•  76
    The Historical Development of the Written Discourses on Ubuntu
    South African Journal of Philosophy 30 (3): 303-329. 2011.
    In this article, I demonstrate that the term ‘ubuntu’ has frequently appeared in writing since at least 1846. I also analyse changes in how ubuntu has been defined in written sources in the period 1846 to 2011. The analysis shows that in written sources published prior to 1950, it appears that ubuntu is always defined as a human quality. At different stages during the second half of the 1900s, some authors began to define ubuntu more broadly: definitions included ubuntu as African humanism, a ph…Read more
  •  11
    “Half-trust” and enmity in ikland, northern uganda
    with Rane Willerslev and Lotte Meinert
    Common Knowledge 21 (3): 406-419. 2015.
    This article questions whether enmity is always bad and trust always good. In the borderlands between Ikland in northern Uganda and Turkanaland in Kenya, sometimes violent enmity combines with friendly barter relations between the Ik, a subsistence agricultural people that also hunts, and their goat-and-cattle herding neighbors, the Turkana and Dodoth peoples. “Half-trust,” as some of the Ik call it, works to prevent the escalation of conflict. While the Ugandan groups have been disarmed by thei…Read more
  •  10
    This book explores the influence of ubuntu on South Africa’s post-apartheid transitional justice mechanism, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and—in contrast to ethnophilosophy—takes differences, historical developments, and social contexts seriously.
  •  7
    Introduction: A Caveat on Caveats
    with Jeffrey M. Perl, Rane Willerslev, Lotte Meinert, Beverly Haviland, Nancy Scheper-Hughes, Daniel Grausam, Daniel McKay, and Michiko Urita
    Common Knowledge 21 (3): 399-405. 2015.
    In this introduction to part 4 of the Common Knowledge symposium “Peace by Other Means,” the journal's editor assesses the argument made by Peace, the spokesperson of Erasmus in his Querela Pacis, that the desire to impute and avenge wrongs against oneself is insatiable and at the root of both individual and social enmities. He notes that, in a symposium about how to resolve and prevent enmity, most contributions have to date expressed caveats about how justice and truth must take precedence ove…Read more