The Ubuntu Alternative to Scholarship and Practice in Formal and Non-Formal Settings

Group Submission Type: Pre-conference Workshop

Description of Session

This workshop rests on the premise that we cannot fully “engage with, and think generatively about the histories, curriculum, theories and methodologies, and pedagogies that guide acts of protest” without foregrounding indigenous ways of knowing and being. It is also informed by a commitment to cross-disciplinary, intergenerational, and community-oriented approaches to challenging and changing the status quo and to building and sustaining networked and resilient communities. The workshop offers Comparative and International Education researchers, teachers, activists, program developers, or organizers the space to engage and learn with scholars and practitioners whose work is grounded in Ubuntu, an Afrocentric and value-based philosophy of collective humanity and interdependency. Workshop facilitators comprise a Dean, Institute Director, and Project Coordinator, based at Michigan State University; and an Executive Director, Co-Director, and Consultant of community-based and -serving organizations in Detroit, Flint, and Lansing, Michigan. Deeply invested in indigenous knowledge systems as epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical practice, they are part of a collective working together on establishing a transcontinental and multi-hub Institute of Ubuntu Thought and Practice (IUTP). The IUTP seeks to promote and actualize an Ubuntu vision of teaching and learning and community building that cuts across geographical, disciplinary, sectoral, cultural, and generational divides.

The workshop is designed and structured to center collective rather than individual genius and to anchor conceptual and contextual understandings of Ubuntu in theory- and practice-focused group activities. Workshop participants will engage in facilitated discussion forums as they address the concern raised by Katembo & Majee (2022) that “Ubuntu is often thought of as an abstract idea that has limited application to 21st century socio-economic and political realities, demands and constraints – all defined and dominated as they are by capitalism, scientific empiricism, and individualism.” Workshop facilitators adopt the notion of dialogue provided by Dr. Harold Saunders of the Dialogue Institute: “a process of genuine interaction through which human beings listen to each other deeply enough to be changed by what they learn” and by Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at Simon Fraser University: “brings together many voices, stories, perspectives, and experiences to increase mutual understanding and identify shared solutions. Instead of arguing for what you already know, dialogue is entered into with a spirit of curiosity and an openness to be changed.”

Consistent with the human-centric tenets of Ubuntu, workshop participants will take part in grounding activities that challenge them to consider, share, and show up as who they are as people, i.e., besides their academic and professional credentials and institutional affiliations that we often frame our identities around. They will also learn about and discuss specific case studies of Ubuntu-informed research, pedagogical, and programming practices in formal and non-formal educational settings. Finally, participants will work in small groups to identify possibilities for and complexities of (re)configuring their sense of self and of others, conditions of teaching and learning in local contexts and at the global level, and community organizing and public contestation and resistance based on their individual and collective understandings of Ubuntu principles.

Sub Unit

• Pre-Conference Workshops, Book launches, and Visual Art Exhibits / Pre-Conference Workshop

Chair

• GRETA MCHANEY-TRICE, IT TAKES A VILLAGE EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT LLC

Workshop Organizer

• Upenyu S Majee, Michigan State University

Presenting author

• GRETA MCHANEY-TRICE, IT TAKES A VILLAGE EDUCATIONAL CONSULTANT LLC