January 30, 2024 • 42 mins
Exploring Indigenous Approaches to Peacebuilding: The Idea of Ubuntu
In this episode of the Conflict Tipping podcast, host Laura May interviews Bryony Vince, a PhD candidate at the University of Sheffield in the UK and an advocate for context-specific indigenous approaches to peace-building. Bryony talks about her PhD focus on Ubuntu, a South African worldview that underscores interconnectedness and mutual dependence, as a tool for peace-building in South Africa. She discusses the challenges and nuances in implementing Ubuntu on the ground and its misinterpretations or misuse by governments and NGOs. In addition, Bryony shares her personal experiences in conducting field work, and her hopes for future research focusing on participatory methods, dialogue, and public space in peace-building.
0:00 Introduction 00:56 Why Ubuntu? Why this subject? 04:00 Why is this topic important to you? 05:06 What is Ubuntu? 09:05 The link between Ubuntu and peace-building 12:10 Bry speaks IsiXhosa 13:35 Back to peace-building and Ubuntu 16:42 Do you practice Ubuntu? 19:00 What's participatory research? 20:58 Ubuntu as a peace 'tool'? 26:31 Ubuntu post-Apartheid and structural conflict 29:40 The favourite thing you learnt? 31:39 Who's doing the unpaid care work? Who is peace building? 36:26 What surprised you? 39:57 What's next? 41:47 How can people find you?
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Laura May (00:11):
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
The podcast that explores socialconflict and what to do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May.
And today I have with me, Bryony Vince.
Bryony is the editor at large for IainShash Relations, committee member of
the Participatory Research Network, coeditor of the Global Dialogue series
(00:31):
for Roman and Littlefield International,and is currently wrapping up her PhD at
the University of Sheffield in the UK.
She is especially interestedin context specific indigenous
approaches to peace building,which we'll be talking about today.
So welcome, Bryony.
Bryony Vince (00:47):
Hi Laura.
Thank you so much for having me,
Laura May (00:50):
So happy to have you here.
After all of my Twitter stalking,your research looks incredible
and I can't wait to talk about it.
So your PhD is about the idea of Ubuntuas a piece building tool in South Africa.
What made you interested in the subject?
Bryony Vince (01:05):
So when I was doing my undergrad and masters, I learned about
how everything that we've been taughtabout international relations, about
peace building has been particularlyskewed through a Western lens.
And so I became quite interested innon western approaches to international
relations, global, the global IRliterature, global international
(01:27):
relations literature, which basicallylooks at how so called non western
worldviews or approaches can articulatealternatives to international
relations or to peace building.
And so I looked at a lot of the,there's a lot of literature, , looking
at Islamic approaches to IR.
There's a book that I've got onDharma and how that is, can sort
(01:50):
of rearticulate alternatives to IR.
And Ubuntu was one of the things thatcame up when I was looking at this.
And so I've always been quiteinterested in, okay, how can we re
articulate international relations?
How can we do better, particularlyas Western scholars in making IR and
international relations and peace buildingtruly international, and not just focusing
(02:14):
on top down or Western approaches.
So I did my undergrad and master'sthesis on, on those, and then I realized
through doing that there wasn't thatmuch empirical research looking at if
alternative worldviews or if alternativeapproaches are being used on the ground.
So I kind of took peace buildingas a, as an example here.
(02:36):
And I was reading literature on howUbuntu was used as a tool for peace
building by the South African governmentduring the transition from apartheid.
And I found that really interesting.
And lots of scholars were drawingon that use of Ubuntu as a way to
say, look, Ubuntu can be used as acontextually specific alternative
indigenous approach to peace building.
(02:56):
And we should be doing this on the ground.
And so I thought, okay, that's great.
Well, let's see if that's the case.
Let's see if people areusing Ubuntu on the ground.
So my research essentially asks, how dopeople understand Ubuntu and practice
its values in their everyday lives?
Because It was important for meto understand it in the context
that I was looking at it in.
(03:18):
And how has Ubuntu been used?
and even misused by government, nongovernment organizations and community
organizations to inform peace building.
So I wanted to know how, if itwas used on the ground, like
people are saying, and if so, how?
And what can that tell us about peacebuilding, and the theory and practice
of international relations more broadly?
So it particularly speaks to , how can weuse indigenous approaches or contextually
(03:43):
specific approaches to internationalrelations phenomenon in practice?
