Ubuntu as a Springboard for Service-Learning: Insights From a Journalism Study Abroad Project in Zambia

Introduction

… so goes part of the lyrics for a song titled Ubuntu by an American-Cameroonian duo of Colby Jeffers and Awu Donson. The chorus of this song (Jeffers & Donson, 2014), which has become a sort of anthem on Ubuntu, partly goes:

The above pop culture analogy of “many boats on one river of life” in defining Ubuntu perfectly aligns with some of the definitions in scholarly works. Mugumbate and Nyanguru (2013), for instance, define Ubuntu as the belief in a universal bond of sharing that connects all humanity. According to Chasi (2014), Ubuntu is “a richly textured moral philosophy that values enabling individuals to seek and select the best means and ends, among all possibilities, to make the world a better place to live in” (p. 247). Still, other scholars have advanced slight variations in defining Ubuntu (Tomaselli, 2016; Nyamnjoh, 2015; Worthington, 2011; Christians, 2004). Simply put, however, Ubuntu translates into “I am because of others” (Blankenberg, 1999, p. 46).

In journalism, which is the focus of this chapter, Ubuntu prescribes “a deep-seated general morality that requires the journalist to act in harmony with the morality of the community” (Fourie, 2008, p. 64). Epistemologically, Ubuntu provides the foundation for Kasoma’s (1996) Afriethics theory. As a theory, Afriethics emphasizes the adoption of a society-based approach to professionalism in journalism to better equip African journalists to check on one another’s professional misgivings and thereby improve the quality of journalistic performance on the continent. Ubuntu, therefore, carries a lot of promise for not only the professional aspect of journalism, but the socialization process as well. In order to examine the latter, Ubuntu was foregrounded in a service-learning course entitled Media and Journalistic Practice in Zambia that this author -- a native of Zambia -- taught at a small liberal arts college in southwest Virginia.

The course, offered during the spring semester over two intermittent years in 2010 and 2012 respectively, started with a conceptual component that involved teaching students the tenets of Ubuntu, the history of the media in Zambia, and journalistic practice and professionalism. Towards the end of May, the students had an opportunity for real-world praxis of what they had learned in class when they traveled to Zambia with the author. During the students’ three-week study abroad experience, they were affiliated with various print and broadcast media houses and served as trainee journalists. The students were expected to show up for work every day from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. And as was expected of professional Zambian journalists, the students also attended editorial meetings and were assigned stories to cover. For some of the assignments, the students were paired up with their Zambian counterparts. There were also assignments where the students operated solo. The students’ perspectives of their experiences, particularly as they related to Ubuntu, and the author’s insights are what this chapter will delve into. The chapter kicks off with a contextualization of Ubuntu and situates it within the broader framework of learning theories.

Ubuntu And The Analogy Of Body Parts

To provide more context on Ubuntu, this native African philosophy places great emphasis on the community and the individuals that constitute it to collectively and individually constantly strive to uphold virtues that prosper the ethnic community. In African society, these virtues distinguish good from bad people and include courage, bravery, fortitude, endurance, hospitality, kindness, steadfastness, magnanimity, respectfulness, truthfulness and hard work (Kasoma & Moemeka, 1994). Africans locate these virtues in and associate them with certain parts of the body. “The Bemba of Zambia would speak of umuntu wa mutima uusuma, ‘a person with a kind, generous heart’” (Kasoma & Moemeka, 1994, p. 39); in reference to the heart as the site for courage, bravery, magnanimity and hospitality. The brain (amano in Bemba) is also associated with certain virtues. “When the Bemba say uyu muntu amano bubi, they imply that the person cannot think clearly as evidenced by his or her actions” (Kasoma & Moemeka, 1994, p. 39).