Ubuntu, Poverty and the Sustainable Development Goals: Poverty as Impossibility

Can Ubuntu help to reduce poverty and inequality? Can Ubuntu assist in promoting sustainable development and justice on a global level? Based on these key questions, the chapter provides a snapshot of the discourses on the meaning of Ubuntu. The understanding of development will be critically discussed, considering its (post-)colonial history and epistemology, which is still present today. The research will explore the multidimensional meaning of poverty from Ubuntu perspectives. The understanding of poverty as a “disruption of relationship” serves as a starting point, considering implications for ethics, business, and development. The few narratives of Ubuntu which exceed anthropocentric outlooks open possibilities to combat climate change and its consequences on poverty. Although I reject the idea of universal values as epistemologically entrenched in European colonialism and racism, I think that certain values share a resemblance in different contexts. Desmond Tutu (1931–2021), acting as an Ubuntu advocate, reflects the entanglement, the mutual influence and backing of Ubuntu with and by religion and spirituality, which can serve as an intercultural bridge builder. Ubuntu’s relational or communitarian understanding of poverty is culturally and contextually embedded. Hence Ubuntu can link to similar understandings in different contexts, where underlying epistemologies are similarly relational. Intercultural translation is key to promoting Ubuntu globally. I draw on the concept of corazonar to theoretically frame these processes. Corazonar involves the combination of reason and affections, particularly in intercultural and post-colonial settings. Based on these considerations, my hypothesis is that Ubuntu can deliver inspirational epistemologies, values, and best practices to fight poverty and inequality globally, when appropriately attuned to contextual circumstances.