Abstract
The transformation of universities has focused on the systems of governance, epistemologies and pedagogies to the detriment of people who are drivers of transformation. This lack of focus on people results in assimilation into the existing institutional culture, which is Western. Notably, Western culture is individualistic in nature and privileges profits over life. This is what many scholars have called a dehumanising culture. There is a need, therefore, to think about transformation from different epistemologies that centre a person. This conceptual article uses Ubuntu, an African philosophy that privileges life over materiality. From an African epistemology, umuntu [a person] is understood as an enabler of Ubuntu because umuntu is an embodiment of ethical existence. To ensure this ethical existence, the restoration of a person is embedded in the everyday language and cultural practices that correct human behaviour. This article argues that Ubuntu provides an opportunity to think about an institutional culture that centres a person. This leads to the transformation of the systems that will be concerned with the ethical person.
Contribution: The article recommends that before we can imagine a transformed university, the focus should be on the institutional culture to ensure that it nurtures ethical existence. As such, let us make humans who will drive the transformation agenda.
Keywords: umuntu; Ubuntu; transformation; African epistemology; decolonisation.
Introduction
Transformation in higher education is part of redressing the imbalances of the past, and as such, it is mandatory. According to Scott and Ivala (2019:11), ‘[t]he apartheid dispensation left South Africa with a highly contested and racially segregated higher education system, consisting of a typology of historically white and historically black universities’. At the core of higher education transformation is the dismantling of Western foundations, reinforced under apartheid, that marginalised other forms of knowledge. It is important to clarify, however, that the term ‘West’ does not refer to a specific geographical location. According to Trouillot (1995:74–75), it is a space that ‘was created somewhere at the beginning of the sixteenth century in the midst of a global wave of material and symbolic transformation … through which Europe became the West’. In this article, the ‘West’ refers to the logic that emerged during the Renaissance, which largely served to justify colonisation (Trouillot 1995:75). At the centre of this Western logic was the presentation of other societies as without reason and therefore not quite human (Ramose 2005). For this reason, higher education continues to have dehumanising effects on formerly colonised people. The Western logic persists, hence the need to unthink the West as we grapple with a transformative agenda.
The transformative agenda in South Africa is guided by the White Paper 3 (1997) and the Higher Education Act (1997) (Reddy 2003). It is important to highlight that the higher education policy on transformation in post 1994 South Africa was also ‘aimed at decolonising or attempting to deal with colonised principles such as the exclusion of black people from the better labour market jobs, education and investment’ (Mzangwa 2019:3). As such, ‘the transformation of education in South Africa is a matter of necessity and that the concrete manifestation of such transformation must be a change rather than a shift of the educational paradigm’ (Ramose 2003:137). Significant change in this regard is observable in the administration of many South African universities. However, these structural and administrative changes do not appear to have transformed the institutional culture of South African universities, as their epistemologies, pedagogies, and governance practices remain Western. According to Ramugondo (2024), black people tasked with the transformation ‘become relatively secure in their jobs, some are gradually co-opted by the system and begin to abandon the struggle’ (Ramugondo 2024:51). It is unsurprising that after 30 years of democracy, higher education in South Africa still grapples with a legacy embedded in institutional cultures that exclude other ways of being. in the institutional culture, which is exclusionary to other ways of being. Transforming the university culture becomes integral to transforming the university because culture informs behaviour and attitudes.
The unchanging institutional culture – encompassing discourses, knowledge, values, beliefs, attitudes, ideologies, and traditions – has endured for 30 years of democracy, leaving higher education to continue as:
[A] journey fuelled by an exogenously, induced and internalised sense of inadequacy in Africans and endowed with the mission of devaluation or annihilation of African creativity, agency and value systems. (Nyamnjoh 2004:168)
This is tantamount to dehumanisation dynamics that Kronenberg et al. (2015) argue for, where they:
[R]efer to an on-going, seemingly self-perpetuating history of systematic renderings of some people by other people as worth (valuing) less than human, or even being regarded as non-human, through the exercising of asymmetrical relations of power. (p. 22)
This dehumanising culture fuelled the 2015–2016 #FeesMustFall movements, which demanded, among other things, a decolonised curriculum that would recognise students’ humanity and nurture their talents. It is worth noting that #FeesMustFall came 20 years into democracy, with students still confronted with what would seem to be the legacy of the past, as Langa (2017) argues:
The #FeesMustFall movement sparked heated debates on fee increases in universities. Other demands by students included the decolonisation of the educational system, transformation of universities to address racial and gender inequalities in terms of staff composition, as well as insourcing of general workers. (p. 6)
The #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements were holistic, aspiring to achieve total freedom in higher education. Alidou and Mazrui (1999:101) argue that a ‘number of South African thinkers are indeed of the opinion that genuine democracy will have to address the politics of knowledge production’. This remains unachieved; hence, the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall movements invoked the ideals of the unfinished decolonisation project to transform higher education institutions and lead societal change.
