![]() ![]() Notwithstanding this lack of theorisation of ubuntu for social work, the term and its intuitive meaning have significant credence among social workers in South Africa and across the African continent. It is currently unclear to what extent ubuntu could serve either of these purposes. Van Breda (2019) argues that theory in social work serves two main purposes: to make sense of the world (explanatory theory) and to guide social work practice (practice theory). ![]() There has, however, been little work on developing the conceptual foundation of ubuntu in such a way that it begins to constitute a 'theory' for social work practice. Sekudu, 2019), it is typically used in a rather descriptive way to support the argument that people need to come together in mutually supportive and respectful ways. When ubuntu is used in social work writing (e.g. A Google Scholar search on 1 June 2019 for the terms 'ubuntu' and 'social work' in the title yielded just four publications (Mugumbate & Chereni, 2019 Mugumbate & Nyanguru, 2013 Mupedziswa, Rankopo, Mwansa, 2019 Rasheed & Rasheed, 2011), two of which were published only this year. In social work, however, while ubuntu is a well-recognised concept (Twikirize & Spitzer, 2019), there has been little work on articulating what ubuntu means for this discipline. It appears that ubuntu has a paradigmatic numinosity that appeals not only to African scholars, but also to scholars across the world. Ubuntu has been taken up by a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy (Metz, 2014), theology (Shutte, 2001), nursing (Marston, 2015), psychology (Mkabela, 2015), leadership (Ndlovu, 2016), literary studies (Stuit, 2016) and anthropology (Mawere & van Stam, 2016). ![]() The African construct 'ubuntu' has garnered increasing recognition in academic literature over the past years, arguably as part of a broader move towards foregrounding African constructions of the world and unravelling the legacy of colonialism (Ndlovu-Gatsheni, 2018). Keywords: Ubuntu, indigenous, decoloniality, African, solidarity, social work This is done by interweaving other African ideas with ubuntu in three domains: ethics, sustainable development and ecospirituality This article endeavours to extend and deepen the ubuntu concept to strengthen its potential as a theory informing social work practice. But the term has, for the most part, been limited to the idea of mutual aid - people helping each other in a spirit of solidarity. Social workers seeking to develop an African framework for decolonial social work practice turn repeatedly to ubuntu for aid. It gives expression to deeply-held African ideals of one's personhood being rooted in one's interconnectedness with others. Ubuntu is an African concept referring to humanness. Developing the notion of Ubuntu as African theory for social work practiceÄepartment of Social Work, Faculty of Humanities, University of Johannesburg, Johannesburg, South Africa. ![]()
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