Ubuntu as Aesthetics and a Frame to Decentre Dominant Ideologies: Focus on Bakiga Storytelling

Abstract

The paper argues that ‘traditional’ Bakiga communities appreciated the values of Ubuntu as aesthetics in their day-to-day lives. Ubuntu values, as aesthetics in Bakiga storytelling performances, have received little scholarly attention. The paper argues that Ubuntu values served as a framework for rupturing and decentring dominant ideologies that sought to engender hegemonic masculinity. The study analyses a 1993 cassette-recorded tale, Kabugu-ka-Mwera, by storyteller Festo Karwemera from Kabale District, Uganda. The tale’s performance deepens our comprehension of Ubuntu aesthetics, shifting it from a static object to a dynamic interaction. The narrative highlights the conflict between patriarchal authority and Ubuntu’s relational ethics, a theme underexplored in other Kiga folk stories. We employed content and thematic analyses informed by the Ubuntu philosophy and a constructivist lens. Key Informant Interviews with elders and performers enriched the interpretations, complemented by a review of secondary sources. Involving elders and performers highlighted their role in personifying oral knowledge and preserving storytelling traditions across generations. The moral values of Ubuntu, conveyed through folk stories, are vital in African communities, which are predominantly oral cultures guided by culturally embedded pedagogical frameworks that resonate with the people’s cultural values.