The call for democratising the university should be located in the incomplete decolonisation project. While decolonisation focuses on knowledge production, of utmost importance is ensuring that decolonised knowledge has a bearing on the structures, systems and management of higher education because it is in these aspects where real experiences are shaped, implemented and sustained (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018). In the South African context, decolonisation precedes transformation because it addresses the foundational colonial legacies of the academy, while the transformative agenda targets both colonial and apartheid legacies. This means transformation must be informed by decolonised knowledge. However, the transformative agenda seems to remain an ideal rather than a practice, despite the concerted efforts made to transform higher education. The call for decolonisation is therefore a call to redress existing imbalances while developing new paradigms of practice, as Keet (2014:23) posits that decolonisation is ‘writing back and moving forward’. This means that as we challenge the legacy of the past, we must also bring new knowledge systems to democratise higher education to challenge the Western culture that still dominates higher education. The legacy of the past was intentional in erasing other forms of knowledge as Onyewuenyi (1976) argues:
It is not that there was no written evidence and documentation of the greatness and achievement of Africa before colonialism. Rather there was a concerted effort to hide these facts from popular knowledge so that slavery and the economic exploitation of the African continent could be justified on the pretext that Africans were not really human beings to possess rights like the Europeans. (Onyewuenyi 1976:515)
The response to the past atrocities should be intentional in challenging:
[T]he universities that promised freedom of thought only to stifle it through religiously adhering to a Eurocentric epistemology and Western-centric cultures and practices. (Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2018:162)
Transformation should be deliberate in its trajectory to complete the incomplete decolonisation project.
Understanding transformation correctly in the context of South Africa requires that we go back to the ideals of the Freedom Charter (adopted at the Congress of the People at Kliptown, Johannesburg, on 25 and 26 June 1955) because they remind us of the incomplete decolonisation project. The fifth point of the Freedom Charter states: the doors of learning and culture shall be opened. It explains what this means as follows: ‘the aim of education shall be to teach the youth to love their people and their culture, to honour human brotherhood, liberty and peace’.1 So, what our forebears envisioned as a liberated society depended on educating our students to be of service to humanity. This could only be achieved through transforming institutional culture such that it opens up to other cultures. In this context, I foreground Ubuntu as a lens through which to transform institutional culture and honour human interconnectedness.
According to Molefe and Maude (2024:2), Ubuntu is anchored on the individuals because ‘the self has a moral obligation to the community, and this is the only way humanness can be achieved, through serving the community’. This means if we centre umuntu, the transformation of individuals becomes integral as they are the enabler of Ubuntu. This conceptual article interrogates the concept of transformation from an African epistemology to show a more human approach that can ground higher education. It argues that restoring the person is of utmost importance, as individuals are the primary enablers of transformation. As such, the restoration of a person precedes all other initiatives to transform higher education. Anchoring institutional culture in Ubuntu calls for humanisation, or mothofatso (Ramose, 2024). The article begins by outlining the current state of higher education. It then moves to argue that there is a need to open universities as part of the decolonisation project. It argues that despite progress in transformation, the dehumanising institutional culture that commodifies human existence remains unchanged. This has resulted in the negation of persons who are enablers of transformation. It concludes by arguing that if Ubuntu was at the centre of transformation, the restoration of a person would be non-negotiable. It recommends that transformation should be targeted at a foundational level to open space for other ways of knowing.
