By Emily Cooper
Emily is currently a student on our MPH International Development Follow her on Twitter @EmilyCooper000.
Ubuntu is a Nguni word that originated in Southern Africa. Although there is no direct translation in English, ubuntu describes our humanity and is often expressed by the maxim “a person is a person through other persons”. Essentially, personal identity is wrapped up in community and our relationships with others. It is the antithesis of the Descartes idea; “I think therefore I am” but rather “I am because we are”. (Etieyibo 2017)
One of the most basic principles of ubuntu is a moral obligation towards others including past, present and future generations. In this way it advocates for a sustainable life that does not affect the ability of others, including future generations, to live.
Although discussions of ubuntu commonly only apply this moral obligation to other humans, Danford (2016) and Le Grange (2012) argue that, when viewed in its traditional context, ubuntu extends to all non-human nature and therefore can be applied to our relationship with the environment. In fact, Danford (2016) theorises that the human-centred definition of ubuntu stems from colonialism and the hierarchical distinctions between humans and non-human nature introduced by Christianity. This separation was not prevalent in pre-colonial African philosophy and many traditional cultures had strong values of sustainability. Evidence of this can be seen in Zimbabwe, where cultural taboos prevented hunting, fishing and felling trees during certain periods, allowing the land to recover from human activities. (Danford, 2016) This negates the idea that conservation is a Western invention that needs enforcing in the Global South.
Using this pre-colonial idea of ubuntu, issues of human and environmental exploitation are tied in a more holistic worldview, where both humans and nature have intrinsic value. In contrast, Western policy makers often view nature as a commodity threatened by the impacts of climate change and call for individualised responsibility in terms of emissions and waste. This is reflected in environmental policy, that focuses on investment into green industry and low carbon growth without radically diverging from the status quo.
Policy makers also generally favour technology as the solution to the climate crisis, often at the expense of indigenous practices, which are central to ubuntu. Nothing encapsulates this more than the push for genetically modified crops in Africa. Although genetically modified crops can be farmed more intensively and so improve food security in theory, in practice they contribute towards environmental degradation and undermine the sovereignty of farmers in the Global South, who are forced to abandon indigenous methods and instead buy seeds and agrochemicals from big corporations. In this way harmony between local people and their environment is destroyed to profit a small group of wealthy people. It is this anthropocentrism and self-interested behaviour i.e. a lack of ubuntu that Treblanche-Greef (2019) argues is the root cause of our current environmental crisis.
To conclude, ubuntu is an indigenous philosophy that is not adequately represented in academic discourse or in global sustainable development policy. It provides an alternative to Western environmentalism that advocates for altruism, cohesion and harmony between all humans and nature. This is distinct from our current path of continual economic expansion under capitalism.
References:
- Danford TC. (2016) Ubuntu is Not Only about the Human! An Analysis of the Role of African Philosophy and Ethics in Environment Management, Journal of Human Ecology, 53:2, 157-166, https://doi.org/10.1080/09709274.2016.11906968
- Etieyibo E. (2017) Ubuntu and the Environment. In: Afolayan A., Falola T. The Palgrave Handbook of African Philosophy. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-59291-0_41
- Le Grange L.(2012) Ubuntu, ukama, environment and moral education, Journal of Moral Education, 41:3, 329-340, https://doi.org/10.1080/03057240.2012.69163
- Terblanché-Greeff A.C. (2019) Ubuntu and Environmental Ethics: The West Can Learn from Africa When Faced with Climate Change. In: Chemhuru M. African Environmental Ethics. The International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics, vol 29. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-18807-8_7
