Why do we know so much about ubuntu and so little about the traditional knowledge system to which it belongs? In a word: history. The discovery of gold and diamonds in South Africa in the late 1800s catalysed a particular expression of colonialism.
Generally speaking, colonialism imposes neoliberal ideology; settler colonialism forces it deep into the heart of society. The pattern of settler colonialism is to extract and reinterpret to reinforce its domination and control. This pattern was in large part what made ubuntu so accessible to westerners.
Ubuntu is typically translated as “I am because we are”.
- In intellectual circles, ubuntu is used in counterpoint to “I think, therefore I am”, as proposed by 17th century French philosopher René Descartes.
- In the business world, ubuntu became another name for servant leadership.
- In the tech world, it lent its name to an open source Linux-based operating system.
In general, it took on whatever form was needed to reflect a warmer and perhaps better way to conceptualise humanity. The growing popularity of ubuntu was largely responsible for obscuring the broader knowledge system to which it belongs.
Ubuntu was extracted from a vast network of traditional knowledge systems that still pervades the sub-continent. Highly pragmatic and syncretic, it is called Ngoma. It forms a vast network of traditional knowledge systems that still pervade the sub-continent.
The popularisation of ubuntu was a political decision. At the dawn of South Africa’s democracy in the mid-1990s, people had endured decades of brutal liberation war. Although things were looking up, they were still teetering and had the possibility of descending into a bloodbath. Mandela wanted to avoid that. He asked a wise and wonderful man called Desmond Tutu to chair a Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
As an Anglican archbishop, Tutu was highly trained in Christian theology. He also had a deep understanding of ubuntu. He took on a big task for the country, and used ubuntu to do it. In the process, he popularised an interpretation of ubuntu that was highly consistent with ‘turning the other cheek’.
South Africa became a Good News story and ubuntu became so accessible to Westerners that the more complex system of Ngoma fell by the wayside. Many people were happy to reinterpret and embrace ubuntu while still seeing the rest of African traditional knowledge as backwards or superstitious.
The complex African knowledge system from which ubuntu was extracted embraces ambiguity in a way that makes many Westerners uncomfortable. Anthropology literature aside, Ngoma does not lend itself to popularity beyond the continent.
Through the lens of epistemic justice, we might see Ngoma as a powerful response to uncertainty. Recognising a world where agency is hyper-distributed, it adapts and blends, switching between levels of granularity and fluid identities to accommodate the new. In making sense of uncertainty, its expert practitioners apply random simulation, deep pattern analysis and abductive logic to help people at any level of society find a way forward. In theory, it’s a bit of a mouthful; Ngoma is largely about practice.
I am obviously offering another interpretation, based primarily on complexity science. But in doing so, I have tried hard to avoid extracting traditional concepts to feed a world hungry for indigenous ideas. Whether intentionally or not, that repeats the pattern of settler colonialism.
When we work with the fundamentals, we work with power. We are on a knife’s edge. There is always more to learn.
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I have explored how to apply the traditional science of Ngoma to support the sustainability transition for more than 20 years. For several reasons (which I am happy to discuss), I have avoided making my explorations explicit until recently. I have just finished a reasonably coherent draft of a book on this 20 year journey. It has taken 18 months to write and I promise to publish it next year! Incite provides the space for me to do this work, but the application of traditional African knowledge to sustainability transition is limited to my own engagements; it is complementary but does not form a part of Incite’s core offerings.
Banner pic cropped from a photo by Hanien Conradie.