Problem statement
Higher education has made significant progress in changing policies that shape how and what we teach. More important is the transformation of the administration of higher education that has included the previously marginalised groups. However, this transformation has not changed the foundations of the academy, which are Western. The institutional culture is still informed by Western culture that individualises and commodifies people. These foundations are alienating to Africans in general and to students of African descent in particular. This culture has more bearing on the marginalisation of African knowledge. More concerning is that, even within decolonisation efforts, the marginalisation of the colonised remains evident. Mafeje (1998), analysing the book Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography, pointed out that:
[N]o reference to Anthropology as it is practiced by Third World scholars. Instead, [the book] emphasises ethnographic writing as collaboration with the natives who are not a counterpart. The frontispiece of the book features a white ethnographer busy at work, writing ethnography against the background of a passive dark native. This is very symbolic and might belie the claim of ‘collaborative’ effort. (p. 15)
This shows that even in the decolonisation endeavours, the colonised and Africans in this instance are not considered to contribute to knowledge production, but are thought for and spoken for. It is in this context that Ramose (2003) argues that transformation is ‘a process of carefully controlled multiple movements designed to integrate previously excluded elements but without any alteration to the substance of the existing dominant epistemological paradigm’ (Ramose 2003:139). This is why scholars from the developing world, as Mafeje (1998) argues, are often not regarded as legitimate contributors to knowledge production. It is this continued exclusion of other ways of knowing that remains a major point of contention. As such, ‘[t]he modes and techniques that are expressed via disciplinary practices imprint and reinforce epistemic practices that are historically inscribed into the logic of disciplines and academic behaviours’ (Keet 2014:25).There is still a refusal to acknowledge that other forms of knowledge can provide alternatives to the epistemic crisis faced by the world today. The article thus attempts to show how African knowledge, for example, can address the dehumanising institutional culture in higher education if taken seriously.
Theoretical orientation
This article advocates for African philosophies as foundational to transformative trajectories, particularly Ubuntu. Following Mafeje (1998:27), Ubuntu is used ‘to make apparent or transparent what is underneath the surface’. So, the article uses Ubuntu to show the connections between philosophy and everyday experiences that centre the restoration of a person. The continued ability to draw from such knowledge, despite colonial atrocities, stems from the fact that:
[T]he process of colonial domination did not totally annihilate and exterminate indigenous African ways of thinking, ways of knowing, and patterns of expression, but rather subalternised and inferiorised them in the global cultural order. (Masoga & Shokane 2023:10).
This makes Africanisation possible, as it centres African knowledge systems as legitimate frameworks for addressing modern-day challenges. However, Africanisation requires historicisation to make sure that the knowledge brought forward takes into account the impact of colonialism. Ramose (2003:137) supports this and argues that ‘History is the repository of memory necessary for the construction of an ever changing present and the projection of a better future’. This means that bringing African knowledge to the fore demands us to remember the past as we attempt to shape the future. Africanisation stems from a belief that indigenous knowledge is retrievable if there is a will. Accordingly, this article situates its argument within the framework of Africanisation, analysing knowledge from an African perspective.
The culture of the university (literature review)
The year 1994 in South Africa paved the way for an inclusive education system aimed at fostering social cohesion. This necessitated concerted efforts to redress the imbalances of the past. Higher education was thus tasked to lead the transformation of society by responding to societal needs. As Scott and Ivala (1999) argue:
SA is still redressing past inequalities and efforts are made to transform the Higher Education [HE] system to serve a new social order, to meet pressing national needs and to respond to new realities and opportunities. (p. 4)
The inclusion of black people in senior positions was the first step towards the transformation of higher education so that it leads to the transformation of society. Important to note that:
The roles of higher education in social transformation vary. At one end of this spectrum is the narrow conception reducing HE to the role of responding to the needs and demands of the economy. (Reddy 2003:35)
This therefore requires that we scrutinise this mandate or role to ensure that it does not result in the co-option of higher education into the neoliberal agenda of advancing market interests.
Moreover, Ramose (2024) argues that:
[C]onstitutional change in conqueror South Africa has always occurred on an ‘evolutionary’ basis without any fundamental break with the past. The effect of this is the preservation, as well as the continuation, of the prevailing epistemological paradigm. (p. 20)
It is, therefore, not surprising that despite all the efforts and progress made, the institutional culture remains Western. Hence, the continued call for transformation. This means that for the university to truly transform, it must open itself to other ways of knowing that can inform the transformative agenda. According to Soudien (2014:908), an open university ‘is a position that is most consonant with the historical struggles of intellectuals who sought to work with, develop but democratise knowledge’. So, true transformation is holistic and includes the change of institutional culture, epistemologies, philosophies and pedagogies. More importantly, ‘transformation in the sphere of human relations means the deliberate entry into dialogue with another in order to construct mutually agreed forms or shapes out of already existing material’ (Ramose 2003:140). Transformation is thus in line with the ideals of the academy to democratise knowledge and ways of being and doing. This means that higher education must open itself to other ways of knowing and being. This is so because ‘the ontological point [is] that to be is to coexist’ (Ramose & Baloyi 2020 citing cf Verbeke & Wahba 1984:3). This means there will never be one way of organising and managing higher education because this will depend on the open dialogue within the university community.
