Personality assessments are frequently used to make decisions and predictions, creating a demand for assessments that are non-discriminatory. South African legislation requires psychological tests to be scientifically proven to be valid, reliable, fair and non-biased. In response to the necessity for a measure sensitive to indigenous differences, South African and Dutch researchers developed the South African Personality Inventory (SAPI). The SAPI represents a theoretical model of personality that uses an indigenous (emic) and universal (etic) approach to (...) capture South Africa’s rich multicultural and multilingual view of personhood. The development of SAPI items and its simultaneous translation from English into all official languages necessitated the investigation of all the translated language versions’ psychometric properties. This study used Exploratory Structural Equation Modelling to examine the factor structure and model fit of two indigenous language versions of the SAPI, targeting the Tshivenda and the Southern Sotho languages. To accomplish this objective, Study 1 (N= 290) was done in South Africa among the Tshivenda ethnic group, while Study 2 (N= 293) was conducted in South Africa among the Sesotho ethnic group. An acquiescence response pattern was noticed in both studies, possibly to adhere to group consensus and emphasizing harmony within relationships. The ESEM solutions generated an excellent fit for both language versions, and most facets loaded acceptably on their expected factors. The Neuroticism factor proved to be problematic in both language versions. Within the Tshivenda version, the Emotional Stability facet did not generate adequate loadings on any SAPI factors. In contrast, neither Emotional Stability nor Negative Emotionality loaded sufficiently on the Neuroticism factor for the Southern Sotho version. While the overall fit of the six-factor model was excellent, the language in which a person completes a personality questionnaire seems to influence such an assessment’s factor structure. The Tshivenda and Sesotho versions of the SAPI cannot yet be positioned as equitable alternatives when using an indigenous version of the SAPI is needed. The implications of the results and proposals for future studies are discussed. (shrink)

Orientation: This study investigated the influence of authentic leadership on employee flourishing while considering the potential mediating effect of trust in the organization and organizational support as underlying mechanisms in an uncertain setting.Research purpose: To examine the relationship between authentic leadership and employee flourishing by evaluating the indirect effect of organizational support and trust in the organization as potential mediators.Motivation for the study: An authentic leadership approach, organizational support, and trust in the organization may influence the flourishing of employees in (...) uncertain times. Increasing the comprehension of the possible interaction effect of organizational support and trust in the organization in the relationship between authentic leadership and employee flourishing may improve individual and organizational efficiency.Research approach/design and method: A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was applied in this study. The sample comprised 314 employees in a noteworthy South African steel manufacturing entity. The Authentic Leadership Inventory, Workplace Trust Survey, Flourishing-at-Work Scale, and the Job Demands-Resources Scale were administered.Main findings: The findings of this study suggest that authentic leadership was a significant predictor of employee flourishing through organizational support and trust in the organization.Practical/managerial implications: This research illuminates the potential value-adding contribution of an authentic leadership style in promoting a trust-filled relationship between team members and their organization and the support they experience from their employer. Despite the prevailing precarious context, working under the mentioned conditions might result in the increased flourishing of employees.Contribution/value-add: The analyses of the mentioned relationships might assist businesses in optimizing the resources required to improve employee and organizational performance. Additionally, the exploration of organizational support in conjunction with organizational trust raises our understanding of the possible influence these elements can have in enhancing employee flourishing in the workplace. (shrink)

Even though the assessment of competitive anxiety responses (intensity, interpretation, and frequency) using the time-to-event paradigm has gained much attention, literature on the account of these same experiences in-event and their corresponding psychological skills adopted under differing conditions is limited. This is a follow up investigation to establish the extent to which associated anxiety responses are stable or dynamic and whether this pattern could be related to reported psychological skills under low or high stressful conditions across gender. Twenty-three high (...) level (N= 13 males and 10 females) Ghanaian Table Tennis players provided data through completion of modified versions of Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2 (CSAI-2), incorporated with directional and frequency of intrusion scales and the Test of Performance Strategies (TOPS) inventory during breaks within competitive fixtures. MANCOVAs (gender x stress condition) with follow-up analyses revealed no significant interactions and no main effect for gender but significant main effects were realized for all anxiety dimensions and psychological skills for only the second factor. Specifically, the intensity and frequency of cognitive and somatic state anxiety symptoms increased and were interpreted as debilitative under the high stress condition, although self-confidence and other array of psychological skills were highly displayed under the same stressful condition. Findings highlight the dynamic characteristics of in-event associated anxiety responses and ineffectiveness of deployed psychological skills regardless of gender. These perhaps show the exceptionality of affective experiences in an African setting, suggesting a culturally diversified approach to psychological skills application, if desirable effects are to be attained. (shrink)

A landslide inventory is a detailed register of the spatial distribution, geometry, and attributes of landslides and is essential for landslide hazard analysis, risk management, regional planning, and land use management and development, especially in landslide-prone regions. However, the development of a national landslide inventory is time-consuming and costly. Accordingly, most developing countries, including Sri Lanka, have basic landslide databases, which identify the location, date, and time of occurrence on a point map. This study, therefore, aimed (...) to introduce a new method to report landslide information via a mobile application based on a participatory approach with information recorded in a web portal called the participatory landslide inventory. Twenty-one landslide site locations and their attributes were captured on the PLI web portal using the PLI mobile app. The system administrator then demarcated the landslide boundaries and performed geometrical calculations for each landslide to complete the inventory. Finally, the landslide information was published through the PLI web portal. The PLI is an effective and efficient tool for developing a landslide inventory economically. (shrink)