And are there anychallenges in doing that?
Are they romanticized?
Are they being misused or co opted?
So I wanted to tryand add nuance into it.
And that's, that's I guesswhere I, where I came from.
Laura May (04:00):
Okay.
And so, I mean, a lot of the time whenpeople do PhD research, it's about
something that's important to them.
It makes me wonder why, why isthis topic important to you?
Bryony Vince (04:10):
That's a really good question.
So, I mean, as I said, I was learningabout how, what we study in international
relations is skewed from a Westernlens and a European lens and That just
really bugged me personally, I don'tknow why it just I mean, I mean, I know
why because it's not it's not good.
(04:31):
And it just really resonated withme during my undergrad and I,
I just thought I, I didn't feellike I could do research that way.
And in a way that isn't reflective ofwhat the world actually looks like.
And I thought it was quite ironicthat, , international relations is called
(04:52):
international relations when for mostof its existence, it has only focused
on a very small part of the world.
So quite simply, it just bugged me.
Laura May (05:06):
And so tell me then about Ubuntu.
What is it?
How is it used?
Where is it used?
Tell me all the things.
Bryony Vince (05:13):
Okay.
So, Ubuntu is commonly defined throughthe Isixhosa and Isizulu phrase, umtu,
umgamuntu, umgabantu, which looselytranslates to "I'm a person because
of or by or through other people".
So it's a worldview or set ofvalues that views human beings
(05:35):
as inherently interconnected andunconditionally dependent on one another.
It stresses community, sharing,generosity, selflessness.
So there's lots of literature on this.
What I am interested in, and thedefinition that I take of Ubuntu in
my research is how the people that Ispoke to define it themselves and how
(05:59):
they use it in their everyday lives.
So, I didn't want to rely too heavilyon, the academic literature and how
Ubuntu is explained in popular discourse.
I wanted to forget all of that and findout how people are actually using it on
the ground, how they understand it, howit's important to their everyday lives.
(06:20):
So I spoke with people who speak Isixhosain Cape town where I did my fieldwork.
And I also spoke to people workingin community organizations,
NGOs, who are using Ubuntu.
So I spoke to both those peoplewho are using it and those who
ascribe to its values personally.
And the way that they explainedit to me was far more simple than
(06:44):
the academic literature makes itout to be, as you can imagine,
Laura May (06:47):
That's never happened before.
Bryony Vince (06:50):
Um, And it was funny because when I was speaking with people, they
were saying, "nobody's ever really askedme to define what this is because it's
not really something that we talk about.
It's something that we're justbrought up with in our families.
And it's just inherent.
to us.
It's what we're taught.
It's how we're taught torelate to other people".
(07:12):
These, , values of sharing andgenerosity and that kind of thing.
So it's this implicit thing and peoplefound it quite difficult to explain
what it means in this neat definitionway that people seek in academia.
And I tried to do a a method, where Iwas asking people to take photos of things
(07:35):
that represent what Ubuntu means to them.
Laura May (07:37):
Very cool.
Bryony Vince (07:39):
Yeah, it would have been cool.
It didn't work out.
It would have been very
Laura May (07:42):
no, my
Bryony Vince (07:45):
I was going to do that as a non verbal way of explaining
what Ubuntu means to people.
And that people also found quitedifficult when I asked, I gave them
the opportunity, and I said, you cantake them on your phones and send them
to me if anything, if you just stumbleupon anything that represents Ubuntu.
And it never materialised, and it was onlyuntil I was writing up that I realised
(08:08):
that it's not really something that can beneatly described, or even shown visually,
because it's a set of value, it's inherentin how people interact with each other.
And I came to the conclusion that Ididn't want to define it definitively
in the, in the thesis, but I justwanted to show some of these examples.
(08:30):
So people were talking about a time wherethe entire community rallied together to
help a friend whose shack had burnt down.
And she said that neighbors thatpreviously didn't like each other or
didn't even talk to each other were there.
to help.
And it was things like that.
So it was generosity, sharing,ideas of reciprocity this idea of
(08:50):
if something happens to me, thenit happens to my entire community.
And people in interviews linkedthat quite heavily with peace.
Before I even asked themanything about peacebuilding
. Laura May: That's so interesting.
So, let me ask you aboutpeace-building then, as that's
my own association with Ubuntu.
