Practices and discourses of ubuntu: Implications for an African model of disability?

Abstract

Background: Southern African scholars and activists working in disability studies have argued that ubuntu or unhu is a part of their world view. Objectives: Thinking seriously about ubuntu, as a shared collective humanness or social ethics, means to examine how Africans have framed a struggle for this shared humanity in terms of decolonisation and activism. Method: Three examples of applications of ubuntu are given, with two mainly linked to making explicit umaka. Firstly, ubuntu is linked to making visible the invisible inequalities for a common humanity in South Africa. Secondly, it becomes correlated to the expression of environmental justice in West and East African countries. Results: An African model of disability that encapsulates ubuntu is correlated to how Africans have illustrated a social ethics of a common humanity in their grassroots struggles against oppression and disablement in the 20th century. Ubuntu also locates disability politically within the wider environment and practices of sustainability which are now important to the post-2105 agenda, Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) and the (UN) Sustainable Development Goals linked to climate change. Conclusion: A different kind of political action linked to social justice seems to be evolving in line with ubuntu. This has implications for the future of disability studies.

Introduction to Special Issue on 21st-Century Ethics in Technical Communication: Ethics and the Social Justice Movement in Technical and Professional Communication

“…Ubuntu enshrines respect for diversity because diversity showcases the otherness of what humans who are different from ourselves possess—be it in terms of queerness, gender, race, or some other trait. In Ubuntu, inhumanity is when attributes such as disability or queerness are degraded or otherwise seen as defective (see Berghs, 2017; Chataika, et al, 2015).…”

Disability and climate change: A critical realist model of climate justice

“…Socially just responses to climate change must acknowledge each of these three facets. A cultural shift in awareness of the issues faced by people with disabilities will support greater equity in the experience of climate change among people with disabilities as well as work towards the health of the planet in general (Berghs, 2017). Political action will support the macro‐level effects needed to adequately address climate change and begin to reverse the issues that are affecting the world and disproportionately affecting people with disabilities (Morris et al., 2018).…”

“…A study of disability models and their relation to environmental justice in South Africa emphasized uncovering invisible inequalities to craft a more comprehensive conceptualization of disability, and then applying that to the pursuit of environmental justice. These social ethics and their political ramifications are part of a shared “ubuntu,” which describes the community's collective humanity, regardless of ability, and mandates equity and justice (Berghs, 2017). This model of disability and its situation within environmental (in)justice is not shared by U.S. culture or policy.…”

Inclusive Education Without Resources: A Policy Approach for Sub-Sahara Africa

“…One of the missing links in teacher education programmes within SSA is the role of cultural views around disabilities, in other words, it is not dealt with in practice. SSA communities have practised a different form of inclusive practices, and it is essential to building inclusive education on empowering teachers to be agents of change (Berghs, 2017). Teacher education must move away from traditional methods that disadvantaged students with disabilities and embrace innovative ways of teaching practices (Agbenyega & Deku, 2011).…”