Ubuntism and global ethics

Conventional International Relations scholarship often prioritizes state-centric politics, formal institutions, and quantifiable metrics, leaving everyday relational and post-binary dimensions of social life underexamined. Drawing on the African philosophical tradition of Ubuntu—captured in the isiZulu and Xhosa maxim umuntu ngumuntu ngabantu (“a person is a person through other persons”)—this article develops ubuntism as a nondualist methodological framework for Global International Relations. While resonating with contemporary relational and practice-oriented approaches, ubuntism argues that ethical responsibility is constitutive of relational existence rather than merely a consequence of it. Accordingly, personhood, ethical agency, and social cohesion are realized only through interdependent relationships, foregrounding the micro-level practices that sustain trust, reconciliation, and peace in post-conflict contexts. Methodologically, the article advances Ubona Relational Enquiry, which immerses researchers in community networks through relational encounters, Pod-based mapping, and Communal Weaving Analysis, collapsing dualisms between researcher and researched, self and other, and theory and practice. By centering ethical engagement, mutual recognition, and relational accountability, ubuntism illuminates the subtle, everyday processes through which social cohesion and peace are enacted and sustained, offering a practical nondualist methodology for Global International Relations that links lived experience, ethical interdependence, and community formation to broader political and social orders.