African Worldview Research Articles

African metaphysics and disabilities

In the last decade or so, some substantive work on disability in Africa has been done. Nonetheless, and this is so for different reasons, the nature and substance of disability in intellectual discourses in Africa still largely remain undefined and uncategorised. In this article, I aim to contribute to the scholarship on disability by examining if and whether one can talk meaningfully of metaphysical disability and how this notion of disability is related to other forms of disability or particular incidences of disability in an African cultural worldview. This discussion and exercise I believe not only sheds light on possible metaphysical underpinnings of disabilities in Africa, but also illuminates some aspects of the nature and substance of disability on the continent.

Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century by Vaughn A. Booker

Reviewed by: Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century by Vaughn A. Booker Alisha Lola Jones Vaughn A. Booker, Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century (New York: New York University Press, 2020) Lift Every Voice and Swing: Black Musicians and Religious Culture in the Jazz Century, by religion and African American studies scholar Vaughn A. Booker, incisively challenges assumptions about African American jazz musicians’ performance of race, personal belief, and socio-cultural hardwiring toward or against Afro-Protestantism in the popular imagination. Booker’s titular pun—Lift Every Voice and Swing—follows a tide of publications over the last decade on anthems (see Shana Redmond’s Anthem: Social Movements and the Sound of Solidarity in the African Diaspora [2013]) and particularly on “the Negro National Anthem”—J. Rosamond and James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing”—profiled in Imani Perry’s May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem (2018). Further, Lift Every Voice and Swing hearkens to the primacy of vocality and swing as prized organizing components and commoditized principles in religio- cultural performance practices that set apart popular African American musicians in the twentieth-century mediascape. After all, to echo Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington’s signature 1931 composition, “It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got That Swing. ” [End Page 131] With a keen awareness of the African philosophical worldview that there is no bifurcation of the “sacred” and “secular,” Booker confirms that for many African American jazz and other musicians there is only a continuum between the religious and non-religious in the artistic discourses accessible to them. To illuminate this observation, he explores the extent to which four jazz tastemakers’ (networks’) commentary and performances influenced religious expression in multi-faith/transdenominational liturgy and popular religio-cultural portrayals: Cab Calloway, Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, and Mary Lou Williams. In the introduction, Booker establishes the parameters of “sacred” Afro-Protestant aesthetics, offering insight on the “swing concept” of vibraphonist and convert from Roman Catholicism to Christian Science Lionel Hampton. Hampton asserted that it was sacrilege for bands to swing (Negro) spirituals, especially in cinematic portrayals, presumably because of the sultry and sensuous musical associations that swinging prompts: “Sacred African American music was a cultural possession of Hampton and other African Americans, and, in his view, to transform it into a festive or entertaining commodity was to commit sacrilege and racial offense” (1). Hampton’s commentary reveals the extent to which Afro-Protestant religious expression is culture among African Americans, regardless of one’s personal belief. The first part of the book, entitled “Representations of Religion and Race,” comprises four chapters. Readers will note that Booker places taste-makers Cab Calloway and Ella Fitzgerald into the conversation by innovative means, tapping into often overlooked autobiographical material about Calloway, and, and taking alternative measures for Fitzgerald, who rarely interviewed and never produced an autobiography. The first chapter introduces a group of religious race professionals beyond male clergy who are middle-class leaders of Afro-Protestant denominations, organizations, and churches. In the second chapter, Booker concentrates on maestro Cab Calloway’s early jazz career and the extent to which, as a person who did not participate in institutional religion, he deploys religious humor to push the limits. Instead of typically centering Black male musicians within Bebop jazz discourse, the third chapter centers on the vocalist Ella Fitzgerald’s efforts to fashion her raced, gendered, and (non-)religious identity. Racial and religious reverence are investigated in the fourth chapter through Duke Ellington’s musical compositions in which he explores biblical and historical African civilizations. [End Page 132] Part two, “Missions and Legacies,” spans five chapters. The fifth chapter attends to Duke Ellington who was influential in religious literature while maintaining core conversation partners who were not formed in Christianity. We learn in the sixth chapter about Ellington’s theology through his recorded private thoughts in relation to his compositional practice. Composer Mary Lou Williams is featured in the seventh chapter, which examines her religious thoughts following her conversion to Roman Catholicism. Following Williams through her business archives...

