‘Ubuntu’ and the Social Justice

African Diaspora Scholar Dolana Mogadime, Ph.D., Associate ProfessorBrock University, Canada

Symposium: Ubuntu and the Creation of Sustainable Learning Environments

April 14 2015

6 pm – 8 pm

7th Floor Peace Lounge

OISE / UT

252 Bloor St. W, Toronto, ON

Presented in Collaboration with the Transformative Learning Centre (TLC)

Chair: Jamie Magnusson, Ph.D., (Program Coordinator, Adult Education and Community Development, OISE/UT)

Panelists: Sechaba MG Mahlomaholo, Ph.D. (Dean, Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, South Africa)

Dipane Hlalele, Ph.D. (Assistant Dean, Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, South Africa)

Milton Nkoane, Ph.D. (Faculty of Education, University of the Free State, South Africa)

Dolana Mogadime, Ph.D. (Faculty of Education, Brock University, Canada)

The symposium ‘Ubuntu and the Creation of Sustainable Learning Environments’ discusses the ongoing work of Professor Mahlomaholo who leads a National Research Foundation project in South Africa. Contributing members include 15 academics, 65 graduate students and community members. The project stands as a testimony for "the value and power of building partnerships for praxis among universities, schools, the Departments of Basic Education and Higher Education and training, social and rural development agencies as well as other instances of civil society" (Francis, Mahlomaholo & Nkoane, 2010). The panelists revisit the work using the lens of 'Ubuntu' an African humanistic epistemological approach which holds possibility for reshaping and contextualizing the meaning of social justice within concepts that are indigenous to Africa and the Diaspora.

Questions explored include the following:

How do we enhance the quality of education using Ubuntu?

How do we theorize and apply Ubuntu within graduate cultures and mentor relationships?

How do we theorize research methods/ and social justice approaches in relation to Ubuntu in ways that improve teaching practice and learning?

How do we ground Ubuntu in community leadership and among social agency partnerships?

How can Ubuntu support governance in schools?

Invoking our own African-Centred legacy of leadership For the last few years of her life Zandile Kunene (2009b) worked tirelessly

to galvanize what she referred to as a ‘uniquely African footprint’ in the theorizing about leadership

She produced a number of papers for CCEAM and Black Leadership Forums (2006, 2008, 2009).

Mogadime, Mentz, Armstrong and Holtham (2010) seek to contribute to this movement

The meaning of ubuntu is encapsulated in the following phrase:

Umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu – translated as ‘we are who we are because of others.’

According to Kunene, “clearly the focus is on the communal, the responsibility, recognition, reciprocity and respect that arises from dignified interactions and roles within a group” (2009b).

We are who we are because of others

Reimagining Concepts of Ubuntu in Contemporary Times:

I use Auto/biography and auto/biographical reflections as a research approach (Mogadime, 2010; Roth, 2005) in order to gain/ and theorize on an insider knowledge about my life and work of an activist scholar and public intellectual who is teaching in the African Diaspora.

My researcher’s identity is informed by three principles of Ubuntu: spirituality, interdependence and unity. These subject positions provide a lens through which to view and understand the work of an African intellectual dedicated to:

A.Transforming institutions through equity based policy and practice (CAUT, BUFA, FED Humanities and Social Sciences);

B.Forgoing connections between the South and the North, in so doing contributing to enriching international border crossing experiences and understandings among students, faculty and staff (through establishing institutional Agreements between SA and a Canadian university).

Document, Author, Collaborate, Teach and Testify (DACTT):

Document: Auto/Biographical critical incidents in the making of a activist scholar e.g “More than an equity pin-up” (Mogadime, 2014).

Author: Feature narrative texts from South Africa to Canada as a means to revisit women’s leadership roles through social and political lens (Mogadime, Mentz, Armstrong, 2010); reflective accounts on both research and teaching equity based approaches (Mogadime, 2012)

Collaborate for Social Change and the Transformation of Institutions: On CAUT Diversity Committee, CAUT Academic Staff Women’s Working Group; as BUFA Employment Equity Advisor, on the Federation for Humanities and Social Sciences Equity Steering Committee; as Coordinator for Brock University, North West University Projects (to support international partnership links).

Teach and Testify: Drawing on personal stories from the field as a site for self and social transformation; gaining insights from Canadian black intellectuals through self-representations and self-authored stories that provide sustenance to the next generation of activist scholars (Mogadime, 2015a).

DACTT

• Revisiting Cultural Epistemological Practices:

•Acknowledging an academic’s lineage through naming names and foundational influences;

•Embracing Interdependence and Connectedness by: Embodying border crossing identities located across diverse intellectual understandings;

•Represent An African Beaded Interwoven Life: That weaves knowledge, Advocacy and Coalition building across diverse groups that have experienced oppression, alienation, resistance and hope for social transformation, equity and social justice.

