pathways ideal. I illustrate that blind application of a multi-country study design, albeit well-designed, potentially excludes youths with inaccessible parents, high mobility, and/or cellular telephone contact details. Additionally, I show that one-on-one interview methods do not serve Sesotho-speaking youths well, and that the inclusion of adult ‘insiders’ in a research team does not guarantee regard for local youths’ insights. I comment critically on how these challenges were addressed and use this to propose seven lessons that are likely to inform, and support, youth-advantaging qualitative research in similar majority-world contexts.
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Antwi, Joseph Kofi. "The value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought: A contemporary inquiry." European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 3, no. 2 (January 21, 2017): 94. http://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejis.v3i2.p94-102.
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As a contribution to the debate on African Philosophy, this paper explores the value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought. African philosophy can be found in the various traditional and cultural schemes of the people. This paper maintains that one of the approaches of appreciating African philosophy is through the traditional concept and worldview of the nature of a person. This paper argues that a person is not just a bag of flesh and bones that we see with our eyes, but, a more complex being with soul and body. Through a qualitative analysis of the relevant literature, this paper argues that some contemporary incidents, such as African crossing the Mediterranean Sea to seek better life in Europe, and the recent Xenophobic attacks on some African nationals in South Africa, undermines the indigenous value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought. This paper concludes that the real goal of the value of human life, as one of the dominant themes in African philosophy, must be properly studied, assessed, understood and harnessed in addressing contemporary African problems, such as corruption in government and society, environmental degradation, indiscipline, diseases and conflicts in our communities and other social vices. Keywords: Akan worldview, philosophical thought, communalism, humanism, Agenda 2063
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Antwi, Joseph Kofi. "The value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought: A contemporary inquiry." European Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies 7, no. 2 (January 21, 2017): 94. http://dx.doi.org/10.26417/ejis.v7i2.p94-102.
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As a contribution to the debate on African Philosophy, this paper explores the value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought. African philosophy can be found in the various traditional and cultural schemes of the people. This paper maintains that one of the approaches of appreciating African philosophy is through the traditional concept and worldview of the nature of a person. This paper argues that a person is not just a bag of flesh and bones that we see with our eyes, but, a more complex being with soul and body. Through a qualitative analysis of the relevant literature, this paper argues that some contemporary incidents, such as African crossing the Mediterranean Sea to seek better life in Europe, and the recent Xenophobic attacks on some African nationals in South Africa, undermines the indigenous value of a person in Akan traditional life and thought. This paper concludes that the real goal of the value of human life, as one of the dominant themes in African philosophy, must be properly studied, assessed, understood and harnessed in addressing contemporary African problems, such as corruption in government and society, environmental degradation, indiscipline, diseases and conflicts in our communities and other social vices. Keywords: Akan worldview, philosophical thought, communalism, humanism, Agenda 2063
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Adjei, Stephen Baffour. "Conceptualising personhood, agency, and morality for African psychology." Theory & Psychology 29, no. 4 (June 24, 2019): 484–505. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959354319857473.
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One of the functions of psychological science is to develop concepts for thinking about people and their well-being. Since its establishment as a scientific discipline in the late 19th century, psychology has developed concepts that are essentially rooted in the specific spatio-temporal context of Western, Educated, Industrial, Rich, and Democratic (WEIRD) countries. There is a growing ontological and epistemological awareness that psychological science and practices from WEIRD cultural spaces cannot be exclusively representative of the African experience. I draw from interpersonal violence research to discuss the concepts of personhood, agency, and morality from an African perspective and highlight their theoretical and practical utility for psychological science. Based on African communalism, I argue that an understanding of personhood, agency, and morality as culturally contextualised and socially intentioned phenomena is foundational to the advancement of heterogeneous practices of knowledge production in diverse contexts.
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Sanders, A. J. G. M. "Towards a People's Philosophy of Law!" Journal of African Law 31, no. 1-2 (1987): 37–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0021855300009220.
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It was in August 1980 that Professor Allott visited Southern Africa for the first time, and I am proud that it was the Institute to which I am attached which arranged the visit. In October 1981 we had the pleasure of welcoming Professor Allott to our region again. This time the happy occasion had been arranged by the University of Swaziland. All of us took an instant liking to Professor Allott. (As for our visitor, I got the distinct impression that he, too, enjoyed the encounter!) The way in which he was able to keep our discussions on track and lend perspective to them made a great impression. Hitherto, we had known him as a learned author on African law and the “internal conflict of laws”. “In the flesh”, he proved to be a man of the people and a teacher par excellence—concerned but never patronising, incisive in his criticisms but never disparaging. This impression is confirmed in his publication, The Limits of Law, which has become a source of constant reference in the Southern African region, and which inspired this essay.For reasons Professor Allott will understand, my contribution to his Festschrift has taken the form of a cri de coeur from a troubled part of the world which, only too aware of the limits and the excesses of law, continues to put its faith in law as a social directive.
