Transformative psychology #15: Ubuntu, adoption, appropriation

Ubuntu is African in origin but universal in potential application. 

That brings up an issue with which I've struggled over the years. What is a culture featuring best practices learned from any and all sources versus cultural appropriation? To me, it is a bit like writing. Cite our sources! Give credit. Acknowledge. I wore a braid for many years (until I broke my wrist and was unable to braid) and I always credited my Anishinaabe friends whose braids I loved. That's a little thing.

The other factor is to not only acknowledge cultural origins, but to acknowledge privilege and relative lack of cultural depth. If I love Aretha Franklin I'm only ethically correct, in my view, if I do so acknowledging that I can't possibly understand the full measure, the authentic depth, of the African American experience or roots of gospel fusion. 

This is all easy and natural for those who study and practice conflict transformation because at the heart of our field is respect--for others and for ourselves. When that is a higher value than feeling superior to others, we lean into our own variant of ubuntu.

Nigerian philosopher Philip Ogo Ujomu describes ubuntu as " a set of human values central among which are reciprocity, the common good, peaceful relations, an emphasis on human dignity and the value of human life, as well as consensus, tolerance, and mutual respect" (2024, pp. 53-54). He further suggests that, with all the external contestation for development of Africa, decisions about that should not only rest with Africans but should be guided by reliance on the values of ubuntu as a necessary endogenous filter in such decision-making.

In many ways, then, although development of African resources--both human and natural--by external parties during the colonial era and beyond has been far more predatory than collaborative, this school of thought and proposed reliance on ubuntu would bring back the sovereign agency to indigenous Africans to the extent ubuntu is in fact made crucial in such decisions. Struggling to foreground ubuntu might indeed be the most crucial factor in remediating the extractive approach associated with external parties from the export of slaves to the dark history of conflict diamonds and other profoundly oppressive practices. Basing decisions on ethics such as mutual respect changes the psychological foundations of conversations amongst Africans and between Africans and external parties. It would be one of the greatest social evolutionary steps in the history of humankind. Impossible? It would be wise to heed Henry David Thoreau in this inquiry, who said that we should aim high because almost certainly we will never achieve more than what we aim to.

References

Ujomu, P. O. (2024). ‘Ubuntu’ African Philosophy or ‘Ubuntu’ as a Philosophy for Africa? Philosophical Alternatives Journal / Filosofski Alternativi, 33(5), 53–90. https://doi-org.proxy.lib.pdx.edu/10.58945/UYHB1683