Redefining the Problem of Evil in the Context of a Predeterministic World: New Conversations with the Traditional African Worldview

Merciful, holy, all-powerful, all-knowing, spirit, unchanging, the first cause, unknowable. These are just some of the properties that some scholars of African religions have attributed to the being they call God. Setting aside accusations that some of these properties reflect the colonially imposed religions, it is almost taken as a given that these properties really do belong to some of the various versions of the African God. This, then, raises the question: how is it ever the case that the present world, filled with various forms of evil and terror, emanates from a God possessing these same properties? Thus, the African God joins the formidable list of deities for which the problem of evil is relevant. In this essay, I argue that the power of the problem of evil lies in the belief, in many major African traditional religions, that God is a personalized entity. This, in turn, ensures a blind misattribution of the properties (mentioned above) to God. To buttress this point, I begin by presenting a materialistic and de-personalised notion of God that sheds away those properties that are imperceptible and/or are not logically necessary. Next, drawing from this new vision of God, and from religious traditions such as the Luba and Bantu traditions, I provide an account of some properties that can be ascribed to God (such as: genderless, eternal, first cause, material and unconscious), and show how this notion of God enables a predeterministic world. Finally, I show that what we refer to as evil is compatible with the idea of a material, depersonalized and unconscious God, and with the context of a predeterministic world that is indifferent to human experience.

The African Worldview and Belief in the Demonic

The African continent displays rich diversity in geography, culture, history, and language. In spite of this heterogeneity in several respects it still has many similarities. These similarities are to a great extent evident in its rich cultures, but especially in its religious worldview. For that reason, the debate still rages whether the religion appertaining to the region should be referred to as African Traditional Religion (ATR), or African Traditional Religions. The arguments on both sides are compelling. A close examination of the worldviews held by a large portion of Africans however reveals amazing similarities. The African worldview associated with the religious beliefs of the people is one that contributes greatly to belief in the reality, power, and working of demons in the daily lives of its people. To better understand how a worldview contributes to belief in the demonic the religion and corresponding aspects of the African worldview will be examined.

Contextualising Etienne de Villiers' Ethics of Responsibility in the African context

Being a South African systematic theologian, Etienne de Villiers has been involved in discourses regarding public morality with specific interest in the ethics of responsibility. In pursuing this task, his recent scholarship has resulted in proposing a contemporary Christian ethic of responsibility that addresses public moral issues. While this proposal has significant promise for engaging with issues distorting the moral fabric of most African societies, it is considered as lacking some resources for speaking to the African person critically and clearly because of its Western character. Hence, there appears to be an incompatibility with aspects of African moral and social identities in his proposal that require critical consideration of concepts more appealing to the African context. Hence, this article proposes an African (primarily Nigerian) theological engagement with de Villiers' views. The intention is to make de Villiers' work more accessible and, contextual, to the broader African ethical worldview.

2 - What Should Globalisation Mean for African Humanities and Why?

This work sets out to engage the ideology of globalisation by interrogating the notion of humanities that has been applied to study the concept. To do this, it addresses the following question: if the idea of globalisation was interrogated from the idea of man (being human)1 and studies of human nature informed by the values, principles and norms that define the idea of humankind from the African worldview, what would it amount to? What ideals would drive such a project and what difference would it make for the human community? To address these questions, the article will locate African humanities through what it calls the dominant humanities orientation in Africa, defined as the study of man (being human) available through the intellectual industry of modern Africa and inscribed through various subjects studied in the humanities in African institutions. Thereafter, it will proceed to locate what man (being human) would mean, assuming that effort is made to locate the meaning through the African endogenous worldview. The article will next proceed to articulate the gains of applying the African endogenous idea of man (being human) in articulating and directing globalisation. The method applied is an inductive analysis of views and positions in the humanities, African thought and globalisation.

Leveraging African Spirituality and Popular Culture betwixt Africa and the African Diaspora

Ama McKinley’s article, ‘Beyoncé Serves African Spirituality in “Lemonade”’ in The Huffington Post (2016), depicts Beyoncé Knowles-Carter as ‘an artist of the Earth, using her stage and global influence to teach about the human condition, using symbology and language that is sacred and pronounced beyond a few approved circles’. This view partly epitomizes the resilience of African spirituality in the diaspora, where Beyoncé in ‘Lemonade’ invokes so much of the Yoruba tradition, grounded in African tradition, by offering a musical and visual journey through the African diaspora. African spiritualities touch on and imbue every facet of life and thus cannot be separated from quotidian, mundane thought. This article explores African spirituality as mostly concerned with the pursuit of cosmic balance and human flourishing through a matrix of worldviews, belief systems and ritual praxis. We employ Beyoncé Knowles-Carter’s music albums Lemonade and Black is King; and Ryan Coogler’s movie Black Panther to explore the intersectionality of African spirituality and popular culture in the African diaspora. We demonstrate how and to what extent the religious, moral, sociocultural and popular imaginaries linked to indigenous African worldviews and the African diaspora are continually contested and negotiated.