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Michael, Paul K. "Racism, Vulnerability, and the Youth Struggle in Africa." Dialogue and Universalism 31, no. 1 (2021): 105–18. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/du20213117.
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Because youths are particularly vulnerable to social problems, philosophers since Plato to date have continued to show interest in developing, empowering, and protecting the youths. African youths are particularly far more than ordinarily vulnerable to various social problems including racism especially from outside the continent, mainly because of the shortfall in youth development and empowerment strategies in most African countries. Consequently, young people are pulled to countries with resources and infrastructures that provide them with opportunities to enlarge their capabilities and improve their quality of life, where they are also faced with discriminatory, prejudicial, and antagonistic treatments simply because of their skin colour. So, one way to look at racism and reduce its effects is to examine those socio-political as well as economic structures that constitute obstacles to youth development and empowerment, and which push and expose the young in Africa to the ill-treatments emanating from racism.
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Bodenhorn, Howard. "The Mulatto Advantage: The Biological Consequences of Complexion in Rural Antebellum Virginia." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 33, no. 1 (July 2002): 21–46. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/00221950260029002.
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Although historians have long noted that African-Americans of mixed-race in the antebellum Lower South were given economic and social preference over those with darker skin, they have denied that people of mixed race received special treatment in the antebellum Upper South as well. Examination of data on the registrations of free African-Americans in antebellum Virginia, however, reveals that adolescents and adults with lighter complexions tended to have a height advantage, which suggests that they enjoyed better nutrition.
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Khosi, Motlatsi. "Living Ubuntu: the struggles of Abahlali Base Mjondolo as an African philosophy in the making." Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South 4, no. 1 (April 28, 2020): 26. http://dx.doi.org/10.36615/sotls.v4i1.128.
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What does it mean to engage in a philosophy of struggle and emancipation in our South African context? As part of my MA research I took an internship with Abahlali BaseMjondolo, a shack dwellers’ movement whose office is based in central Durban. Their members reside in various settlements within KwaZulu Natal and the Eastern Cape. Whilst interning at the movement I conducted interviews with some of their members, using this experience to gain insight into the movement’s theory and philosophy. Here I was challenged by what it means to do research using narrative as the foundation of my work. It is through narrative that one can tackle the problematic representations of black people in academia and society. I argue that in this movement a philosophy is at work. Their philosophy is based on the lived experience of struggle. As producers of knowledge, I argue that they represent the workings of Ubuntu. Using Maboge B. Ramose’s (2002) explanation of ‘Ubuntu as philosophy’ I show how it can help us understand what it means to be human and how this is being affirmed in spaces of struggle. As agents of struggle we (black people) must be recognised for how we create knowledge. Ubuntu becomes the means through which we can map out the ways in such recognition can be understood and which an African philosophy is being being practiced. It is this recognition that is at the heart of the movement’s philosophy of ‘Abahlalism’ which demonstrates the complexity of black experience in the space of social movement struggles.Key words: SOTL, scholarship of teaching and learning, Ubuntu, African philosophy, decolonial theoryHow to cite this article:Khosi, M. 2020. Living Ubuntu: The struggles of Abahlali Base Mjondolo as an African philosophy in the making. Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in the South. v. 4, n. 1, p. 26-36. April 2020. Available at: https://sotl-south-journal.net/?journal=sotls&page=article&op=view&path%5B%5D=128This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
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Densu, Kwasi. "Omenala: Toward an African-Centered Ecophilosophy and Political Ecology." Journal of Black Studies 49, no. 1 (September 7, 2017): 29–52. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021934717729503.
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This article seeks to contribute to the reconstruction of an African-centered ecophilosophy and political ecology. Employing Cheikh Anta Diop’s theory of African cultural unity, it considers the Ndi Igbo philosophy Omenala, its paradigmatic implications for Africana studies, and its capacity to demonstrate the continuity of indigenous African socioecological praxis cross culturally. In addition, it explores the relevance of Omenala to the development of an authentic social history of African people and as a theory to analyze contemporary problems in the African world. Three key issues are addressed. First, the article accounts for the absence of ecological theory within Africana studies. Second, it explicates the cultural and philosophical basis for an African-centered ecophilosophy and political ecology. Third, it envisions new approaches and areas of inquiry within Africana studies.
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Yoder, John. "Good government, democratisation and traditional African political philosophy: the example of the Kanyok of the Congo." Journal of Modern African Studies 36, no. 3 (September 1998): 483–507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0022278x9800281x.