The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory is one of the most well-known and widely used measures of time perspective. Various short versions were proposed to resolve the psychometric problems of the ZTPI. The present study conducted a systematic review to obtain 25 short versions, calculated the frequency of each item of the ZTPI in short versions, and hypothesized that the more frequent the item is, the more robust it becomes. The hypothesis was tested by assessing the structural validity (...) and internal consistency of short forms with high, medium, and low frequent items in Chinese samples. Structural validity and internal consistency analyses showed that the form with more frequent items had better psychometric properties; item frequencies were positively correlated with factor loadings. The results suggest that the systematic review is an effective approach to identify the robust items of the ZTPI. This approach is general and can be the basis to improve the psychometric properties of scales in social science. (shrink)

The Dimensions of Spirituality Inventory (DSI) is a 50-item quantitative assessment of spirituality. Whereas “spirituality” has seemed to some to be too vague for research purposes, the DSI follows earlier qualitative research in showing that usage of the word points to an intelligible conceptual structure. Instead of defining spirituality and then operationalizing it, as most extant instruments do, the DSI defines and operationalizes 21 relatively uncontroversial elemental components of spirituality, so the overall interpretation of spirituality can only emerge after (...) factor analysis. Just as an alphabet flexibly expresses words and sentences, so the 21 DSI dimensions permit the discovery of latent constructs corresponding to cultural packages of spirituality at the present time. The DSI avoids culturally parochial formulations of items, thanks to intense multidisciplinary engagement among social scientists, scholars of religion, and psychologists of religion, and thus is suitable for cross-cultural application. This paper reports on a study based on a participant pool recruited for ExploringMyReligion.org, in part from Prolific (N = 820, after culling unreliable responses). The DSI is interpreted and validated in relation to several other relevant measures, and the factor analysis is strongly resonant with prior qualitative studies. The psychometric properties of the DSI make it usable as an overall spirituality scale as well as a sensitive inventory of types and configurations of spirituality. (shrink)

This essay offers a critique of the controversial proposal that peculiarities in African thought concerning time have a negative impact upon African economic development. The proposal under scrutiny takes the form of two corollaries whose notoriety dates back to John S. Mbiti’s (1969) infamous claim that African cultures lack an indigenous concept of the distant future. It is shown that these joint hypotheses appear to be either self-refuting or false. In consequence, the proposal that a cross-cultural (...) scrutiny of time will reveal defective concepts is reconsidered. It is proposed that deficiencies in the perception of time that bear a negative impact upon African economics are instead the cache of foreign experts who fail to appreciate conventional uses of time in Africa as rational strategies for risk avoidance, damage control, for resisting hegemonic authority, quelling foreign expropriation of African resources, and for maximizing efficiency given scarce capital and inadequate infrastructure. What begins as a deflationary dismissal of a long-standing debate over African indigenous thoughts about time concludes with a promising speculation about African idiosyncratic practices of time-management that are instrumental in negotiating the vicissitudes of spiralling underdevelopment. (shrink)

. All personal that belong to a company, has to be consider into their daily agenda theoptimization of the inventory, in matter of create a cost reduction into the organization, an finallyincrement the productivity.The inventory is the element that gives “live” to the companies, in the moment to be manufacturedinto a product, through the works stations, is the case, that the excess of inventory will force thecompany not invert into development, research, training, technology, etc., and this situation (...) willaffect competiveness, and take the risk of be out of the market.The clients pay for a good, with a competitiveness price, excellent quality, and complete all thespecification that they request, plus has to be deliver on time; our responsibility is do wherever ittakes to guaranty the mayor percentage of efficiency in all our process and complete the goal ofsatisfy our clients.Keywords. Competitiveness, cost, inventory management, productivity.Resumen. Todo el personal estratégico, administrativo y operativo perteneciente a una empresa,debe considerar dentro de su agenda diaria la optimización de la gestión de los inventarios,permitiendo con ello un impacto en la reducción los costos de la organización, que se traducirá en unincremento de la productividad.El inventario es el elemento que permite dar vida a las empresas, al momento de ser transformada enun producto, a través de todas las estaciones de trabajo dando paso a paso un valor agregado, sinembargo el exceso de los inventarios ocasiona que la organización no pueda en incurrir en gastos quepermitan el desarrollo y crecimiento, como son las áreas de investigación y desarrollo, capacitación yadiestramiento, tecnología, mercadotecnia, etc., trayendo en consecuencia perder el nivel decompetitividad, y con ello correr el riesgo de quedar desplazado por la competencia.Los clientes pagan por producto que presente un precio competitivo; de la más alta calidad; quecumpla con todas y cada una de sus especificaciones; que sea entregado en tiempo y forma; esnuestra responsabilidad como estrategas, administradores y operadores de los inventarios, elgarantizar el mayor porcentaje de eficiencia en los procesos productivos y administrativos, demanera de lograr el fin último de toda empresa tiene, satisfacer a sus clientes.Palabras claves. Administración de inventarios, competitividad, costos, productividad. (shrink)