How does that work?
(09:13):
when I spoke to participants about Ubuntu and peace,
a lot of people who were Xhosa saidto me, that "Oh yeah, like Ubuntu.
Well, I think about when I think aboutUbuntu is the sort that conflicts were
resolved, like, back in the day" wherebasically the whole community would be
involved, and say there was a disputebetween two members of the community,
(09:35):
everybody would come together, the victimand the perpetrator would have a chance
to tell their story community wouldcome to a decision together basically
and it would be resolved like that.
And the point of it was to transformthe relationship between these
people as a way to create kindsustainable peace in the community.
it was very restorativeapproach to justice.
(09:57):
And Ubuntu has been linked to that.
It's Ubuntu values are implicit inrestorative approaches to justice.
And so that's why it was evoked duringthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
I think it also helped after Apartheidto kind of give South Africa onus
over the, the peace building process,particularly the Black South Africans
(10:20):
who had been completely marginalizedand horrendous human rights violations
had happened during Apartheid.
So it was kind of a way to reclaimsouth African culture in a way.
And so that the kind background as to howUbuntu is linked to conflict resolution.
And because it was used in Truth andReconciliation Commission, a couple of
(10:42):
organizations who out of the Truth andReconciliation Commission still use
Ubuntu in their community dialogue.
So they use it as a kind offocal point around which they
centre their community dialogues.
And they kind people the values of Ubuntu,or they frame the Community dialogue
sessions through the lens of Ubuntu.
(11:03):
Well, they kind Ubuntu language.
the way that people said that this helpedthem uh, I asked them, you is the value
of using Ubuntu and talking about it?"
that it, it kind of encourages peoplethat are part of the community dialogue.
So there might be people from differentcommunities, like the Black and so
called Colored communities, cometogether if they're in conflict,
and it would help them to understandthat they have a kind mutual common
(11:26):
humanity or a common struggle.
it was used also particularly forxenophobic conflict to emphasize that
there was this common struggle betweenlocals and foreign nationals and is sort
used as a method of tolerance, I suppose.
So they're quite a common.
peace building tool, I suppose,you like the community dialogues
approach and people recognizingthat they're you relational,
(11:48):
they're, they're interconnected.
They have a common humanity, but they'reusing Ubuntu within that as a sort of
educational tool, I suppose, or likea focal point around which to use it.
Laura May (12:02):
Very cool.
And so how does it actually work onthe ground as far as peace building
goes in South Africa, because thatcame out of your case studies, right?
Bryony Vince (12:10):
Yeah.
So, well, when I was speakingwith people who speak Isixhosa.
Laura May (12:15):
Which includes you, by the way, right?
Because I understand you've learnedsignificant Isixhosa for your
research, which is wild to me.
Bryony Vince (12:22):
Yeah, I wouldn't say it includes me.
I, I'm definitely learning.
I tried to learn before I wentover and did my interviews.
Laura May (12:28):
Wait, so you were in Sheffield in the UK learning Isixhosa.
Bryony Vince (12:32):
Yes.
Which sadly they don'tteach at the university
Laura May (12:36):
a huge shock to me.
Bryony Vince (12:38):
I know, I know.
And I also tried to find it on Duolingoand they do have loads of languages
on there, but it's not on there.
And it really, it upset me, but
Laura May (12:47):
I'm very interested.
Yeah.
And how you managed to learn.
That's incredible.
Incredible.
Bryony Vince (12:51):
did an online summer school from the University of Cape
Town and met a wonderful womancalled Nalu who taught me Isixhosa.
It was a three week summer school so wedid every evening for three weeks and
then she carried on, I asked her if she'ddo individual lessons and she carried
on teaching and then she was very kindwhen I was in Cape Town and I met up with
her and her family and it was amazing.
Laura May (13:13):
It was almost like you were practicing Ubuntu together
in this whole process then.
Bryony Vince (13:17):
It's so true and actually part of the um, the summer school that
we did she spoke about Ubuntu quitea lot and how it's intertwined with
the language and how people speak toeach other and how people greet each
other, which is really interesting.
Laura May (13:29):
Anyway, I completely distracted you.
We were talking about Ubuntu in peace,before I was Oh, you speak Isixhosa
Bryony Vince (13:36):
so yes, people, people linked Ubuntu to peace quite a lot,
even without me asking about it.