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Over the last several decades, officials in both the public and private sectors have applied economic, military, cultural, academic and diplomatic tools to promote the spread of democratic pluralism in African and elsewhere. With the fall of Africa's most resilient tyrant, Mobutu Sese Seko, there is hope that even one of Africa's most troubled systems may be transformed into a state that reflects the will of the people and promotes the common good. Sober observers, however, remain pessimistic. Laurent Kabila's spotted record on human rights, his stubborn intolerance of political opposition, the challenging global economic and political environments, and the long history of bad government in Mobutu's Zaïre are obvious reasons for concern. Furthermore, the example of most other African states is not encouraging. With the exception of countries such as South Africa and Botswana, even the most tenuous democratic progress in Africa is often slowed, blocked or reversed.Generally, blame for this state of affairs has been levelled against the African political elite, the burden of colonialism, or international political and economic pressures. Specifically, for the Congo, Mobutu's kleptocracy, Belgium's paternalism, America's backing of a friendly dictator and the World Bank's support for ill-advised ‘development’ schemes all have been criticised. While such reproaches may be well deserved, this article argues that it is important to ask if the persistent failure of democracy in the Congo as well as in other African states is also related to African political culture.
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Sitarov, V. A., and V. G. Maralov. "South African philosophy of life Ubuntu and its significance for understanding non-violence as universal human value." Alma mater. Vestnik Vysshey Shkoly, no. 1 (January 2021): 101–6. http://dx.doi.org/10.20339/am.01-21.101.
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Presented is characteristic of South African philosophical ethic conception Ubuntu, defined is its significance for understanding non-violence as universal human value. Elaborated are three principal components of Ubuntu, i.e. “human being is human being because other people”, “I am, because we are”, “We are single unity”. Analyzed is contribution that is being introduced by Ubuntu in comprehension of non-violence. Shown is that in Ubuntu priorities are affirmation of value of human life and its unity, humanistic relations, solution of conflicts by using dialog and non-violence methods. Conclusion is made that Ubuntu might significantly enrich modern visions on non-violence as universal human value.
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Chilisa, Bagele, Thenjiwe Emily Major, and Kelne Khudu-Petersen. "Community engagement with a postcolonial, African-based relational paradigm." Qualitative Research 17, no. 3 (April 1, 2017): 326–39. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794117696176.
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The article engages with debates on democratizing and decolonizing research to promote multi-epistemological research partnerships that revolutionize the research methods landscape, bringing new paradigms onto the map to advance new research methods that engage and transform communities. The argument in the article is that people of all worlds irrespective of geographic location, colour, race, ability, gender or socio-economic status should have equal rights in the research scholarship and research process to name their world views, apply them to define themselves and be heard. An African-based relational paradigm that informs a postcolonial research methodological framework within which indigenous and non–indigenous researchers can fit their research is presented. The article further illustrates how an African relational ontological assumption can inform a complimentary technique of gathering biographical data on the participants and how African relational epistemologies can inform partnership of knowledge systems. The use of proverbs and songs as indigenous literature and community voices that researchers can use to deconstruct stereotypes and deficit theorizing and community-constructed ideologies of dominance is illustrated.
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Silvério, Valter Roberto. "the brownies’ book: du bois e a construção de uma referência literária para identidade negra infanto-juvenil." childhood & philosophy 17 (July 23, 2021): 01–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.12957/childphilo.2021.58430.
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In the period from January 1920 to December 1921 a cooperation between Jessie Fauset, Augustus Dill and W.E.B. Du Bois resulted in the publication of a periodical called “The Brownies’ Book” (TBB) the first publication for North American black, and not white (colored people) children and young people. The creation of “The Brownies' Book” (TBB) was a pioneering event in African American literature in general and, more specifically, in the field of African American children's literature, as it was the first periodical composed and published by African Americans for black children who, until then, searched in vain for material that included a perspective on their experience and history. This article argues that the TBBs were one of the harbingers of the movement called the Harlem Renaissance, constituting a children's literary materialization of the path towards the emergence of what the philosopher Alain Locke called the New Negro. What was being formulated was both the deconstruction of stereotypes associated with blacks and the active projection/creation of a positive identification with their local and ancestral community. This paper seeks to identify the post-WWI discursive strategies and practices of de-racialization proposed for “the children of the sun”, as W.E.B. Du Bois called them, in order to stop seeing themselves “through the eyes of others” (Du Bois, 1903).
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Bailey, Cathryn. "We Are What We Eat: Feminist Vegetarianism and the Reproduction of Racial Identity." Hypatia 22, no. 2 (2007): 39–59. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1527-2001.2007.tb00981.x.
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In this article, Bailey analyzes the relationship between ethical vegetarianism (or the claim that ethical vegetarianism is morally right for all people) and white racism (the claim that white solipsistic and possibly white privileged ethical claims are imperialistically or insensitively universalized over less privileged human lives). This plays out in the dreaded comparison of animals with people of color and Jews as exemplified in the PETA campaign and the need for human identification (or solidarity) with animals in ethical vegetarianism. To support the viability of ethical vegetarianism, Bailey resolves the dread of this comparison by locating ethical vegetarianism as a strategy of resistance to classist, racist, heterosexist, and colonialist systems of power that often rely on the assumptions of speciesism to ground these axes of oppression. The author carries out this argument to contextualize African American responses to animal welfarism and ethical vegetarianism.
