Decolonising Knowledge: Can Ubuntu Ethics Save Us from Coloniality?

Piet Naude ()
Additional contact information
Piet Naude: University of Stellenbosch Business School

Journal of Business Ethics, 2019, vol. 159, issue 1, No 2, 23-37

Abstract: Abstract This essay discusses whether an indigenous African ethic, as expressed in ubuntu, may serve as an example of how to decolonise Western knowledge. In the first part, the key claims of decolonisation of knowledge are set out. The second part analyses three strategies to construct models of ‘African’ (business) ethics, namely transfer, translation and stating of a substantive rival model as contained in ubuntu ethics. After a critical appraisal of this substantive proposal, part three indicates the potential and limitation of the decolonisation project: possibilities lie in the (re)-contextualisation of knowledge, whereas limitations are related to constructing an alternative to what is known as ‘scientific’ knowledge. As far as the author knows, this is the first attempt to frame (business) ethics in terms of the epistemological search for ‘decolonised’ knowledge.

Keywords: Decolonisation; African ethics; Ubuntu ethics; Western ethics; Scientific knowledge (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10551-017-3763-4 Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:159:y:2019:i:1:d:10.1007_s10551-017-3763-4

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... cs/journal/10551/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s10551-017-3763-4

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of Business Ethics is currently edited by Michelle Greenwood and R. Edward Freeman

More articles in Journal of Business Ethics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().