Inventory prediction and management is a key issue in a retail store. There are a number of inventory prediction techniques. However, it is difficult to identify a time series prediction model for inventory forecasting that provides uniformly good results for all the products in a store. This paper uses data from a small retail store to demonstrate the variability of results for different modeling techniques and different products. We demonstrate inadequacy of a generic inventory model. (...) Stability and seasonality analysis of the time series is used to identify groups of products exhibiting similar sales patterns. Different clustering techniques are applied to determine reasonable local groups. With the help of Mean absolute percentage error, the effectiveness of dataset partitioning for better inventory management is demonstrated. Appropriate inventory management strategies are proposed based on the stability and seasonality analysis. (shrink)

ArgumentThe Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was developed at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, in the 1930s and 1940s. It became a highly successful and highly controversial psychometric tool. In professional terms, psychometric tools such as the MMPI transformed psychology and psychiatry. Psychometric instruments thus readily fit into the developmental history of psychology, psychiatry, and neurology; they were a significant part of the narrative of those fields’ advances in understanding, intervening, and treating people with mental illnesses. At the same (...) time, the advent of such tools also fits into a history of those disciplines that records the rise of obsessional observational and evaluative techniques and technologies in order to facilitate patterns of social control that became typical during the Progressive Era in the United States and after. It was those patterns that also nurtured the resistance to psychometrics that emerged during the Vietnam War and after. (shrink)

School climate is a multidimensional construct of the quality of a student’s academic environment, often subsuming dimensions such as safety, instructional practices, social relationships, school facilities, and school connectedness. Positive school climate has beneficial effects on a wide range of adjustment variables in youth, including academic achievement, mental health, school attendance and graduation, and school-based behavior. Studies regarding school climate assessment have burgeoned in recent years but remain marked by limited sample sizes, narrow developmental levels, restricted items, unclear psychometric strength (...) across multiple demographic groups, and lack of integration with key student education contextual factors such as academic mindset and social emotional learning. The present study evaluated a comprehensive measure of aspects of school climate, academic mindset, and social emotional learning in a sample of 105,379 diverse students (Mage = 13.47 years; SD = 2.47). The 9-factor structure of the School Climate and Academic Mindset Inventory was supported via confirmatory factor analysis. A trimmed model displayed adequate goodness-of-fit for males and females, younger age groups, and European American, biracial/multiracial, Hispanic, Native American, and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students. The trimmed model was slightly less strong for older age groups as well as for African American and Asian American students. The scale may be useful for assessing school climate interventions, longitudinal climate patterns, and school-based algorithms of future performance, though additional validation of the scale remains necessary. (shrink)

Cultural values are often used to categorise groups, e.g. individualism versus collectivism. Often when cultural values are measured, etic scales are used without giving attention to cultural value nuances, e.g. different types of collectivism. An example of a nuanced cultural value is found in the interpretation of ubuntu as a context-specific presentation of collectivism in South Africa. In this article, which may be viewed as an instance of experimental philosophy, the concept of ubuntu will be introduced based on the work (...) of the philosopher Thaddeus Metz by focusing on the distinct aspects of harmonious relationships of identity and solidarity. The theoretical basis was used to develop and validate the Metzian Ubuntu Inventory (MUI) with a sample of 316 respondents. This scale consists of nine items, and has reliability and validity in the South African context. In the conclusion, possible applications of the MUI are suggested. (shrink)

From its initial conceptualization as emotional exhaustion, cynicism, and reduced personal efficacy for the help professions, burnout has received increasing attention in modern times, especially after the 2019 WHO’s inclusion of this syndrome in the ICD-11 list. Burnout can be measured using several psychometric instruments that range in dimensionality, number of items, copyrighted, and free use formats. Here, we report the psychometric properties of data gathered with the Oldenburg Burnout Inventory in a sample of Portuguese Aircraft maintenance technicians. As (...) far as we know, this is the first study addressing the burnout syndrome in this occupational group. Data gathered with the OLBI displayed good evidence of validity related to internal structure, to other variables, with good evidence of reliability. We showed that burnout significantly correlated with mental and physical fatigue emphasizing the vital critical role that these variables play with safety in the aviation industry. (shrink)

This study has assessed the psychometric proprieties of the Mental Toughness Inventory within the context of Brazilian sports. About 12 professionals participated in the process of adapting and translating the scale to Brazilian Portuguese. Subjects were 575 athletes who answered the MTI and the 10-item Connor–Davidson Resilience Scale. Data were analyzed through confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach's alpha, composite reliability, average variance extracted, Spearman correlation, and model invariance tests. Results from CFA showed adequate fit for the original 8-item structure of (...) the scale [Chi-square = 27.041; p = 0.078; normalized chi-square = 1.50; comparative fit index = 0.988; Tucker–Lewis Index = 0.981; root mean square error of approximation = 0.03 [0.00–0.05]; standardized root mean residual = 0.030] assessing mental toughness as a single factor and the scale presented satisfactory internal consistency. MT was correlated with resilience, age, and time of experience in the sport. The MTI has also shown partial measurement invariance for sex and complete invariance across sport types. It was concluded that the MTI is a suitable tool for assessing MT in the present sample of Brazilian athletes; this instrument has potential practical application for researchers and sports psychologists who seek to develop the well-being and performance of athletes. (shrink)