Mmuo: Soul or Spirit, a Problem of Imposition of Language

A people’s philosophy emanates from their worldview. Sometimes, some worldviews are similar or even related, but there are no two worldviews that are the same or that share exactly the same ideas. Worldviews are expressed through languages and the differences in worldviews are visible in the differences in the various world languages but often more visible during translation of literatures from one language to another. This difficulty cuts across different areas of various worldviews such as the days of the week, where many African worldviews have just four (4) days, but the Gregorian calendar, which could be called western calendar has seven (7) days. Therefore, the imposition of the Gregorian calendar on the African calendar will definitely leave gaps for comprehension. The same thing holds sway about used words; sometimes, words used in Africa do not get perfect literally translations into English language and this should not be strange, realizing that there are experiences of people that are dependent on their environments. But this work will be restricted to showcasing these difficulties through the ambiguity in translating the word ‘mmuo’ into English; should it be translated as soul or spirit? This research work seeks to bring to bare the ambiguity of translation and the problem of lack of equivalent or exact matching words; ending up in the imposing of meaning to words that are not the same. It will adopt the analytical philosophical method and will use the Igbo background in its study. It intends to help one another in appreciating people and their cultures, without the conscious or unconscious efforts to extinguish some cultures from the world.

“A Lot of Ghanaians Really Don’t Understand the Work We Do” – Cultural Adaptations and Barriers in Ghanaian Psychotherapy Practice

Abstract. Formal psychotherapy in Ghana is gaining momentum. Concerns about the over-reliance on Western theories bring the suitability of associated clinical interventions into question for Ghanaian, non-Western clients. We interviewed 27 clinical practitioners (including clinical, counseling, and health psychologists) practicing in an urban setting to explore cultural challenges they faced and to identify cultural adaptations they made in their practice. Our participants reported navigating cultural barriers to therapy such as potential clients seeing therapy as an unfamiliar resource, resistance due to mental illness stigma, linguistic barriers, and hierarchical and age norms associated with help-seeking. Our sample identified attention to the following as routine in clinical practice: charismatic Christian and African cosmological worldviews, cultural expectations of helping and interdependence, and family involvement in “individual” therapy sessions. The findings have implications for future psychotherapy practice and training in Ghana and similar Low and Middle Income Country (LMIC) contexts, as well as for clinical work with African immigrants.

British Imperialism in Colonial Africa and the World

At first, my intention in this article was to write about imperialism and agency in sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on British Imperialism. However, as the article evolved over the months, it became gradually clearer that the idea of the agency was not only outdated, based on various reviews, but also unwarranted. This is because of the wide range of possibilities and prospects for agents in the colonial and postcolonial worlds. Therefore, the concept of agency was removed from the title, but it does not make the importance of agency as a recourse for resisting oppression, authoritarianism, and tyranny any less important. One might think that the narratives of imperial colonial Africa have become over-mined since the fin de siècle but the reality is that the consequences of those narratives continue to wreak havoc in the modern African worldview regardless of how many millions have died fighting against its largesse. This is sufficient motivation to continue our struggle in the search for authenticity and agency in postcolonial Africa and modern Africa itself. This article is about the cultural logic of African society and how the social construction of village identity is contingent on tribal elders and gate-keepers, shamanism, colonial authoritarianism, and oral traditions. The logic of the African village during the postcolonial era is defined as the skewed colonial rationale for the cartographization and control of the colonial subject as part of a larger western imperialist project and the imposition of alien White rule on Africa.

British imperialism in colonial Africa and the world

At first, my intention in this article was to write about imperialism and agency in sub-Saharan Africa with a focus on British Imperialism. However, as the article evolved over the months, it became gradually clearer that the idea of the agency was not only outdated, based on various reviews, but also unwarranted. This is because of the wide range of possibilities and prospects for agents in the colonial and postcolonial worlds. Therefore, the concept of agency was removed from the title, but it does not make the importance of agency as a recourse for resistingoppression, authoritarianism, and tyranny any less important. One might think that the narratives of imperial colonia lAfrica have become over-mined since the fin de siècle but the reality is that the consequences of those narratives continue to wreak havoc in the modern African worldview regardless of how many millions have died fightingagainst its largesse. This is sufficient motivation to continue our struggle in the search for authenticity and agencyin postcolonial Africa and modern Africa itself. This article is about the cultural logic of African society and howthe social construction of village identity is contingent on tribal elders and gate-keepers, shamanism, colonialauthoritarianism, and oral traditions. The logic of the African village during the postcolonial era is defined as the skewed colonial rationale for the cartographization and control of the colonial subject as part of a larger westernimperialist project and the imposition of alien White rule on Africa.