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Harries, Jim. "Theology that Emerges from Cognitive Science: Applied to African Development." Open Theology 4, no. 1 (January 1, 2018): 15–28. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/opth-2018-0002.
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Abstract Recent developments in cognitive science are here interpreted as an apologetic for Christian theology. Naturalistic faiths are suggested to be dependent on the invention of ‘religion’, and domestication of the foreign through translation. A refusal to accept that a relationship with God is something that develops in the course of reflection, has added to his apparent invisibility. Advocates of embodied thinking who effectively undermine Descartes’ philosophy, open the door to theological reflection. A gender-based exploration reveals that means of predicting the embodied nature of thinking also point to the significance of God. Because human thinking is embodied, God also is perceived by people through his embodied impact - much as is the wind. That correct understanding of God brings human wellbeing, is here suggested to be as true for Africa as for Europe.
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Coetzee, Azille. "Antigone, Empire, and the Legacy of Oedipus: Thinking African Decolonization through the Rearticulation of Kinship Rules." Hypatia 34, no. 3 (2019): 464–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/hypa.12482.
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In her book Antigone's Claim: Kinship between Life and Death, Judith Butler reads the figure of Antigone, who exists as an impossible aberration of kinship, as a challenge to the very terms of livability that are established by the reigning symbolic rules of Western thought (Butler 2000). In this article I extend Butler's argument to reach beyond gender. I argue that African feminist scholarship shows that the kinship norms shaping the reigning symbolic rules of Western thought not only render certain gendered lives unlivable, but through the gendered working thereof also become key to the colonial process of the racial dehumanization of the colonized and the violent expansion of Eurocentric capitalism. I show how Oyèrónké Oyĕwùmí, in her work on the Yorùbá people of Nigeria, provides, in a way analogous to Antigone, a glimpse of an order structured by kinship formations that are remarkably different from, and thereby bring into crisis, the normative versions of kinship that are posited as timeless truths. Through a reimagining or reconstruction of precolonial Yorùbá kinship formations, Oyĕwùmí articulates a different scheme of intelligibility, which enables radically different ways of being human and existing in the world.
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Cohen, Alan. "Mary Elizabeth Barber, Some Early South African Geologists, and the Discoveries of Diamonds." Earth Sciences History 22, no. 2 (January 1, 2003): 156–71. http://dx.doi.org/10.17704/eshi.22.2.25055065g1263034.
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The second generation of those Britons who had emigrated to the Cape Colony of South Africa in 18201 included a number of people who had transcended the basic requirements of establishing a subsistence among the relatively inhospitable social, economic, and agricultural climate of their new homeland. They became interested in the scientific study of the nature of their surroundings and in their spare time became keen amateur natural historians, geologists, archaeologists, and ethnologists. Those more intrepid amongst them sought to explore the unknown interior and in the process discovered the vast mineral wealth of the country, in particular diamonds, gold, and coal. This article seeks to show how one small group of people based around Grahamstown in the Eastern Province of the colony were involved in some of these discoveries, and especially the early discovery of diamonds in the Transvaal. Most of the group were connected in some way with Mary Elizabeth Barber (1818-1899), the daughter of a British gentleman sheep-farmer who arrived in South Africa in 1820. She became a well-known contemporary artist, poet, and natural historian, corresponding with several leading British scientists such as Sir Joseph Hooker and Charles Darwin. Her scientific papers were published, amongst others, by the Linnean Society of London, the Entomological Society of London, and the South African Philosophical Society.
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Steyn, H. Christina. "South African New Age Prophets: Past and Present." Religion and Theology 9, no. 3-4 (2002): 282–96. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/157430102x00151.
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AbstractThis article explores the visions, beliefs and prophecies of three remarkable South Africans. Johanna Brandt, Jan Smuts, and Joseph Busby espoused ideas that are central to New Age thought today. All three may be seen as Prophets': Brandt as the messenger of God who receives visions and is compelled to proclaim it to the nation; Smuts as the visionary with remarkable insight into the nature of reality; and Busby as the mouthpiece of an Ascended Master of the Spiritual Hierarchy who conveys important messages to the South African people. Brandt and Smuts were ahead of their time and their work was not at all well received by the local community. Brandt was eventually censored by her church and although Smuts was honoured in many circles for his statesmanship, his scientific theories with their metaphysical implications were spurned in this country. Busby, on the other hand, was not a particularly well-known person outside New Age circles, but he had a following among whom his work was welcomed and honoured. From this short review, it is clear that the central concepts of New Age philosophy have been taught in South Africa for many years and today it has penetrated the minds and beliefs of many South Africans.