We study a joint pricing and inventory control problem for perishables with positive lead time in a finite horizon periodic-review system. Unlike most studies considering a continuous density function of demand, in our paper the customer demand depends on the price of current period and arrives according to a homogeneous Poisson process. We consider both backlogging and lost-sales cases, and our goal is to find a simultaneously ordering and pricing policy to maximize the expected discounted profit over the (...) planning horizon. When there is no fixed ordering cost involved, we design a deep reinforcement learning algorithm to obtain a near-optimal ordering policy and show that there are some monotonicity properties in the learned policy. We also show that our deep reinforcement learning algorithm achieves a better performance than tabular-based Q-learning algorithms. When a fixed ordering cost is involved, we show that our deep reinforcement learning algorithm is effective and efficient, under which the problem of “curse of dimension” is circumvented. (shrink)

This chapter contains sections titled: The Postcolonial Situation Paulin Hountondji The Study of African Traditional Philosophy Mbiti and Time in Africa Contemporary African Philosophy as Comparative Philosophy The Question of Relativism Conceptual Decolonization The Concept of a Person Morality Africa's Philosopher Kings The Question of Violence The Question of Democracy Dimensions of African Philosophy.

This paper is an attempt to articulate an African (Igbo) conception of space and time. Igbo terms and phrases are explained in light of their traditional, non-European cultural and linguistic background. Care is taken to present a distinctively African account, not a neo-colonial one. The African conceptions of space and time account for some African beliefs and practices regarding causality, including such widely misunderstood phenomena as divination, the “medicine man,” and “magic.”.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Feminist Studies 47, no. 2. © 2021 by Feminist Studies, Inc. 419 Paul Amar Insurgent African Intimacies in Pandemic Times: Deimperial Queer Logics of China’s New Global Family inWolf Warrior 2 This essay offers a new paradigm of “deimperial queer analysis” that reveals the tension between the People’s Republic of China’s extractive expansionism in Africa and its claim to solidarity with Africans against white supremacy and Northern imperialism. (...) China has been labeled an “anti-imperial empire” that forcefully challenges previous Euro-American imperial legacies—all while it verges on reenacting them.1 A critical way it resolves this geopolitical tension is through the articulation of a mission for global China, and since 2017, the heroic filmic fictional figure of the “Wolf Warrior” anchors such an approach. The Wolf Warrior is a gorgeous, muscled, Chinese male rogue soldier in exile who adventures through the archipelago of the PRC’s shipping, mining, and medical projects across the Global South to battle white mercenaries, corrupt Asian businessmen, and local pirates—all while saving Africa from a ravaging pandemic. Extending a hugely popular film series, the release in 2017 of the blockbuster Wolf Warrior 2 (abbreviated below as Wolf 2) unleashed a worldwide social media frenzy as well as a revolution in diplomatic tone and protocol for China. In these ways, Wolf Warrior 2 came to mark the debut of the global PRC as a hegemonic structure 1. David Armitage, “The Anti-Imperial Empire?” Times Literary Supplement, no. 6018, August 3, 2018, https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/the-anti-imperialempire -american. 420 Paul Amar of feeling with an attendant popular cultural logic, launching a cast of military characters, humanitarian imaginaries, and gendered rebranding initiatives. These fused into a global cultural megaproject with the PRC presenting itself as a leader in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic in the Global South—a time the PRC has officially branded as its “Rejuvenation Era” of “Stepping Out into the World.” This essay shows how exactly this Wolf Warrior imagination has legitimized a new global regime, but I also reveal how, paradoxically, the Wolf Warrior regime has offered a distinct, more subversive worlding project. I argue here that the utopia immanent in this project can be revealed by interpretively turning this Wolf universe inside out through a deimperial queer analysis that honors and combines a Third World feminist lens and the “Asia as Method” approach with Danmei/BL and Slash queer-feminist fanfiction hacks. Danmei is a Chinese (originally mainly Tawainese) fanfiction genre that subverts mainstream heteronormative narratives by erotically aestheticizing and renarrating male-male intimacies within mainstream plotlines from feminist perspectives. BL (short for “boylove ”) is a similar Japanese fanfiction genre, and Slash is the term used in English for the queer/feminist hacking and excavation of sublimated and particularly utopian gender and sexuality plots from within seemingly conventional heteronormative or patriarchal popular-cultural texts. The everted or inside-out epistemology given expression here uses a set of non-phallogocentric lenses and decolonial feminist decoding practices. At stake is the urgency of not repeating the epistemic violence of conventional “anti-imperial” arguments, which tend to be heteronormative, statist, macho, and monolithic. Instead, the form of critique elaborated here brings questions of gender, race, and sexuality to the fore through a three-part approach. First, I identify the homoerotic register of the techno-infrastructural elements in the film. I generate close readings that detail the visual and genre codes of battle scenes, thug subjects, and piracy plots that forge a homoerotic model of rogue or “wolf” governmentality and that act as a metaphor for China’s techno -infrastructural rule. Second, this essay explores the gendered hauntings of supremacist humanism. I deploy a decolonial feminist lens to map the configuration of African women, female doctors, Maoist women insurgents, and feminized “flowerboys” as a rebel protectorate overseen by China’s phallic prerogative that is itself haunted by the specters of Euro-American humanist betrayal and white supremacy. Third, Paul Amar 421 I trace queer kinship utopias. I demonstrate that Wolf Warrior 2 rejuvenates a non-Western, queer, globalist kinship structure that triangulates Asian, white, and Black through adoption dramas and bromance bonds. Through these intimacies, an... (shrink)

Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader sets out a timely and powerful agenda for contemporary African, Afro-Caribbean, and African American philosophy.