However, what is observable today in South African universities is the fact that the institutional culture of the university mirrors the Western culture of individualism, dualism and capitalism. This has resulted in the commodification of education, where everything is measured in terms of profit – throughputs and outputs. People are consequently reduced to resources rather than recognised as human beings. More salient is that Western epistemology is used as a yardstick to measure all other epistemologies. Transformation can never be meaningful without addressing this legacy of the past. The democratisation of knowledge thus creates space for dialogue that questions institutional culture and allows for the consideration of other epistemologies offering more humanising approaches to managing higher education. It is important to emphasise ‘that there are and have been other styles of thinking which were not European and which, for this reason, were not recognised in formal discourse’ (Mafeje 1998:26). The call for decolonisation is legitimate because it calls for other ways of knowing to be part of thinking about the better world. It is in this context that Senekal and Lenz (2020:155) argue that ‘if (universities are) committed to authentic transformation, (they) will find a way to implement it. Decolonisation is possible and does not have to be a protracted process’. Decolonisation, therefore, is at the core of transformation where we unthink the West to open space for other forms of knowledge.
Transformation in its truest form is unthinking the West to bring forth different ways of knowing that can centre a person and institute a different culture that is holistic in nature. One such epistemology is an African epistemology that, as Nyamnjoh argues:
[H]as equal space for all senses just as it does for the visible and invisible, the physical and metaphysical. The real is not only what is observable or what makes cognitive sense; it is also the invisible, the emotional, the sentimental, or the inexplicable. (Nyamnjoh 2004:166 citing Okri 1991)
Adopting such an epistemology as a grounding principle for higher education changes the university’s trajectory, aligning knowledge production with the soft skills at its core and moving away from the illusion of objectivity. This approach is critical as it puts emphasis on the person; as such, people must be guided by ethics in the quest for knowledge.
To transform higher education, we must at least create spaces for dialogue where all forms of knowledge can be presented, evaluated, and adopted on merit rather than on past self-proclaimed glory. It is in this context that Ndlovu-Gatsheni (2021:93) argues that ‘the knowledge domain [of] globalectics cannot be realised without re-founding and re-purposing the university. Re-founding is the radical action of transforming the university into a pluriversity’. It would seem that radical action is a critical component of university transformation, representing ‘an attitude to knowledge and a personal awareness of the implications of this attitude for oneself as an individual’ (Soudien 2014:908). This, therefore, becomes a personal journey that requires that we first decolonise our minds, the most difficult part of the transformation because of Western hegemony, which compels everyone to defend it even though the devastations are impossible to ignore. Argyrou (2012) calls this being under a spell of Western epistemology that he defines as:
[B]eing under the spell of Western ideas that appear to the dominated just as rational, meaningful and necessary as they appear to the dominator … The struggle against Western hegemony is a painful process because it is as much a struggle against one’s (colonized) self. (p. 4)
Introducing Ubuntu as an alternative framework for a truly transformed university is an attempt to move away from Western epistemology, enabling us to think without the anxieties of appearing relevant but rather with a commitment to truthfulness in knowledge. Ubuntu recognises that a person is an enabler of societal betterment; hence, it centres the human being. According to Molefe and Maude (2024:2), ‘umuntu is understood as a bearer of intrinsic value, or human dignity’. It is important to mention that human dignity is not just about humanising the other but life in general. This living well is inclusive of all that lives as ‘Ecology and land are believed to also be living or have beings or spirits within them’ (Shange 2024:2). Ubuntu is therefore not limited to human relations or communal belonging but extends to the environment and the cosmos. The saying singabantu bendawo [we are people of this place], which is commonly used among AmaZulu, speaks to taking care of the environment (Radebe 2019). Shange (2024) supports this as she argues that for Africans, ecology is seen as an extension to the self. So, Ubuntu is not just concerned with human relations, but about how we relate to life in general. Shange (2024) explains the relationship between the self and nature as follows:
The link between the self and nature is an important one for groups like the Zulu, it not only encourages environmental protection and preservation but it is also important for the individual and community at large, who often return to nature, guided by rituals, to restore the self when one is depleted by health challenges, challenges linked to modern day life, and a violent colonial history and neocolonial struggles that seek to erase the African self. (Shange 2024:1)
Centring the person, therefore, concerns the protection and preservation of life in its totality. For a person to be recognised as umuntu [a person], they must therefore exhibit the qualities that ensure the protection and preservation of life. This speaks to the call of this Special Edition that argues ‘Being human is not a given but a political potentiality’ (Kronenberg 2018). It is important to mention that from an African perspective, this is not necessarily based on oppression-liberation, but is based on the African worldview that understands life as interconnected. Therefore, the well-being of a person is determined by the relationship that one has with their surroundings, and this goes beyond the relationship one has with other human beings, but life in totality. This may be better understood as cultural rather than political potentiality. The importance of people, in addition to their behaviour, is that they can attest to another person’s behaviour, hence the saying umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu, which speaks to the fact that it is other people who can confirm your humanity based on your behaviour, which should observe cultural practices that are aimed at the preservation of life.
