Nonviolence as an Educational Vision: Does Ubuntu Hold Any Promise?

• In Event: Theorizing Nonviolence and Peace in Curriculum Studies: International Conversations on Interdependence in a Worldwide Pandemic

Abstract

Wang (2014) correctly observes that nonviolence has received relatively little attention in the realm of education despite increasing consideration given to it in the social and political realms. She offers possible reasons why this might be the case, but argues that whatever the reasons, the time has come for the field of curriculum studies to embrace nonviolence as an educational vision. Moreover, that the internationalization of curriculum studies provides fertile ground for cultivating such as a possibility. In this paper I shall explore the promise that ubuntu holds for cultivating such a vision. Ubuntu/botho is derived from proverbial expressions in several languages in Africa south of the Sahara, but has value beyond Africa and resonates with many other concepts in the indigenous world. It is not only a linguistic concept and a cultural practice but has a normative connotation embodying how we ought to relate to the other – what our ethical obligation is towards the other. It promises an alternative to Decartes’ cogito, “I think therefore I am”, which captures the dualism that characterizes much of Western thought and explains the privileging of epistemology in western education. Ubuntu – “Because we are, therefore I am” does not separate ontology, epistemology and axiology – the three are imbricated in one another.

The methodology that will be used in this paper is philosophical inquiry that involves an exploration of the concept ubuntu where emphasis will not be placed on analyzing the concept to clarify its meaning but on viewing ubuntu as a vital concept that can be invoked to transform the world – in this instance the field of curriculum studies. Deleuze and Guattari (1994) claim that philosophy is concerned with concept (re)creation, where concepts are created or reimagined so as to have transformative effects in the world. They argue that through concept (re)creation philosophy proposes solutions to problems faced by humanity at a given time.

There can be no conversation on nonviolence without reference to violence, and so the paper draws attention to the complicated nature of the concept - that is not only confined to the physical realm, but includes social, spiritual, emotional, intellectual and cultural realms (Wang 2010). Moreover, that it has more dimensions than the violence perpetrated by social agents that Žižek (2009) terms, ‘subjective’ violence, and incorporates ‘objective’ violence and symbolic violence. Just as with the concept peace, nonviolence is “complex and contested, elusory even, and approached in manifold ways” (Quinn 2021). Like all vital concepts, nonviolence is always in-becoming and in this paper is reimagined together with curriculum concepts, ‘complicated conversation’ and ‘currere’, to present an alternative vision for the field of curriculum studies that embraces nonviolence, resulting in the (re)creation of a concept, ubuntu-currere.

Author

• Lesley Lionel Leonard Le Grange, Stellenbosch University