And the common thing that people saidwas that these days in Cape Town,
people don't have Ubuntu anymore,because there's a lot of conflict.
Both within and between communities.
There's gang violence, there's ahigh level of gender based violence.
(13:59):
And people were basically saying, we'velost Ubuntu, we need to get Ubuntu back.
People don't have it anymore.
And it was described to me as theantithesis, basically, to conflict.
So, that was interesting to mebecause I was then thinking, okay,
maybe Ubuntu isn't necessarilya tool for peace building, like
some of the literature has said.
(14:21):
Is it just peace?
Is it just the end goal, as opposedto the means of achieving peace?
So that's one thing that I tacklewith actually in the, in the thesis
is that this understanding of Ubuntu.
There's two understandings of it, whereit's either a set of values that people
have, or in the academic literature, it'sbeen described as a, an alternative to
(14:44):
Western peacebuilding, an alternative todevelopment as a tool for us to do that.
And so, yeah, that's somethingthat I'm grappling with.
In terms of how it's used on theground, so there's some organizations
that are using Ubuntu in theircommunity dialogues workshops.
And they use it as a tool to facilitateboth dialogue, but also an understanding
(15:06):
of mutuality between the people.
So they teach people the valuesof Ubuntu in a way that I think
one participant explained itto me as a method of tolerance.
So, particularly for xenophobicconflict, it's this idea that
we have common struggles.
So it's resonating with, , localsand foreign nationals, getting them
(15:27):
together, talking about Ubuntu asthis, we're all interconnected, I
am because you are, those values.
Laura May (15:35):
Is there anything concrete or consistent across
these workshops that you've seen?
Bryony Vince (15:40):
It depends on the context really, but it's, it's more
that they're leading these workshopswith the values of Ubuntu as a
way to say "what you went through.
I have also gone throughsomething and we have a shared
trauma or a shared experience".
(16:01):
So there's another organization calledthe Institute for the Healing of Memories.
Which kind of have carried on the work ofthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa and one of the founders ofthe organization, Father Michael Lapsley,
I interviewed him and he spoke to meabout how they do sessions with military
veterans who were on opposite sides duringApartheid, and they refer to Ubuntu in
(16:26):
those kinds of sessions, not necessarilyexplicitly, sometimes it's implicit.
It's the people who are facilitatingthose workshops, explained to me that
Ubuntu values were implicit to the waythat the dialogues were being set up.
And it's just this idea of relationality.
Laura May (16:43):
So I'm curious about how this has affected you, when you've been
speaking to practitioners of Ubuntu.
And learning from your interviewees orinterlocutors, I mean, have you started to
practice something that looks like Ubuntu?
Bryony Vince (17:01):
That's an interesting question.
Yeah, I mean, it's, when I was speakingto people, they were all saying, this
isn't an inherently South African thing.
It's universal.
Ubuntu is obviously a South African wordand it belongs there, but the aim is
for it to be a universal world view andit doesn't discriminate, essentially.
(17:26):
And what's quite nice actually isthat we did, so I did an exhibition
recently showcasing some initialfindings from the research.
And we put it in the public in Sheffield,in a place called the Winter Gardens,
which is quite in the city center.
So we had pictures and quotesand stuff of our research.
There was five of us that did it.
(17:47):
And we let people put post itnotes on one side of the exhibition
board to leave their reflections.
And I actually have themright next to me in my office.
And it was really, really nice to seehow many people resonated with Ubuntu.
Because it did show mehow universal it is.
(18:09):
, people started thinking, startedsaying, , oh this, this is reminding me
of of racism and how terrible racism isand how we should all treat others how
we want to be treated and all of thepost it notes were just about kindness
and it's it's so, it's so lovely.
So I think, even implicitly, it's it'saffected me and I want, I always want to
(18:32):
do research in a way that is full of care.
And I think it would be ironic touse Ubuntu as a case study and then
do research that was extractive andnot very, not very full of care.
And that's another thing that I'mreally passionate about is doing
(18:53):
this research in a participatory way.
Um, as much as possible.
Laura May (19:00):
So just for a moment though, I mean, what actually
is participatory research?
And what's the value of doing it?
Lovely.
Bryony Vince (19:10):
Yeah, so, participatory research in a nutshell is basically
research that includes those whoare impacted by the research that
you're doing in the creation, conductand dissemination of that research.