However, bringing Ubuntu to the academy is not without challenges as Ubuntu has been put to task in line with Western thought. Hence, authors such as Mboti (2015) have argued that the definition of Ubuntu from umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu is illogical and continue to argue that ‘The hegemonic use of umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu as a catch-all distillation of ubuntu has resulted in a more or less widespread uniformity of definition’ (Mboti 2015:126). It would appear to me that the bone of contention is the fact that Ubuntu has oftentimes presented as appealing to the goodness of a person rather than an investment in humanity. Ubuntu is comparable to the salutogenic approach invoked in this special issue, which Kronenberg (2018:219) defines as:
[T]he process of enabling individuals, groups, organizations and societies to emphasize on abilities, resources, capacities, competences, strengths and forces in order to create a sense of coherence and thus perceive life as comprehensible, manageable and meaningful. (Kronenberg 2018:219, citing Lindström & Eriksson 2009:19)
This is ontological in the culture that gives birth to Ubuntu, as such Ubuntu should be understood as ontological and not a response to domination. So, when Mboti (2015) calls for real Ubuntu to stand up, it would seem to me that he was making a clarion call to those who live Ubuntu to transcend the theorisation of Ubuntu and bring the aspect of Ubuntu as it is lived to show the centrality of umuntu in Ubuntu. This aspect is important, because, according to Molefe and Maude (2024):
[I]t can offer us important insights that revolve around how we should regard and relate to umuntu as the bearer of intrinsic value and the duty umuntu has to have the sort of ubuntu that can empower other moral patients. (Molefe & Maude 2024:101)
This is the attempt the article is making, to go beyond the theorisation of Ubuntu and to show how Ubuntu is lived. It argues that the African epistemology encapsulated in Ubuntu centres umuntu [person] as an enabler of the preservation of life in its totality. As such, ‘The constitution-ness of ubu-ntu is the pathway to mothofatso, that is, the continuing humanisation of one another and societies through open, truthful, and critical dialogue’ (Ramose 2024:25). By articulating Ubuntu, this article attempts to show that central to transformation is the restoration of umuntu who will give birth to the institutional culture that will be concerned about the preservation of life over and above throughputs and outputs.
The African epistemology (methodology)
As already posited in the theoretical framework section, the article frames itself in African epistemology through Africanisation. The method aims to identify the ‘essential choices in knowledge-making’ (Mafeje, 1998:28). This takes into account that from an African epistemology, life is understood as interconnected, and knowledge is experiential (Ani 2013). Moreover, this is a conceptual article; therefore, the methodology is non-empirical and draws from literature as well as the researcher’s experiences with spoken language and cultural practices. As such, my approach emulates Keet (2014) who used his writings:
[A]s an act of everyday resurgence, I will settle for a writing that is struggling to write from within the university space against dominant modes of disciplining knowledge and against the social structure of the academy in Africa. (Keet 2014:24)
This means that the methodology is intertwined with the theoretical framework. More importantly, the methodology employed in this article does not adhere to conventional Western standards, as it seeks to introduce what is considered unthinkable within a Western epistemological frame. In other words, the article centres on another epistemology, the African epistemology. This is to open the university such that there is a dialogue of epistemologies. The methodological approach thus takes into cognisance that there are African knowledge systems that can respond to the epistemic decadence of Western knowledge.