Being and Force: An Exploration in Classical and African Metaphysics

Contemporary discussions in African metaphysics or ontology seem to be indifferent to the place of force in the African thought. This is the case because of two reasons, viz, the rejection of or indifference to ethnophilosophy and the misrepresentation of force ontology by Placide Tempels, by equating force in African thought with being in classical Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics. In this essay, I examine the relation between being and force in the African worldview by exploring the conception of being according to Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and Tempels’s conception of force in Bantu ontology. Contrary to Tempels’s claim that being and force are equivalent or identical in African ontology, I argue that what is called “being” in classical metaphysics is best rendered as “thing” in most African languages. As such, being is that which subsists in itself and cannot be identical with force, which inheres in things. Hence, I affirm that force is a key attribute of being or thing and so is a transcendental property of being since force is a positive attribute of all beings, whether animate or inanimate. My approach in this essay is both exploratory and explanatory.

Cultural Dissonance through Afro-Gothicism in Helen Oyeyemi’s The Icarus Girl

The Nigerian British author, Helen Oyeyemi, has written an Afro-Gothic fiction novel titled The Icarus Girl. Afro-Gothic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction that is not without controversy. Still, this article reclaims the term as an appropriate lens for the story of a young girl, Jessamy, of Nigerian and British descent. Jessamy has to reconcile her dual heritage while she is troubled by a malevolent spirit child, known as an abiku in the Yoruba tradition. The abiku child is a vehicle to convey the trauma Jessamy experiences as she attempts to reconcile these Western and African worldviews. Similar cultural dissonance is a familiar source of trauma for young readers throughout the African diaspora today. Afro-Gothic novels counter the Eurocentric racism of Gothic fiction that views Africa as a dark continent, and in The Icarus Girl, Oyeyemi resolves the tension between Western and African philosophies. This resolution occurs when the protagonist, Jessamy, bravely confronts the abiku child in the spiritual plane, demonstrating the novel’s aspirational significance for young readers of the African diaspora.

Zones of Occult Instability: The Birth of the Novel in Africa

Zones of Occult Instability: The Birth of the Novel in Africa

An Akan (Bono-Twi) Mother-Tongue Commentary on the Second Letter of John

Christianity in Africa has experienced phenomenal growth in recent times. This growth however comes with the challenge of how the African church can maintain its numerical strength and at the same time ensure that the faith of its members is well grounded in Scriptures. One way to respond to this challenge is to provide the church with African-brewed resources for didactic purposes. In such an exercise the role of African mother-tongue biblical hermeneutics and theologizing cannot be overstated. This article is a mother-tongue commentary on the second epistle (letter) of John based on the Bono-Twi text. The second letter of John was chosen because contemporary African society shares relevant aspects of the context of the addressees of this letter. For example, false teachers abound in the African church just as they did in the community to whom this letter was addressed. The Bono-Twi text was obtained from the Greek text (Novum Testamentum Graece: Nestle-Aland) through a meticulous application of relevant principles of translation and a careful mediation between the biblical culture and the Akan culture. Afterward, a Bono-Twi commentary was produced through careful textual analyses, interpretation and mother-tongue theologizing that brings together Christian spirituality and the African (Bono) worldview. All Bono-Twi texts have been translated into English to make the work accessible to non-Akan readers as well. The main conclusions from the study are that (1) true believers must believe that Jesus is the Christ and he came in flesh (2) believers must (under no circumstance) compromise the basic truths about Christ and his salvation. Therefore, in a context where false teachers abound in various societies the church must stand for the truth, teach it and practicalize it to expose heresies. Keywords: False Teachings, Love, Second John, Truth

Ubuntu Philosophy as a Humanistic–Existential Framework for the Fight Against the COVID-19 Pandemic