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Kobenan, Yao. "Noces sacrées de Seydou Badian: quand le roman traduit la décolonialité." Cahiers ERTA, no. 21 (2020): 27–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.4467/23538953ce.20.002.12023.
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Sacred weddings of Seydou Badian: when the novel translates decoloniality In the name of a certain theory of race inferiority, the imperialist powers have instituted the slave trade which will annihilate the countries of the Third World, and mainly those of the African continent. They will impose their vision of the world through the universalization of a Cartesian philosophy which has considerably encroached on the local histories of subordinate peoples. Even today, categories of people continue to suffer from the depreciative stereotypes constructed by the settler. For African novelists, the historical truth must be recognized. They therefore write with the aim of restoring the authentic values of these peoples. It is in this perspective that Seydou Badian inscribes his work entitled Sacred Weddings where he magnifies an African tradition which only asks to be recognized as an absolute and autonomous value, through a decolonial writing.
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Muller, Carol A. "Why Jazz? South Africa 2019." Daedalus 148, no. 2 (April 2019): 115–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_01747.
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I consider the current state of jazz in South Africa in response to the formation of the nation-state in the 1990s. I argue that while there is a recurring sense of the precarity of jazz in South Africa as measured by the short lives of jazz venues, there is nevertheless a vibrant jazz culture in which musicians are using their own studios to experiment with new ways of being South African through the freedom of association of people and styles forming a music that sounds both local and comfortable in its sense of place in the global community. This essay uses the words of several South African musicians and concludes by situating the artistic process of South African artist William Kentridge in parallel to jazz improvisation.
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Adler, Jeffrey S. "Cognitive Bias: Interracial Homicide in New Orleans, 1921–1945." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 43, no. 1 (May 2012): 43–61. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jinh_a_00338.
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White killers of African Americans in New Orleans between 1921 and 1945, nearly half of whom were policemen, insisted that they acted in self-defense, only after their victims had threatened them, often by reaching for weapons. But many of their victims were unarmed. The conventional interpretation is that white residents invoked a formulaic justification of self-defense to mask their real intention, to uphold the city's racial hierarchy. Recent studies by cognition researchers, however, suggest a more complicated interpretation—that endemic racism can influence how the brain processes information, even to the extent of causing people to see a weapon where none exists.
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Macaulay-Adeyelure, Olawunmi O. "Obafemi Awolowo’s Philosophy of Education and its Importance for Postcolonial Development in Africa." International Scientific Journal of Universities and Leadership, no. 11 (June 14, 2021): 5–15. http://dx.doi.org/10.31874/2520-6702-2021-11-1-5-15.
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Needless but irrelevant attention has been given to the forms of educational curriculum and syllabuses that were given to African colonies by their administrators, as the most plausible route for the emergence of competent and upright minds that will occupy posterity to initiate and activate their development. There is hardly any part of Africa that is not a recipient of this unenviable colonial legacy. This is the case for Nigeria, a country that was a former colony of Britain. In 21st century Nigeria however, this admission no longer seems plausible perhaps owing to the upsurge in corruption, ethnicity, nepotism, lack of implementation of good policies, to name a few. Granted, these worrisome situations are not limited to Nigeria, they have served as the motivation for the emphasis to using indigenous ideals for pedagogy. The present research deduces its aim from this call, via the method of philosophical analysis to an aspect of Obafemi Awolowo’s philosophy which has been given minimal attention – his thoughts on education. Assuming the method of philosophical analysis, this study argues for the contemporary relevance of Awolowo’s pedagogy for Nigeria which could also be applicable in places that face challenges similar to Nigeria’s. It agrees with Awolowo that the intellectual enormity of the people is most important because when a person is educated, his mind and body would be developed and transformed; hence such a person would approach issues correctly, rightly and timely. These unfortunately are qualities that are on the downswing in recent times. The entire gauge of this research is therefore aimed at unpacking this philosophy with recommendations for application. It is the fervent conviction of this study that assuming Awolowo’s proposals, there are indigenous African legacies that may assist in charting the right course for the continent’s humans and educational developments.
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Brevard, Lisa Pertillar. "“I LEAVE YOU LOVE”: African American Women as Collectors in, of, and through, the Arts." Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 15, no. 2-3 (June 2019): 113–66. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1550190619866183.
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In her last will and testament, educator-activist Mary McLeod Bethune (1875–1955) declared, “I LEAVE YOU LOVE. Love builds.” A direct descendant of former chattel slaves, Bethune believed in building from the bottom up: beginning with love, or positive thoughts, and manifesting those thoughts. By accretion of goods and goodwill, she built not only a physical school which fostered the arts as a bridge toward world citizenship for disenfranchised black people but also a school of thought, extending to encompass purposeful government service at local and federal levels, toward achieving a just society. Bethune’s determined example of building by accretion informs and helps us to better understand and articulate a wide variety of African American women’s collecting in, of, and through, the arts. This article explores and defines—according to philosophy, purpose, practice, type, scope, and audience—various examples of collecting and collections among selected African American women in the arts, many of whom became contributors to, and subjects of, various collections.