This methodological approach challenges the belief that the West colonised everything. According to Mbembe (2015), this is the most corrosive myth that needs to be demystified. The impact of colonialism should be clearly articulated to avoid attributing to it undue credit. The West is not all-powerful; it has its limits. Clearly, there are limits to colonialism that allow us to draw from as we unthink the West, such as our languages. Drawing from these Western limits, this article applies a qualitative analysis that uses language to demonstrate a different way of knowing outside Western epistemology. In other words, the article foregrounds ‘what is systematically obscured and located outside of our interpretive horizons’ (Keet, 2014:26). The article thus seeks to ‘unthink’ the West to ensure that an African voice is not merely inserted into an assimilative Western epistemological network (Keet, 2014:28). Hence, I use language and cultural practices as archives for African knowledge.
Recognising the importance of taking African knowledge seriously, language is used to extract data that guide Ubuntu. This is because of the fact that language is a carrier of knowledge, according to Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (2009):
[W]hile ‘linguicide’ was committed in the case of the diaspora, ‘linguifam’ took place on the continent. The difference between the acts of linguicide and linguifam is that the former refers to language liquidation, which totally denied the slave a means of communication and site of remembrance, while the latter refers to a language famine, a form of linguistic deprivation and starvation but not liquidation. The peoples of Africa are thus left with another source of social memory and another civilisation. (Wa Thiong’o 2009:17)
Drawing from the fact that as Africans we still have our languages, it means that we still have a social memory of who we are and how we should live. The article thus draws on spoken language to show how Ubuntu is lived. The argument is that language is a carrier of Ubuntu to ensure that Ubuntu is in everyday behaviours and is constant in guarding against ill behaviours for the betterment of society. The article is mindful of the fact that Ubuntu, as a living philosophy, risks dying when it is written, because Ubuntu in its truest form is in motion, which means it is responsive to the context.
Transforming university culture through Ubuntu
Many scholars have shown the philosophical aspect of Ubuntu, and one such scholar is Ramose (2005) in his book titled: African Philosophy Through Ubuntu. This article is thus building from these developments by bringing Ubuntu forth as it is lived in communities. I attempt to show how Ubuntu is fundamental in the transformation of the academy. I use language to centre this argument because Ubuntu is encapsulated in languages to ensure that it is lived. It must be stated upfront that African languages are embedded in an African epistemology, and it is thus difficult to translate some words because there is no equivalence. For instance, ukuzwa [to hear] is inclusive of sensing, feeling and comprehending. This means that to hear goes beyond just hearing and comprehending what is said, but invokes the senses as well. So, Ubuntu is not just a word but invokes the core of our being. When the word Ubuntu is uttered, the speakers of the language do not just hear it, but also feel the sentiments communicated. For instance, when one is told that they do not have Ubuntu, it calls for true reflections because this has implications for their existence, because Ubuntu is reciprocal as I will show in the subsequent section. This is what makes translating the term Ubuntu difficult because the motive and feeling of it cannot be reflected in writing. For the benefit of the reader, I will focus on how Ubuntu is lived to show how it can anchor the university culture that recognises the humanity in others.
According to Ramose (2005:36), motion is the principle of being in Ubuntu, where doing takes precedence over the doer. This means what makes umuntu in Ubuntu is their actions. The motion aspect of it means that what the person does is continuous; it never stops. According to Kronenberg et al. (2015), this continuity signifies that Ubuntu is about affording individuals the opportunity to become umuntu [a person]. In other words, if one falls out of the category of umuntu because of their actions, they can come back to this category through their actions. Umuntu, therefore, is not a given but earned, meaning that you are not umuntu by appearance, but through your actions, hence the saying umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu [the person is a person through other people]. This supports the call of this Special Edition that draws from Kronenberg’s thesis (2018) where he argues that:
Being human was found to be radically relational, and not a given but a political potentiality which manifests on a continuum of enacted harmful negations and salutogenic affirmations of our humanity. (p. 214)
Ubuntu thus becomes a necessity in responding to the legacy of colonialism and apartheid that did not recognise the humanity of others, as Ubuntu is in motion and thus applicable in the present-day challenges.
