Ubuntu and Ethical Implications for Global Transformative Justice Movements

Since the emergence of Ubuntu ethics in the context of transitional justice mechanisms, most notably in South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, scholars have extended its relevance to all sectors of society, including education, healthcare, and the economy. The focus of this chapter is on how Ubuntu ethics can contribute to efforts among scholars and community organizers concerned with racial settler colonialism and, specifically, with the behemoth of the prison industrial complex. With the rise of a global movement for Black Lives and Indigenous demands for restitution, reparations, and for cessation of harm by actors of state violence, it is pertinent to analyze these demands from a perspective of shared humanity. What does it mean to be recognized in one’s humanness and how can racial healing be promoted at the local level and beyond? Ubuntu ethics, which is community-oriented, favors a dignitarian approach: “I am human because you recognize me as such.” However, discriminatory practices as witnessed in the Gacaca trials of Rwanda deepened an ethnic divide shored up by colonial practices of divide and rule. Too often, Gacaca has been thought of as exemplifying innovative restorative justice. It is important to understand the tenets of restorative justice and how it needs to be differentiated from a transformative justice philosophy. It is only the latter, which is authentically wedded to an Ubuntu ethics. We begin with an exploration of Ubuntu that should guide ethical and legal reform policy discussions the world over, especially, where it is most neglected—the Global North.