Ubuntu bashing: the marketisation of ‘African values’ in South Africa

Abstract

Broadly defined as an ‘African worldview’ that places communal interests above those of the individual, and where human existence is dependent upon interaction with others, ubuntu has a long tradition on the continent. This paper explores the ways in which the philosophy and language of ubuntu have been taken up and appropriated by market ideologies in post-apartheid South Africa. The literature on ‘ubuntu capitalism’ offers the most obvious illustration of this, but there are more subtle ways in which ubuntu theory and language have been (re)introduced to post-apartheid South Africa to support and reinforce neoliberal policymaking. But rather than reject ubuntu thinking outright as too compromised by this discursive shift, as much of the Left in South Africa has done, the paper asks if there is something potentially transformative about ubuntu beliefs and practices that can be meaningfully revived for more progressive change.

Keywords:

• ubuntu
• capitalism
• socialism
• South Africa

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers of an earlier version of this paper whose comments contributed significantly to this final copy.

Notes

The title of the paper is a play on the term ‘bundu bashing’, a South Africanism referring to driving a four-wheel drive vehicle through rough terrain as a leisure pursuit, with bundu being the Afrikaans word for bush. It is typically a white, middle-class pastime and generally associated with insensitivity to local environments and cultures.

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