Molefe and Maude (2024) argue that the saying umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu:
[M]ay be construed to indicate that umuntu, as the moral agent (characterised by the essential quality of our humanity), has the duty to develop this capacity and the development of this capacity is tantamount to the acquisition of ubuntu. (p. 92)
The fact that to be umuntu is earned suggests that the morality of an individual is not assumed, but must be shown through actions. So, in Ubuntu, umuntu is given an opportunity to continuously become umuntu so that a better life for everyone is maintained. In other words, being human is not innate, but is learned to make sure that individuals can experience enactments of humanity affirmations that:
[R]eflect relationships of mutual benefit or interdependence, during which power inevitably plays out on a more or less equal/unequal continuum – a dynamic condition which such instances may actually challenge and change. (Kronenberg 2018:158)
Calling for Ubuntu in transformative trajectories is to draw from the provocation of the Special Edition that calls for the political potentiality in endeavours that seek to humanise.
For Ubuntu to thrive, everyone must be umuntu for if one fails to honour the principles of Ubuntu, then there is dislocation with the cosmos, and thus harmonious existence is disrupted (Ramose 2005). This means the cornerstone of Ubuntu is reciprocity. It is in this context that Ramose (2005) argues that justice precedes peace. That is why everyone has the obligation to ensure that everyone lives well. If individuals do not contribute to Ubuntu, they are confronted to ensure that they correct their behaviour and go back to the category of being umuntu. This confrontation is necessary because Ubuntu cannot survive if there are no abantu [people] who will hold each other accountable. Indeed, this requires courage. The importance of Ubuntu in transformative trajectories is that it is concerned about umuntu, who is an enabler. Biko (1978), advocating for Ubuntu as an ideal for a better society, argues:
Ours is a true man-centred society whose sacred tradition is that of sharing. We must reject, as we have been doing, the individualistic cold approach to life that is the cornerstone of the Anglo-Boer culture. We must seek to restore to the black man the great importance we used to give to human relations, the high regard for people and their property and for life in general; to reduce the triumph of technology over man and the materialistic element that is slowly creeping into our society. (Biko 1978:96)
To mothofatsa is to understand that ‘after all, motho [the human being] precedes, both logically and in fact, the inhumanity of colonisation’ (Ramose, 2024:27). This means that the call to restore umuntu recognises the human capacity to act ethically. This means a restored human exhibits the political potentiality to challenge domination for the liberation of all humanity. The continuation of a dehumanising institutional culture in higher education necessitates the restoration of humanity from ‘enduring affective investments in and desires for the continuation of [the Western system’s] promises and pleasures’ (Stein et al., 2020:54). The understanding here is that in centring the next person, one is investing in a better future for oneself because that person will do right by them in return. It appears that the transformation policy in higher education was informed by Ubuntu, as Reddy (2003:35) notes its ‘humanist emphasis on empowering individuals to assume the identities of active agents in a democratic society. However, this can never lead to a meaningful change if the attitude is to reform higher education instead of bringing other forms of knowledge to the fore. It is in this spirit that the article advocates for Ubuntu as it can be the lens through which to censor ill behaviour for the betterment of society. The good behaviour is sustained by reciprocity as I will illustrate further in the subsequent section.
Ikhotha ey’khothayo engay’khothi iyay’khahlela
I bring the proverb ‘Ikhotha ey’khothayo engay’khothi iyay’khahlela’ as it is integral in understanding the principles of Ubuntu. The literal meaning of the proverb is that the cow licks the one who licks her; the one who does not lick her, she will kick. This proverb is derived from the fact that cows engage in social grooming, where they lick or groom each other, which helps strengthen social bonds and reduce tension within the group. Typically, this proverb is used when someone expects kindness but has not reciprocated the kindness they anticipate. This speaks to reciprocity embedded in Ubuntu. This means one’s behaviour is an investment as one gets what one gives. Clearly, Ubuntu has parameters; hence, it is centred on accountability. The proverb ikhotha ey’khothayo engay’khothi iyay’khahlela serves as a constant reminder that our actions toward others ensure communal well-being; it is not merely about being kind but represents an investment in a better life, encompassing care for the environment, fellow humans, and spirituality. If one does not behave according to the ideals of culture, they are confronted, and the kindness given to them is demanded in return.