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Kuznesof, Elizabeth. "People of Faith: Slavery and African Catholics in Eighteenth-Century Rio de Janeiro. By Mariza de Carvalho Soares (Durham, Duke University Press, 2011) 321pp. $23.95." Journal of Interdisciplinary History 43, no. 2 (August 2012): 336–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/jinh_r_00409.
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Mdletye, Mbongeni, Jos Coetzee, and Wilfred Ukpere. "The strengths and weaknesses of the transformational change management process in the South African department of correctional services: A critical analysis." Journal of Governance and Regulation 3, no. 4 (2014): 223–34. http://dx.doi.org/10.22495/jgr_v3_i4_c2_p10.
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Change management research has become a critical focus area for change scholars because of the low success rate in change implementation. This exposition of how the transformational change process has been managed at the Department of Correctional Service was meant to show managers, particularly in the said department, that unless managers pay serious attention to certain critical aspects which must form part of the change management process, no real change would be attained. This becomes critical if one considers that there is still a long way to go in the process of transformation to the philosophy of rehbilitation, namely transforming correctional centres to effective institutions of offender rehabilitation. There is currently limited literature on organisational change approaches that are people-oriented. The available literature seems to focus more on the technical aspects (hard issues such as structures, systems and practices) in terms of change management at the expense of people issues (soft issues such as the human factors). It has been argued that the neglect of people issues in the management of organisational change processes is responsible for the high failure rate in change implementation. For purposes of contextualising transformational change management within the setting of the Department of Correctional Services, an extensive literature study was undertaken. This was followed by an empirical analysis of data collected through survey questionnaires from correctional officials and offenders respectively. The research established that there were strong and weak points in the DCS transformational change management process from the perspective of both research participants.
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Opoku, Emmanuela, and Trish Glazebrook. "Gender, Agriculture, and Climate Policy in Ghana." Environmental Ethics 40, no. 4 (2018): 371–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/enviroethics201840435.
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Ghana is aware of women farmers’ climate adaptation challenges in meeting the country’s food security needs and has strong intentions to support these women, but is stymied by economic limitations, poor organization in governance, persistent social gender biases, and either little or counter-productive support from international policy makers and advisory bodies. Focal issues are the global impacts of climate change on agriculture, Africa’s growing hunger crisis, and women’s contribution to food production in Ghana. Of special importance are the issues of gender-inclusiveness and gender-sensitivity of Ghana’s climate and climate-related policies, including its integration of United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change policy, as well as the influence of international economic policy on Ghana’s gender development. Because women farmers provide the majority of the country’s national food-basket, Ghana (as well as other African counries) should focus on building women subsistence farmers’ adaptation needs to avert mass starvation. People should understand that starvation in Africa is not a future event but is already underway.
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Ojimba, Anthony Chimankpam, and Ada Agada. "Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and the notions of reincarnation in Onyewuenyi and Majeed." Filosofia Theoretica: Journal of African Philosophy, Culture and Religions 9, no. 2 (October 27, 2020): 35–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.4314/ft.v9i2.3.
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This paper examines Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and the notions of reincarnation in Onyewuenyi and Majeed with a view to showing how convergence and divergence of thought in the Nietzschean, Onyewuenyean and Majeedean philosophy contexts can inform cross-cultural philosophizing. Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence represents his deep thought, which claims that every aspect of life returns innumerable times, in an identical fashion. On the other hand, Onyewuenyi posits that reincarnation is un-African as he conceives it as the theory that when the soul separates from the body, at death, it informs another body for another span of life, while Majeed sees evidence of the African rootedness of the belief in reincarnation, based on his study of the Akan people of Ghana and concedes that the belief, itself, is irrational, since there is no scientific or empirical basis for it. Attempts are made to highlight the dynamics of Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence and to articulate the essential ingredients of Onyewuenyean and Majeedean conceptions of reincarnation. These forms of thought will be examined critically to exhibit their convergence and divergence in the context of cross-cultural philosophizing.
Keywords: eternal recurrence, reincarnation, will to power, vital force, cross-cultural philosophy, spirit-world
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Nansubuga, Florence, and John C. Munene. "Awakening the Ubuntu episteme to embrace knowledge management in Africa." Journal of Knowledge Management 24, no. 1 (December 5, 2019): 105–19. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/jkm-09-2018-0603.
