From Ubuntu to Du Boisian ‘Pan-African Ubuntu' in the Era of Global Inequalities

Abstract

On the one hand, Ubuntu, as a virtue-based moral theory that makes deep claims about the human condition, lacks the normative resources to guide Africans in taking action in specific situated instances. On the other hand, pan-Africanism has versions that are too diverse to guide Africans on what they ought to do in contemporary international relations. Africans cannot fully rely on either as a normative basis to exercise collective political agency in challenging global inequality. This chapter argues that the pan-African type of social unity advocated by W.E.B. Du Bois's is a suitable theoretical framework to guide Africans in challenging global inequalities. The chapter reframes Du Bois's conception of social unity by examining whom he sought to unite and on what grounds. By using this framework, it reveals how his pan-African version sought to unite all people on the ground of common suffering including those who identified with such suffering. While Du Bois's pan-Africanism implicitly embraces an Ubuntu approach, the role of Ubuntu is not made explicit. This paper seeks to explicitly combine the Ubuntu and the Du Boisian pan-African approaches as mutually reinforcing and in doing so explicitly develops a ‘pan-African Ubuntu theory' as a suitable action-guiding theoretical framework for Africans and their Diaspora in constructively confronting global challenges.