Isaiah Munyiswa

This chapter discusses widow inheritance amongst the Shona people of Zimbabwe from a decolonial feminist lens. Decolonial feminism, as a paradigm, “criticizes, questions, and brings to light female issues with a broader, more inclusive field of action, which is not limited to discussions, for example, of neoliberal feminists, whose struggle is focused on (privileged) White women”. The experiences of Caucasian women are arguably different from those of say, the traditional Black African woman. Anglo-American feminisms are thus insufficient or limited as the vantage points to understand issues such as the systematic violence and exploitation of Black African women. In line with this, the chapter adopts an African hermeneutical approach in attempting to understand the traditional African practice of widow inheritance. The African hermeneutical approach is important because it recommends an interpretation that takes unique lived experiences, worldviews, history and culture of the African into consideration.

We share the view that Ubuntu has a lot of potential in engendering inclusive development but this humanistic ideal has so far not flourished. The central objective of this chapter is thus to expose what we believe to be the cause of the current failure of Ubuntu to play a pivotal role in African socio-political initiatives. We argue that Ubuntu is not implementable if the subjects, or the actors themselves, lack patriotism. The missing link for Ubuntu to be useful is the patriotic attitude or stance by the key actors in development. This is more visible with regard to leadership in Africa. The realisation of SDG 10 is dependent on patriotic leadership—leadership that has the right attitude for addressing current well-being inequalities. Without patriotism, Ubuntu will remain perched at the level of awareness and may eventually be discarded as mere political propaganda. A clearer understanding of patriotism demonstrates how it is related to a workable concept of Ubuntu.