A virtual community is generally described as a group of people with shared interests, ideas, and goals in a particular digital group or virtual platform. Virtual communities have become ubiquitous in recent times, and almost everyone belongs to one or multiple virtual communities. The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its associated national lockdowns, has made virtual communities more essential and a necessary part of our daily lives, whether for work and business, educational purposes or keeping in touch with friends (...) and family. Given these facts, how do we ensure that virtual communities become a true community qua community? We address this question by proposing and arguing for a ‘virtual communitarianism’—an online community that integrates essential features of traditional African communitarianism in its outlook and practice. The paper’s position is that virtual communitarianism can make for a strong ethical virtual community where members can demonstrate a strong sense of group solidarity, care and compassion towards each other. The inclusion of these virtues can bring members who often are farapart and help create a stronger community bond. This will ensure that the evolution of virtual communities does not happen without the integration of progressive African communitarian values. (shrink)

Aims to construct an economic philosophy from indigenous African thought.

If contemporary African political philosophy is going to develop substantially in fresh directions, it probably will not be enough, say, to rehash the old personhood debate between Kwame Gyekye and Ifeanyi Menkiti, or to nit-pick at Gyekye’s system, as much of the literature in the field has done. Instead, major advances are likely to emerge on the basis of new, principled interpretations of sub-Saharan moral thought. In recent work, I have fleshed out two types of moral theories that have (...) a clearly sub-Saharan basis, that differ from Gyekye’s moral perspective, and that also happen to constitute genuine rivals to dominant Western theories such as utilitarianism, Kantianism and contractualism. In catchwords, these African moral theories are constituted by ideals regarding community or friendliness, on the one hand, and vitality or liveliness, on the other. In this article I sketch these two under-explored ethical perspectives and then suggest several respects in which their implications for salient political controversies are novel and revealing. Sometimes the new African moral theories—and the community-based one in particular--entail different conclusions from Gyekye's position, while other times their conclusions are the same as Gyekye’s, but they provide different rationales for them that are more compelling than his. (shrink)

African policy makers have ignored indigenous environmental ethics. The relation between responsible use of the planet’s resources and ethics remains apparent in many cultural and social systems of traditional Africa. The local people have developed detailed interactive knowledge of the natural environment, and preserved biodiversity resources, which they have nurtured and developed since time immemorial. African environmental ethics is based on the worldviews of the African people, and can contribute to biodiversity conservation and environmental rehabilitation and (...) protection. It can enlighten policy makers by providing a theoretical foundation for sustainable living. Furthermore, African environmental ethics can expose environmental injustice committed by different groups in Africa, and assist local communities to secure environmental justice and protect their environment. It can create awareness within countries and globally about the actions of transnational corporations, irresponsible countries, and local industries which damage the environment. African environmental ethics may also alert the African people to understand the long-range effects of environmental degradation that are beyond the purview of local people and understanding of which is otherwise unavailable. Modern environmental knowledge about global environmental problems will provide peasant farmers and pastoralists an opportunity to look at their own local concerns and issues within the context of a greater global perspective. Only by involving peasant farmers, pastoralists, and indigenous people at the grass-roots level will African policy makers have the political strength and will to implement serious changes needed to address serious environmental and developmental problems. If policy makers continue to neglect the major contributors to biodiversity conservation and environmentally friendly practices, environmental policies will not have significant impacts on development and environmental protection in Africa. (shrink)

Western academic theology do not succeed in accounting for the identity and faith culture of African Pentecostals for at least two reasons. In the first place, because as part of the Pentecostal movement it grew from the holiness, divine healing and revivalist movement that went back to Pietism and emphasised a holistic effective spirituality, and secondly, because it links with the holistic tradition of African traditional religions and worldview that share some aspects of the Old Testament realist way (...) of thinking. African Pentecostalism needs another language to describe its unique way of doing theology in direct conjunction with spirituality. It is argued that the language of the time-honoured practice of mysticism is suitable for explaining its spirituality. Theology and spirituality should mutually inform and constitute each other, as emphasised in mystical theology, for Pentecostal theology to be a valid reflection and meditation on the experience of consciousness of the involvement of God. African Pentecostals will benefit by learning from this ancient tradition by using concepts of mystical theology to find words to state the unsayable. The article closes by asking what the language of mysticism would entail for Pentecostals. Several aspects that define Pentecostal spirituality demonstrate their relation with mystical theology, such as a separate experience of sanctification, an acknowledgement of affections in expressing religious sentiments, a different way of interpreting and participating in reality, ecstatic speech and a continual emphasis on a personal, experiential encounter with the Spirit of God. (shrink)