Academic Lineage

Collecting Artifacts in the ‘Homeplace’: Involves…

BEADS; SPEAR and ZULU HEADRESS

Articulate the meaning of lineage and self-knowledge as it informs both researcher and activist identities embodied in the heart, mind and soul of the African Diaspora Scholar:

1.Finding the Creator Within Cultural Beaded work: An academic’s lineage and personal life is interwoven and interdependent as a creative multi-coloured set of beads; 2.Warrior Scholar: Spearheading and Leading International Initiatives;3.The Gift of a Cultural lineage is a Birthright: Exemplified by Zulu married women’s headdress for traditional dance, given to me by my mother, warrior grandmother, and the many women in my matrilineal line, from whom I have descended.

Artifacts from the Homeplace

Beaded Work Headdress and Spear

Results: An Academic’s Scholarly and Community Activism Builds and Contributes to…

•Value for Diverse Communities

•Recognition of Diversity as a Strength

•Promotion of Diversity among the professoriate and student body as an institutional advantage

•Honoring diversity as a means to supporting internationalization

•Appreciating increasing diversity as institutional capacity building

“A person with Ubuntu is open and available to others, affirming of others, does not feel threatened that others are able and good, for he or she has a proper self-assurance that comes from knowing that he or she belongs in a greater whole and is diminished when others are humiliated or diminished, when others are tortured or oppressed.” (Desmond Tutu)

Recommendation: Engage In Auto/biography and auto/biographical reflections involving

DACTT

Document: Through memory work, honor your academic lineage. Read social activist work through the cultural lens of Ubuntu Author: Analyze reports and publications that you have written; collect cultural artifacts (do beaded work) by engaging in critical examinations of your own products of labour for their social and political significance Collaborate: Revisit your ancestral home as pilgrimage carries spiritual meaning and social responsibility (e.g. for contributing to academic and community partnerships between the South and the North) Teach: Spirituality, human interconnectedness and a sense of unity across diversity groups sustains the long walk to social change and social justiceTestify: Support diversity among the professoriate as a strength and envision being “More than an equity pin-up” or token hire (Mogadime, 2014).

References Kunene, Z. (2005). Panel Discussion on Ubuntu. International Conference of Principals (ICP). [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://www.icponline.org/stories/conv2005/kunenepanel.pdf

Kunene, Z. (2009a). Ubuntu. Keynote Address. Black Leadership Forum. [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from http://www.powershow.com/view1/21b5c3-ZDc1Z/Ubuntu_powerpoint_ppt_presentation

Kunene, Z. (2009b). Zandile Kunene. Voices: Commonwealth women and education. Retrieved from Lecture Notes Online Website: https://commonwealthwomensvoices.wordpress.com/2009/11/24/zandile-kunene/

Mbigi, L. & Maree (2005). Ubuntu: The spirit of African transformation Management. Randburg Knowers Publishing Ltd.

Mogadime, D. (2015a). "The Nuances of Blackness and/in the Canadian Academy" – A tool for engaging with equity pedagogy in the graduate classroom. [Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Equity Matters Blog]. Retrieved from http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/nuances-blackness-andin-canadian-academy-tool-engaging-equity-pedagogy-graduate-classroom

Mogadime, D. (2015b). An African Diaspora educational researcher as activist scholar. Brock Research Celebration. Brock University, St. Catharines.

Mogadime, D. (2014, May). More than just an equity pin-up: A Black woman’s entry, life and work in the Academy. Paper presented at, Canadian Society for the Study of Education. St. Catharines, Brock University.

References Mogadime, D. (2012). A personal account of integrating the Federation Blog while teaching diverse university students. [Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences Equity Matters Blog]. Retrieved from http://www.ideas-idees.ca/blog/personal-account-integrating-federation-blog-while-teaching-diverse-university-students

Mogadime, D. (2010). Autobiography. Albert J. Mills, Gabrielle Durepos and Elden Wiebe (Eds.) Encyclopaedia of Case Study Research, (pp.41-43). Sage Press.

Mogadime, D., PJ (Kobus) Mentz, Armstrong, D. E., & Holtam, B. (2010). Constructing self as leader: Case studies of women who are change agents in South Africa. Urban Education 45(6), 797-821.

North West University Brock University Partnership. Retrieved from http://www.brocku.ca/brock-international/research-development/north-west-university-brock-un

Citation for this work is as follows:

Mogadime, D. (2015) ‘Ubuntu’ and the Social Justice African Diaspora Scholar. [PowerPoint Slides] Lecture presented at the symposium, ‘Ubuntu and the Creation of Sustainable Learning Environments.’ Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto: Toronto, Ontario.

THANK YOU

Collaboration among students is a sign of ubuntu, an African concept stressing our common humanity.