The nucleation of ubuntu discourse

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article challenges the tendency, in some accounts of ubuntu, to develop a monolithic narrative anchored on a fixed point of reference which I call nucleus. I refer to the discourse arising from these explanations as ‘nucleated ubuntu’ and to the processes which enable such a discourse as nucleation. My focus is on three related ways in which ubuntu discourse is burdened with a nucleus. The first is the grafting of the aphorism umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu into ubuntu talk. I argue that regardless of intentions, nucleated ubuntu has reached its conceptual ceiling owing to the failure or refusal to imagine the discourse via other pockets of African knowledge. The second focuses on the singular interpretation of the proverb, which keeps returning to the notion of harmony despite the absence of incontrovertible semantic prosodies of harmony in the proverb. This interpretation is entangled with Hendrik Verwoerd’s regard of Apartheid as ‘good neighbourliness’. The third, building from the second, is the status of ubuntu’s others in the popular aphorism. I refer to ‘ubuntu’s others’ as opposed to ‘umuntu’s others’ because these others are required by a discourse seeking to redefine African ethics. I propose that it is the rediscovery of ubuntu which is significantly in need of others.