African Ethics: Gĩkũyũ Traditional Morality by Hannah Kinoti was prompted by the author’s concern about the decline of moral standards among the Gĩkũyũ in modern Kenya. Western education and increased interaction with other cultures had made the society more complex and sophisticated. At the same time, social evils like corruption, robbery, prostitution, broken homes and sexual promiscuity were on the increase. “While this is happening,” says the author, “African culture is often referred to in the past tense (...) as if it is no longer relevant.” She wished to discover what were the virtues that, prior to the introduction of western civilization, held society together and formed the basis of its morality. She decided to examine some of the key virtues that were highly valued in traditional Gĩkũyũ culture. She then compared the understanding and practice of these virtues by three groups: old people , middle-aged people and young people. The results of this study should appeal to researchers and teachers of African traditions, culture, religion and ethics. Equally, students of comparative ethics should find this a valuable source of information on traditional ways of maintaining behaviour that made for harmony in society. Young Africans wishing to get a deeper understanding of their roots should also find this work of great interest. (shrink)

_African Ethics: Gĩkũyũ Traditional Morality_ by Hannah Kinoti was prompted by the author’s concern about the decline of moral standards among the Gĩkũyũ in modern Kenya. Western education and increased interaction with other cultures had made the society more complex and sophisticated. At the same time, social evils like corruption, robbery, prostitution, broken homes and sexual promiscuity were on the increase. “While this is happening,” says the author, “African culture is often referred to in the past tense as (...) if it is no longer relevant.” She wished to discover what were the virtues that, prior to the introduction of western civilization, held society together and formed the basis of its morality. She decided to examine some of the key virtues that were highly valued in traditional Gĩkũyũ culture. She then compared the understanding and practice of these virtues by three groups: old people, middle-aged people and young people. The results of this study should appeal to researchers and teachers of African traditions, culture, religion and ethics. Equally, students of comparative ethics should find this a valuable source of information on traditional ways of maintaining behaviour that made for harmony in society. Young Africans wishing to get a deeper understanding of their roots should also find this work of great interest. (shrink)

Traditional Africans teach ubuntu principles of communality, mutual respect, caring and so forth, but they do not walk the talk with regard to the treatment of widows. In the footsteps of Jesus of Nazareth, Christian communities preach unconditional love, especially for the poor, marginalised and vulnerable. Implementation is, however, grossly lacking in respect of the treatment of widows. There is thus an apparent deliberate uncaring, disrespectful, discriminatory, impolite and unjust treatment of widows in African communities in spite of the (...) ubuntu values and Christian teaching that emphasise love and caring, especially towards the grieving and thus vulnerable widows. Widows seem to be neglected and even oppressed in our time. The aim of this research is to critically examine African traditional widowhood rites and practices with special reference to the comfort or pain to which they subject African widows. The research further aims to examine the behaviour of some African Christians belonging to three congregations of one mainline church to determine whether their treatment of widows resonates with Jesus’ teaching regarding the requisite care of widows. The issue of widowhood in Africa, in terms of the apparent plight of these bereaved and grieving women, needs to be urgently addressed for change in the 21st century. A critical literature study of relevant sources and a newspaper article will be used for this research. My personal experiences and continuing observation as an insider will also inform the research in useful ways. (shrink)

A recent message on one of the e-mail bulletin boards sent by a college student read, “I believe that the AIDS virus was developed in government labs for the purpose of controlling black folks.” In September 1990, Essence, an African American magazine with a circulation of 900,000, had as a lead article “AIDS: Is It Genocide?” In 1991, the New York Times quoted Clarence Page, African American columnist and Pulitzer prize winner: “You could call conspiracy theories about AIDS (...) and drugs fringe ideas, but they seem, to have a large following among the black intelligentsia. … [And] you find it at all levels.” In April 1992, Lorene Gary explained in Newsweek “Why it's not just paranoia.” In that same month, another New York Times article reported: “Bizarre as it may seem to most people, many black Americans believe that AIDS and the health measures used against it are part of a conspiracy to wipe out the black race.”4 In February 1992, Science quoted Peter Breggin, director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, as saying that research on violence “cloaks the intention to identify problem black children and then … prescribe pacifying drugs.”. (shrink)

Le;opold Se;dar Senghor (1906–2001) was a Senegalese poet and philosopher who in 1960 also became the first president of the Republic of Senegal. In African Art as Philosophy , Souleymane Bachir Diagne takes a unique approach to reading Senghor’s influential works, taking as the starting point for his analysis Henri Bergson’s idea that in order to understand philosophers one must find the initial intuition from which every aspect of their work develops. In the case of Senghor, Diagne argues that (...) his primordial intuition is that African art is a philosophy. _ To further this point, Diagne looks at what Senghor called the “1889 Revolution,” and the influential writers and publications of that time—specifically, Nietzsche and Rimbaud, as well as Bergson’s Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness. The 1889 Revolution, Senghor claims, is what led him to the understanding of the “Vitalism” at the core of African religions and beliefs that found expression in the arts. _ This book offers a distinct, incisive look at an important figure in African literature and politics that will be welcomed by scholars in African Studies and philosophy. (shrink)