Ubuntu has been identified by several scholars as a philosophy that provides a framework to fight health disasters such as COVID-19. Ubuntu refers to the African worldview of seeing oneself through others. It refers to the pattern of interconnectedness between people in the form of a philosophy or worldview. Ubuntu explores concerns about cosmic and global context of life. This article stipulates that Ubuntu can provide ways to deal with challenges that emerge with the COVID-19 pandemic. Ubuntu fosters the integrated components of humanity as it appreciates the biological, psychosocial, spiritual, and environmental aspects of life. The article explores several themes such as self-awareness and societal responsibility, holism, spirituality, health promotion, food security, social justice and human rights, generosity, sharing, and teamwork. Others have advanced that Ubuntu is a philosophy to adopt in the fight against epidemics, and we seek to broaden the debate by exploring Ubuntu axiological and ontological humanistic–existential themes. Finally, the article calls for the adoption of Ubuntu philosophy in psychological and social work interventions in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Stigmatization of HIV/AIDS Victims in Sub-Saharan Africa and the Gospel

One of the most challenging issues in dealing with HIV/AIDS in Africa is breaking through the stigmas surrounding the disease and building resilience in communities where large numbers of people are infected with HIV or otherwise affected by the pandemic. This article explores the relationship between shame, fear, guilt, witchcraft, and HIV/AIDS stigmatization by looking at key features of the African traditional worldview and culture. We point out predominant witchcraft beliefs and how they translate to community attitudes towards people living with HIV and AIDS. We highlight the influence of prevailing beliefs in witchcraft and how they aggravate the experience of fear, shame, and stigmatization by people infected with or otherwise affected by HIV. Relevant aspects of the gospel are brought to bear to answer these challenges. KEYWORDS: HIV/AIDS, stigmatization, shame culture, fear culture, witchcraft, ubuntu

Exploring disruptions of the coloniality of knowledge, power and being to enable agency as disciplinary activists for curriculum change

The #RhodesMustFall (RMF) movement of 2015 and 2016 challenged universities across the nation to interrogate how the curriculum serves as an alienating and marginalising device that stymies student success. Consequently, the HE sector has been challenged to respond to student calls for decolonisation by reviewing existing university curricula which promote forms of knowledge production that do not reflect an African worldview or a global South context. Academics have refocused their attention on exploring what an alternative, decolonial curriculum would entail. This paper reports on a professional development course, designed to support academics to ‘decolonise their curricula’, and explores what it meant to facilitate and participate in a course that disrupted who they were as disciplinary experts in the university. Drawing on decolonial scholarship, the authors use auto-ethnography to engage with two disciplines, namely midwifery and journalism, to see how the metaphors of (de)coloniality surfaced in these disciplines and how they were mediated through a decolonial approach to course re-design and re-imagination.

SPIRITUAL DIRECTION IN AN AFRICAN CONTEXT: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

An upset spiritual director just ended a retreat with a group of African priests because they could not observe strict silence. Similar situations elsewhere on the continent led a young African student to raise the question of the suitability of sixteenth-century Spiritual Exercises to modern Africans. This essay acknowledges the challenges facing spiritual directors to “accurately” apply the method of the Spiritual Exercises in a diverse and ever-evolving, noisy and busy world. From the concrete experience of this group of priests, it argues for the suitability of the Exercises to the African context based on the adaptability and flexibility inherent in Ignatius’ Spiritual Exercise and subsequent directories. The particular crisis between this director and his retreatants, however, also presents a unique opportunity for retreat directors to find creative ways to accommodate retreatants with specific needs, and to communicate the message of the Exercises in a way that is both accessible to and respectful of the African worldview. KEYWORDS: Retreat Director. Diocesan African Context. Blended Retreat. Confession and Narrativity.

African Christian Inculturation Project: Theological Motifs of Liberation and Decolonization

This paper discusses the African Christian theology of inculturation. The theology of inculturation – the African indigenization of Christianity – is one of the African theological movements advocating for the liberation and decolonization of African religious, cultural, and political thought. It is a theological motif that emerged from the African experience of suffering and political and cultural denigration under European colonialism. This paper argues that the African theology of inculturation is a theological outlook that addresses African political, spiritual, and social conditions in the post-colonial era. It is modest and transformative because it offers hope to Africans and empowers them to seek positive change and inclusion, while rejecting a narrative of religious and cultural dominance. It demands recognition of Africa and its cultures by the West as an equal stakeholder in Christ’s victory on the cross. The African theology of inculturation expresses a unique African response to the gospel of salvation; in other words, Christian Scriptures are read and interpreted in line with African values, which situate Christian theology in the African cultural and cosmological worldview. The African cosmological worldview takes African indigenous cultures and philosophy as instruments that explain to Africans the relationship between Christianity and the realities of political and religious life in Africa.