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Purpose The knowledge management (KM) models in the African organisations are influenced by the interplay between human agents from diverse societies whose experiences, values, contextual information and insights that are perceived controversial in Africa. The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the indigenous assumptions related to knowledge and its management in Africa and the perceived contradictions in the existing models by adopting the Ubuntu philosophy. Design/methodology/approach The authors used a perspective lens to examine the existing management practices and propose an integrated framework that is appropriate for the utilisation of the Ubuntu epistemic knowledge management practices and at the same time provide highlights on the perceived paradoxes and how they can be managed to improve knowledge management and people management in African societies. Findings The inductive posteriori knowledge approach is perceived to be dynamic, applicable and more desirable in the African societies as it allows organisational managers and their work teams to embrace knowledge construction, dependent on experiences in form of stories and metaphors that demonstrate successful work samples. The Ubuntu dramaturgical knowledge management approach adds value to the posteriori knowledge by refining the rhetoric stories and metaphors into empirical performance scripts that are tailored to the audiences’ expectations. Research limitations/implications The paper adapted a perspective view to explain knowledge management; therefore, it was not possible to provide empirical data on the metaphysical and dramaturgical elements that are assumed to influence knowledge management in Africa. However, based on theoretical analysis, the authors have proposed a coherent knowledge management framework based on the interaction between posteriori KM assumptions and Ubuntu dramaturgy. Practical implications Ubuntu ideology has been appreciated since it treasures interdependency and interconnectedness among people. Therefore, collaborating partners working in Africa would be expected to act as interdependent agents, whereby this interdependency is perceived as an integral part of the knowledge management process. The proposed Ubuntu knowledge management model is grounded on the posteriori knowledge approach which assumes that experience is the source of knowledge. Through social interactions and experiences sharing, organisational members can create new processes, innovative technologies and dynamic context based performance scripts that can drive productivity. Social implications The authors concluded that a coherent framework that is tailored to social interactions and contextual needs of the people and their communities can promote productive knowledge and knowledge management systems in the African contexts. Moreover knowledge management requires one to acknowledge the complexity of Ubuntu ideology in a sense that it recognises the past experiences and contributions of the diverse individuals in the same community/organisation. Originality/value This paper focused on examining how the Ubuntu philosophy can promote knowledge development and management strategies that are tailored to social and contextual needs of the organisations in Africa to curtail the perceived paradoxes in the existing knowledge management models.
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Young, Alys, Lorenzo Ferrarini, Andrew Irving, Claudine Storbeck, Robyn Swannack, Alexandra Tomkins, and Shirley Wilson. "‘The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper’ (WB Yeats): enhancing resilience among deaf young people in South Africa through photography and filmmaking." Medical Humanities 45, no. 4 (December 2019): 416–27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2019-011661.
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This article concerns deaf children and young people living in South Africa who are South African Sign Language users and who participated in an interdisciplinary research project using the medium of teaching film and photography with the goal of enhancing resilience. Specifically, this paper explores three questions that emerged from the deaf young people’s experience and involvement with the project: (i) What is disclosed about deaf young people’s worldmaking through the filmic and photographic modality? (ii) What specific impacts do deaf young people’s ontologically visual habitations of the world have on the production of their film/photographic works? (iii) How does deaf young people’s visual, embodied praxis through film and photography enable resilience? The presentation of findings and related theoretical discussion is organised around three key themes: (i) ‘writing’ into reality through photographic practice, (ii) filmmaking as embodied emotional praxis and (iii) enhancing resilience through visual methodologies. The discussion is interspersed with examples of the young people’s own work.
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Wainwright, Michael. "On What Matters for African Americans: W. E. B. Du Bois’s “Double Consciousness” in the Light of Derek Parfit’s Reasons and Persons." Janus Head 15, no. 2 (2016): 109–31. http://dx.doi.org/10.5840/jh201615229.
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In Reasons and Persons (1984), the greatest contribution to utilitarian philosophy since Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics (1874), Derek Parfit supports his Reductionist contention “that personal identity is not what matters” by turning to the neurosurgical findings of Roger Wolcott Sperry. Parfit’s scientifically informed argument has important implications for W. E. B. Du Bois’s contentious hypothesis of African-American “double-consciousness,” which he initially advanced in “Strivings of the Negro People” (1897), before amending for inclusion in The Souls of Black Folk (1903). An analysis of “Of the Coming of John,” chapter 13 in The Souls of Black Folk, helps to trace these ramifications, resituating Du Bois’s notion from the pragmatist to the utilitarian tradition, and revealing how his concept effectively prefigured Parfit’s scientifically informed Reductionism.
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Olugbenga, Dasaolu Babajide. "On Efficient Causation for Homosexual Behaviours among Traditional Africans: An Exploration of the Traditional Yoruba Model." Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 9, no. 2 (April 25, 2019): 26–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v9i2.41187.
