Year: 2024
Author: Charlyn Henderson, Phillip A. Smith, Rosemary Campbell-Stephens
Type of paper: Workshop
Abstract:
In this workshop session, three international educator-practitioner-scholars invite participants to converse in dialogue on African Centered Leadership broadly, and the concept of Ubuntu in particular, as “I am because we are”. That is the importance of knowing self, being in community, honoring all ways of being to lead with critical humility for transformative change. This, our Ubuntu Conversation, is an iterative exchange of dialogue—review—reflection—growth—and reasoning. It is an ongoing conversation in recognition and celebration of the histories and identities of Black/African, and Indigenous Peoples across the global South, and community.
While we recognize shared experiences exist among global communities of the marginalized and historically disenfranchised, we also want to bear witness that we alone are unable to accurately represent the material realities or lived experiences of all racialized and marginalized groups. It is only in the sharing of “I’ in the community of “we” that we are gifted with windows, mirrors, and sliding doors.
Therefore, the workshop begins with an expanded understanding of self through an ontological First Peoples lens to re-centralize our knowledge, global histories, and epistemologies as valid and valuable contributions to the discourse on leadership. We extend the invitation for our audience to do the same and consider what it means to (1) identify who we are individually and collectively; (2) determine who we serve individually and collectively; (3) acknowledge our unique contributions to the knowledge of our field, and (4) what it means to lead in ways that affirm the “I am in We Are” with respect and care.
Through deep, meaningful engagement, as one in community, we present [re]definitions of authentic Black leadership as essential to transformative leadership and change. Critiquing our own journeys, drawing on stories, and making connections with one another, as a model for the iterative process of undoing and rebuilding the audience is invited to partake in the same level of critical examination and reflection in the act of remembering. Doing so in recognition of and responsive to the physical, intellectual, spiritual, and ancestral and tribal dimensions of one’s existence and humanity (Akbar, 1998). We are moved to conclude, in one accord, with the sentiments of the African Proverb “The Sun Never Sets . . . It is Man Who Moves Away From the Light” A deeper knowledge and application of models of African centered leadership and Ubuntu represent a returning to the light.
While we recognize shared experiences exist among global communities of the marginalized and historically disenfranchised, we also want to bear witness that we alone are unable to accurately represent the material realities or lived experiences of all racialized and marginalized groups. It is only in the sharing of “I’ in the community of “we” that we are gifted with windows, mirrors, and sliding doors.
Therefore, the workshop begins with an expanded understanding of self through an ontological First Peoples lens to re-centralize our knowledge, global histories, and epistemologies as valid and valuable contributions to the discourse on leadership. We extend the invitation for our audience to do the same and consider what it means to (1) identify who we are individually and collectively; (2) determine who we serve individually and collectively; (3) acknowledge our unique contributions to the knowledge of our field, and (4) what it means to lead in ways that affirm the “I am in We Are” with respect and care.
Through deep, meaningful engagement, as one in community, we present [re]definitions of authentic Black leadership as essential to transformative leadership and change. Critiquing our own journeys, drawing on stories, and making connections with one another, as a model for the iterative process of undoing and rebuilding the audience is invited to partake in the same level of critical examination and reflection in the act of remembering. Doing so in recognition of and responsive to the physical, intellectual, spiritual, and ancestral and tribal dimensions of one’s existence and humanity (Akbar, 1998). We are moved to conclude, in one accord, with the sentiments of the African Proverb “The Sun Never Sets . . . It is Man Who Moves Away From the Light” A deeper knowledge and application of models of African centered leadership and Ubuntu represent a returning to the light.