The proverb azibuye emasisweni [the cows that were borrowed must return] is ‘a demand made when a person has failed an obligation’ (Radebe 2023:138). To understand this proverb correctly, one needs to understand the concept of ukusisa, which is to lend a needy neighbour a milking cow (Radebe 2023). Ukusisela is a cultural practice to ensure that everyone lives well and involves those who have to extend their hands to those who have not. Those who were helped are expected to show kindness to others. Failure to do that leads to the help given to them being demanded back. At the core of both the proverbs used here is justice, because Ubuntu cannot thrive if one segment of society exhibits Ubuntu and the other does not. It is therefore imperative that everyone has Ubuntu in them so that we attain the social cohesion envisioned in the transformative agenda. Ubuntu thus provides us with the possibility to have the academy where we all live well. This calls for a restoration of individuals such that we all have Ubuntu and thus become abantu. The true expression of self-love in Ubuntu is in loving the other. Thus, being of service is an expression of self-love; however, it presupposes reciprocal care. This is not just encapsulated in spoken language but also in cultural practices such as ukukhonza [to serve], which is explained in the following paragraph.
Ukukhonza [to serve] is to make sure that one is given an opportunity to become human. Ukukhonza can be understood as the ultimate love for humanity because the next person takes precedence over oneself (Radebe 2024). For example, when one says ngim-khonzile, it means a deep sense of love such that the needs of the next person take precedence over one’s needs. Thus, ukukhonza subordinates self-interest, as serving the next person is considered more honourable than serving oneself. The call for salutogenic affirmations of our humanity is in line with the concept of ukukhonza because it is about ensuring that the environment is conducive for the well-being of people. This is outward looking in ensuring a better future with an understanding that the best investment is in taking care of one another. In addition, it is our responsibility to call each other out because other people’s behaviours have more bearing in our livelihoods. So, to serve is not naivety, but with it comes accountability, reciprocity and obligations, and if these are not honoured, they are demanded, and that is truthfulness. By bringing Ubuntu as it is lived through language and cultural practices, I show how Ubuntu in everyday life is part of culture. To the speakers of Ubuntu, Ubuntu can never sound foolish because they understand that it is an investment to a better future from which they will be the first beneficiaries. More important is the fact that Ubuntu as part of the culture nurtures good behaviour that will sustain a healthy society. Therefore, advocating for Ubuntu in higher education entails promoting a culture from which Ubuntu naturally emanates. It is not a call to extract Ubuntu from its culture because it will lose its meaning, but it is a call for a true open university that accepts other forms of knowledge from their epistemological and ontological levels.
Centring Ubuntu in the transformation of universities will therefore usher in a new culture that affirms humanity in all its forms, but this can only happen once the universities privilege the restoration of persons over profits. This can only be achieved if the university functions as an open institution, fostering dialogue in which diverse forms of knowledge are taken seriously and integrated into the transformative agenda. Ubuntu, as presented in the article, can be used to transform the university by humanising those who are in it. This means that people should be held accountable if and when they are not doing what they have signed up to do, to be of service. Universities, as leaders of a society, are therefore tasked to lead in the restoration of a person so that we achieve a transformed society that will ensure a better life for all.
Conclusion
The year 2025 marks 31 years of democracy and 10 years since the #FeesMustFall movement. However, the transformation of higher education seems to be stagnant despite the concerted efforts made to transform it. This article argues that transformation demands dialogue, which, according to Ramose (2002:6), is the basis of liberation. Contributing to the dialogue, this article has presented Ubuntu to show how it inculcates ethical behaviour, which is much needed in the transformation of higher education and society at large. It is also important to note that the dialogues advocated ‘are not intended to assimilate, integrate, or dissolve one experience into another’ (Ramose, 2002:6–7). In this quest for genuine transformation, we must suspend universalism and prioritize multiple voices and worldviews, recognizing that our experiences of the world differ. Thus, we should all contribute to imagining a new world.
Acknowledgements
Competing interests
The author declares that they have no financial or personal relationships that may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.
Author’s contribution
N.Z.R. is the sole author of this research article.
Ethical considerations
This article followed all ethical standards for research without direct contact with human or animal subjects.
Funding information
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Data availability
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its references.
Disclaimer
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and are the product of professional research. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of any affiliated institution, funder, agency, or that of the publisher. The author is responsible for this article’s results, findings, and content.
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Footnote
1. Collection Number, (2013) AD1137 FEDERATION OF SOUTH AFRICAN WOMEN 1954–1963, publisher: Historical Papers Research Archive: Johannesburg.
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