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In the face of the recent backlashes against homosexual persons in Africa, on the ground that the phenomenon is un-African and/or threat to procreation and marital values, it is pertinent to review the discourse in the light of how ancient Africans perceived the reality. This is imperative given the lack of consensus on the part of scientists to disinter a conclusive finding on what causes homosexual behaviours among humans. In this research, I employ traditional Yorùbá philosophy to provide a plausible justification for homosexuality among the people. In the face of this justification via Yorùbá folklore, I find that there is no documented evidence among the ancient Yorùbá that is suggestive of discrimination and stigmatization of homosexuals and inter-sex persons. As homosexual persons were respected but not criminalized, this study recommends the regurgitation of this outlook in the contemporaneous dealings with homosexual persons, beginning with the repealing of the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act of 2014 in Nigeria, which is inconsistent with African values and outlooks on the subject.
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Marobela, Motsomi Ndala. "Reflections and Insights on Leadership Competencies in Botswana: Lessons and Experiences for African Managers." Journal of Corporate Governance Research 4, no. 1 (April 24, 2020): 1. http://dx.doi.org/10.5296/jcgr.v4i1.16905.
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In Africa, leadership crisis stalls many organisations from realizing their goals and holds back people from attaining their dreams. Yet African culture is rich with experiences which draw from the wisdom of traditional leadership, with its emphasis on communality, hard work and kindness as emblematic in the spirit of Ubuntu (Botho) (van de Colff, 2003) an African philosophy which inculcates compassion and integrity. This paper reflects on insights of leadership practices in some of Botswana organisations to appreciate the challenges they face in steering the leadership pedestal and their impact in fostering organizational success. The role of leadership is examined against a set of attributes and functions. For example, articulation of vision, staff welfare, customer care and more importantly the extent to which leadership contributes towards social justice and equity is considered. The study was conducted in Gaborone, the capital city of Botswana, based on exploratory mini practical survey. This involved unstructured personal interviews with industry leaders’ from private, public and non-governmental entities, to understand their roles as leaders and explore issues that preoccupy them and appreciate the challenges they face. Key findings from this research are the realization that the intersection between scholarship and practitioners provides a powerful mediatory process of reflection for leadership learning, more especially in transformation. Leaders who reflect are constantly imagining the vision of their organisations and ways of actualizing it.
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Abe, Toshihiro. "Reconciliation as Process or Catalyst: Understanding the Concept in a Post-conflict Society." Comparative Sociology 11, no. 6 (2012): 785–814. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15691330-12341246.
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Abstract While the work of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission has brought various new issues in the study of post-conflict society and transitional justice, a problematic issue that remains is how we should understand the ideal of reconciliation. This paper first critically traces previous theoretical works on reconciliation policy in South Africa, particularly paying attention to the arguments in political philosophy that have been deployed to incorporate the post-TRC condition into a theoretical frame. This examination is followed by a discussion invoking René Girard’s notion of desire to capture the dilemma of people in a post-conflict society. Finally, the uniqueness and importance of the reconciliation project is inferred to have the possible function of affecting the collective relationships among former enemies.
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Mokgoro, Y. "Ubuntu and the law in South Africa." Potchefstroom Electronic Law Journal/Potchefstroomse Elektroniese Regsblad 1, no. 1 (July 10, 2017): 16. http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/1727-3781/1998/v1i1a2897.
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The new constitutional dispensation, like the idea of freedom in South Africa, is also not free of scepticism. Many a time when crime and criminal activity are rife, sceptics would lament the absence of ubuntu in society and attribute this absence to what they view as the permissiveness which is said to have been brought about by the Constitution with its entrenched Bill of Rights. Firstly, I would like to take this opportunity and (attempt to) demonstrate the irony that the absence of the values of ubuntu in society that people often lament about and attribute to the existence of the Constitution with its demands for respect for human rights when crime becomes rife, are the very same values that the Constitution in general and the Bill of Rights in particular aim to inculcate in our society. Secondly, against the background of the call for an African renaissance that has now become topical globally, I would like to demonstrate the potential that traditional African values of ubuntu have for influencing the development of a new South African law and jurisprudence. The concept ubuntu, like many African concepts, is not easily definable. In an attempt to define it, the concept has generally been described as a world-view of African societies and a determining factor in the formation of perceptions which influence social conduct. It has also been described as a philosophy of life. Much as South Africa is a multicultural society, indigenous law has not featured in the mainstream of South African jurisprudence. Without a doubt, some aspects or values of ubuntu are universally inherent to South Africa’s multi cultures. The values of ubuntu are therefore an integral part of that value system which had been established by the Interim Constitution. The founding values of the democracy established by this new Constitution arguably coincide with some key values of ubuntu(ism). Ubuntu(-ism), which is central to age-old African custom and tradition however, abounds with values and ideas which have the potential of shaping not only current indigenous law institutions, but South African jurisprudence as a whole. Ubuntu can therefore become central to a new South African jurisprudence and to the revival of sustainable African values as part of the broader process of the African renaissance.