Inspired by the use of naming and portraiture together in the Black artivism–such as that protesting the murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor–this paper reflects on the use of portrait drawing as a practice of genealogy. While working on a project to raise the visibility of scholars and their works in the African Diaspora, specifically Francophone women anthropologists, I felt compelled to draw their portraits. Drawing African Diasporic women into dialogue from the archive attends to temporality, vision, (...) and listening, elements centered within anthropological practice, but also implicated in the attachment of the discipline to colonial logics, particularly of allochronism, objectification and silencing. The multisensory, embodied and slow practice of drawing alongside reading scholars' works allows for diasporic time‐travel, shifting the gaze, and constructing a decolonizing “listening genre”. (shrink)

A trend called ‘African bioethics’ is growing on the continent due to perceptions of existing bioethics, especially guidelines for international collaborative research, as ‘ethical imperialism’. As a potential alternative to ‘Western Principlism,’ ‘African bioethics’ is supposed to be indigenous to Africa and reflective of African identity. However, despite many positive insights in the on-going discussions, it is feared that the growth of bioethics in Africa lacks a clear direction. Some of the views threaten to distort the essence (...) of bioethics and its development on the continent. This paper presents some of the dominant views on ‘African bioethics’, an examination of which reveals some valuable insights into the direction bioethics in Africa ought to take, but at the same time confirms some methodological challenges in some contributions to the discussion. On top of acknowledging critical insights in the discussion, the paper reveals that some views are characterized by arbitrariness and rhetorical discussions based on a strong negative and yet hard-to-accept assumption; doubtful designation; lack of a clearer problem being addressed and consequently obscure question and aim of the discourse. Finally, some methodological insights are proposed to guide bioethics research and scholarship in Africa. Specifically, the paper proposes that in search for the legitimacy of bioethics in Africa, we ought to protect the essence of bioethics by giving considerable attention to the utility of subsequent bioethics. To achieve this we need to specify the problem and proper designation for the discourse; focus on principles qua principles with impartiality and how to ensure their strict implementation; and encourage critical thinking as part of bioethics. In cultivating bioethics in Africa, the pursuit of identity is legitimate but must be conditional in light of other competing considerations. We should focus on an objective search for bioethical principles that can be effective in responding to African and global health challenges of moral significance, irrespective of the origin of the principles and at the same time focus more on strategies for ensuring compliance with resulting principles. (shrink)

“I am because we are, and since we are, therefore I am”, generally regarded as the guiding principle of African humanism, expresses the view that a person is a person through other persons and is closely associated but not identical with African communitarianism, or communalism. Against Ifeanyi Menkiti’s “unrestricted or radical or excessive communitarianism” Kwame Gyekye has proposed a “restricted or moderate communitarianism”. Whereas personhood, for Menkiti, is acquired over time, with increasing moral maturation, seniority and agency, (...) Gyekye considers it to arise automatically with being born human. The problem with Menkiti’s account of personhood is that it is at once too wide and too narrow. On the other hand, it remains unclear to what extent Gyekye’s is a communitarian view – and to what extent it is distinctly ‘African’. I conclude with a critical reflection on the implications of African communalism and personhood for non-human animals. Keywords: Ifeanyi Menkiti, Kwame Gyekye, African Communitarianism, Non-Human Animals, Personhood. (shrink)

In Cameroon, a monumental "statue of liberty" is made from scrap metal. In Congo, a thriving popular music incorporates piercing screams and carnal dances. When these and other instantiations of the aesthetics of Africa and its diasporas are taken into account, how are ideas of beauty reconfigured? Scholars and artists take up that question in this invigorating, lavishly illustrated collection, which includes more than one hundred color images. Exploring sculpture, music, fiction, food, photography, fashion, and urban design, the contributors engage (...) with and depart from canonical aesthetic theories as they demonstrate that beauty cannot be understood apart from ugliness. Highlighting how ideas of beauty are manifest and how they mutate, travel, and combine across time and distance, continental and diasporic writers examine the work of a Senegalese sculptor inspired by Leni Riefenstahl's photographs of Nuba warriors; a rich Afro-Brazilian aesthetic incorporating aspects of African, Jamaican, and American cultures; and African Americans' Africanization of the Santería movement in the United States. They consider the fraught, intricate spaces of the urban landscape in postcolonial South Africa; the intense pleasures of eating on Réunion; and the shockingly graphic images on painted plywood boards advertising "morality" plays along the streets of Ghana. And they analyze the increasingly ritualized wedding feasts in Cameroon as well as the limits of an explicitly "African" aesthetics. Two short stories by the Mozambican writer Mia Couto gesture toward what beauty might be in the context of political failure and postcolonial disillusionment. Together the essays suggest that beauty is in some sense future-oriented and that taking beauty in Africa and its diasporas seriously is a way of rekindling hope. Contributors. Rita Barnard, Kamari Maxine Clarke, Mia Couto, Mark Gevisser, Simon Gikandi, Michelle Gilbert, Isabel Hofmeyr, William Kentridge, Dominique Malaquais, Achille Mbembe, Cheryl-Ann Michael, Celestin Monga, Sarah Nuttall, Patricia Pinho, Rodney Place, Els van der Plas, Pippa Stein, Françoise Vergès. (shrink)

