The Social Construction of Race: Ubuntu as an Ethical Foundation for Addressing Racism and Promoting the Cultivation of Humanity in South Africa
Résumé
Race remains one of the most persistent and divisive social constructs in contemporary society. Its historical legacies continue to shape economic inequalities, educational hierarchies, and enduring patterns of social fragmentation in South Africa. Despite three decades of democracy, the symbolic and structural residues of apartheid continue to reproduce racialised privilege and exclusion. This chapter examines the social construction of race through a decolonial and ethical lens, situating South Africa as a critical site where the contradictions between liberal equality and racial persistence are most visible. It positions Ubuntu as a foundational African moral philosophy that redefines personhood through interdependence and relational ethics, offering an alternative to individualist and competitive modes of human association. By drawing comparative insights from global traditions of humanism, Confucian ren, Western liberal humanism, and Latin American Buen Vivir, the chapter argues that Ubuntu advances a distinctive yet globally resonant paradigm for confronting racism. It proposes that racism is not merely a moral failure or social bias but a rupture of human relatedness. Ubuntu, therefore, provides an ethical framework for restoring co-being and shared humanity, inviting a re-imagining of human relations grounded in reciprocity, dignity, and collective flourishing.
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