Relational Being as Icon or Communal Freedom: Southern Africa's Ubuntu
Beginning from the question "What is the self?" a range of applications of the African concept of ubuntu is shown to be an alternate model of person-in-relation to that of Western views. In its traditional form, ubuntu situated the individual person in a web of relations in which self and...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford Graduate School
[2016]
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| In: |
Journal of sociology and Christianity
Year: 2016, Volume: 6, Issue: 2, Pages: 56-79 |
| Further subjects: | B
Ubuntu
B Reification B Individual B Social Cohesion B Reconciliation B Mystification B relational being B Freedom B Community B Power |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (kostenfrei) |
| Summary: | Beginning from the question "What is the self?" a range of applications of the African concept of ubuntu is shown to be an alternate model of person-in-relation to that of Western views. In its traditional form, ubuntu situated the individual person in a web of relations in which self and world were united and intermingled in reciprocal relations that accentuated the obligations and mutuality of being human. Appearing in South Africa's 1993 interim Constitution, it lends gravity and concern for justice to all relations to which that document applies, with effects on national laws, programs, and responsibilities of governance. The genealogy, uses, and critiques of ubuntu are investigated, arriving at the conclusion that, as a traditional though reconstructed principle, it remains a viable force, provided its critics' analyses are accounted for, and it is treated as a force for freedom rather than an icon of the inaccessible past. |
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| ISSN: | 2572-4088 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of sociology and Christianity
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