Doctoral education is regarded as a crucial engine for development by the knowledge economies, thereby making the research capacity of scholars play a critical factor towards development. Widening participation within doctoral education is seen as a way of enhancing this capacity. However, African scholars produce only 1.4% of all published research, indicating that Africa lacks research capacity. Even though both men and women contribute to the development of their continent and their countries, the number of women holding doctoral degrees (...) on the African continent remains low across all nationalities. In high-income countries, there are 3963 PhDs per million people, whereas in some African countries (such as Tunisia, Egypt and Kenya), the number ranges from 100 to over 1500; however, in most low-income countries (such as Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania), the number is less than 100. Much research in doctoral education examines the reasons for low graduation rates and high attrition rates, but little research examines the contributors to the doctoral study for African women, especially in these times when doctoral education is viewed as a driver of the economy. Based on a qualitative study that interviewed 14 women from African countries, this article aimed to investigate how women account for completing doctoral studies. Data were gathered through semistructured interviews and analysed thematically using a capabilities approach as a theoretical framework. The findings suggest that institutional support, peer support and academic support played a role in their achievement. Contribution: The article contributed to doctoral education scholarship of African women and indicated that religion contributed to African women’s success in doctoral programmes, granting them strength to push until completion. This research may greatly encourage more women to enrol in doctoral programmes when reading other women’s success stories. (shrink)

"In this highly original book, Ada Agada responds to the question of how a philosophy can be African and at the same time universally relevant by constructing an original philosophical system that is at once African and universal. Drawing on African forms of thought and conceptual schemes like ethnophilosophy, ubuntu, sage philosophy, négritude, ibuanyidanda philosophy, and ezumezu logic, the author introduces new concepts and conceptual schemes like mood and proto-panpsychism into philosophical vocabulary and weaves them into (...) a coherent and original system that promises to significantly impact contemporary African philosophy. Arguing for intercultural and comparative philosophy as a desirable mode of philosophising in a continually globalising and interconnected world, the book demonstrates the universal applicability of consolationism. This book will be of interest to scholars in the fields of African Studies, intercultural philosophy, philosophy of mind, and existentialism"--. (shrink)

Communalism and its cognates continue to exercise a vise grip on the African intellectual imaginary. Whether the discussion is in ethics or social philosophy, in metaphysics or even, on occasion, epistemology, the play of communalism, a concept expounded in the next section, is so strong that it is difficult to escape its ubiquity. In spite of this, there is little serious analysis of the concept and its implications in the contemporary context. Yet, at no other time than now (...) can a long-suffering continent use some robust debates on its multiple inheritances regarding how to organize life and thought in order to deliver a better future for its population. Given the continual resort to communalism as, among others, the standard of ethical behavior, the blueprint for restoring Africans to wholeness and organizing our social life, as well as a template for political reorganization across the continent, one cannot overemphasize the importance of contributing some illumination to the discourse surrounding the idea. This essay seeks to offer a little illumination in this respect. Additionally, it offers a criticism of what all—proponents and antagonists alike—take to be a defensible version of communalism: moderate communalism. I shall be arguing that communalism, generally, has a problem with the individual. And the African variant of it, mostly subscribed to by the African scholars discussed below and defended by them as something either peculiar to or special in Africa, has an even harder time accommodating the individual. Yet, as history shows, until the modern age in which individualism is the principle of social ordering and mode of social living, a situation that privileges the individual, above all, various forms of communalism never really accorded the individual the recognition and forbearances that we now commonly associate with the idea. T he strongest variants of moderate communalism discuss ed here have a difficult time taking the individual seriously. I am not aware of anyone else ever having made such a case. These arguments are offer ed to show that Africa and Africans need to take individualism seriously and such have been the historical transformation that our diverse societies have undergone in the course of the last half a millennium that the types of communalism that are on offer do not appear to take this fact of radical change with the necessary urgency. (shrink)

Health research initiatives worldwide are growing in scope and complexity, particularly as they move into the developing world. Expanding health research activity in low- and middle-income countries has resulted in a commensurate rise in the need for sound ethical review structures and functions in the form of Research Ethics Committees (RECs). Yet these seem to be lagging behind as a result of the enormous challenges facing these countries, including poor resource availability and lack of capacity. There is thus an urgent (...) need for ongoing capacity and resource development in these regions in general, and in Africa in particular. Similarly, there is a need for research and initiatives that can identify existing capacity and funding and indicate the areas where this needs to be developed.This discussion paper argues that the Mapping African Research Ethics Capacity (MARC) project is a timely initiative aimed at identifying existing capacity. MARC provides a platform and tool on the Council on Health Research for Development's (COHRED) Health Research website (HRWeb), which can be used by RECs and key stakeholders in health research in Africa to identify capacity, constraints and development needs. MARC intends to provide the first comprehensive interactive database of RECs in Africa, which will allow for the identification of key relationships and analyses of capacity. The potential of MARC lies in the mapping of current ethical review activity onto capacity needs. This paper serves as a starting point by providing a descriptive illustration of the current state of RECs in Africa. (shrink)