Teaching Law with Ubuntu Pedagogy: Reclaiming African Epistemologies within the Legal Space

DOI

10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_18How to use a DOI?

Keywords

curriculum; decolonisation; integrative; law; ubuntu; ubuntu pedagogy; higher education

Abstract

In the Higher education space, the decolonisation of education is complicated due to the social and political forces that continue to resist transformation. Legal education and the law curriculum at most universities in South Africa still largely reflect Eurocentric knowledge, as a result, African students continue to feel marginalised and excluded. Indigenous knowledge and traditional law are devalued and set aside in favour of Western systems, which emphasises the need for a reinterpretation of education based on African values. The law curriculum has taken steps to integrating and reviving the philosophy of Ubuntu into its epistemology. This is apparent from the constitutional and jurisprudence prestige afforded to Ubuntu. However, this paper argues firstly, that there is a need for Ubuntu to be consistently and substantively integrated across all law modules and secondly, that there is a need for new and alternative instructional methods to teach law to which we recommend Ubuntu Pedagogy. Ubuntu pedagogy allows the space to engage with “whose questions are being asked, whose knowledge is being privileged, and whose silence is being normalised.” The article, therefore, examines the relevance of Ubuntu pedagogy as an instructional method of teaching in Law and assesses how Ubuntu has been substantively integrated into the law curriculum and its contribution to African-centered knowledge.

In examining the relevance of Ubuntu in teaching law the study adopts a qualitative theoretical research and design and uses document and discourse analysis to evaluate the potential of using Ubuntu pedagogy to teach law.

The study concludes that the turn to integrating African epistemologies in the law curriculum has been slow and that there is a need for the law discipline to use Ubuntu as a pedagogy which emphasises interconnectedness, relationships and collective wisdom.

Copyright

© 2025 The Author(s)

Open Access

Open Access This chapter is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits any noncommercial use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license and indicate if changes were made.

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Z. Naidu
AU  - C. D. Delomoney
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/12/29
TI  - Teaching Law with Ubuntu Pedagogy: Reclaiming African Epistemologies within the Legal Space
BT  - Proceedings of The Focus Conference (TFC 2025)
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 283
EP  - 294
SN  - 2352-5398
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_18
DO  - 10.2991/978-2-38476-521-8_18
ID  - Naidu2025
ER  -