So you'd sit down, for example,with the community that you're
working with and you'd say, whatis the most important thing to you?
(19:30):
How can this research benefit you?
You craft the research questions together.
In some participatory projects,they'll have those community
members as co researchers.
So you'll train them up.
They'll be, you know, conducting theresearch alongside you and with you.
Essentially to make it the mostrelevant and impactful to the
(19:50):
communities that you're researching.
And it's a really good way to I wouldsay avoid extractive research practices.
It's not perfect, by all means,there are loads of issues
with participatory research.
But right now, particularly inacademia, it's, I think, one of the
(20:11):
best ways that we can start to try tomitigate extractive research practices.
And make the research that we'redoing genuinely impactful for
those communities it's also avery transparent way, or a more
transparent way of, of doing research.
Laura May (20:30):
And I mean, I think I have a confession because I think
I'm part of the problem with Ubuntu.
Because before we started recordingtoday, I mentioned to you, I used to
teach peace negotiation mediation.
Right.
And, you know,, at one point sort of thisidea of, well, there are also other views
or methods or what have you of peacebuilding in different places in the world.
(20:52):
And obviously Ubuntu is usually mentionedas one of the more known ones, but
I remember reading a couple of booksabout it and I didn't really get it.
Because yeah, from the sort of Westernpeace building framework or mediation
framework, it's quite regimented.
It's like you do this.
This is like very process focused, right?
And it's like, well, thisis how you group everything.
(21:13):
This is like what kind ofconflict it is and so on.
And then I read these books about Ubuntuand I was like, tell me how to fix things.
Because I was applying that mindsetand I wasn't obviously embedded
in this world view of Ubuntu.
And so I was definitely part of theproblem that you're referring to.
So apologies to everyone.
(21:35):
Sorry, South Africa.
Sorry, Ubuntu practitioners.
I will be reformed.
I promise.
Bryony Vince (21:42):
it's a really interesting point though, because this is
something that people ask me quite alot when I present my research or if
they've read a chapter or something.
So I have a chapter that looksat how NGOs are using Ubuntu
as a tool for peace building.
And after reading it.
One of the comments that I got on theinitial draft chapter of this was like,
(22:03):
Yeah, but I still don't understand.
They were like, I don't gethow this is used in practice.
Like, as you said, there isn't atangible set of like, This is how you
do peace building based on Ubuntu.
Laura May (22:18):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (22:19):
and I think that I I had this issue too, and in a
previous iteration of the chapter, Ithink I tried to form that into it.
So I tried to write it in this way whereI was like, this is what Ubuntu based
peacebuilding looks like, because Ithought that that was the purpose of my
(22:40):
thesis, was to basically be like, look,this is a local approach to peacebuilding.
I then reflected on thatand reminded myself.
Because when I first startedthis research, I wanted the
data to speak for itself.
I wanted to as much aspossible, let the data speak.
Obviously, , the researcher is neverseparate from the data, but I wanted
Laura May (23:02):
All research is me search.
Bryony Vince (23:05):
Exactly.
Laura May (23:05):
Yep.
Bryony Vince (23:07):
I've not heard that before.
That's funny.
Laura May (23:09):
Yep.
Bryony Vince (23:11):
But I found myself trying to do that.
I was trying to fit it into this.
This is how to do peace buildingwith Ubuntu values in mind.
And what I realized is that it'snot necessarily, so the academic
literature says that it's,that it can be used as a tool.
It can rearticulate howwe do peace building and.
(23:33):
It can, and it was used by thegovernment, but the way that people use
it is really nuanced, and sometimes,as I said, it is used in workshops.
So they'll do community dialoguesessions and those things, again, this
is another thing that people have saidto me, like community dialogues are
very common, local peace building tools.
(23:53):
So why does that mean that it's Ubuntu?
And it doesn't mean that it's Ubuntu.
It means that they're using the values ofUbuntu within those community dialogues.
And sometimes that's just it.
It's just a focal point around whichthey center these, these dialogues.
But I ask, okay, butwhy are they doing that?
It's interesting that they're usingthese, this worldview as a central point.
(24:18):
And what is the value added of doing that?
Is it because.
Are they trying to localize thepeace building that they're doing?
Does it provide a language throughwhich they can describe the activities?
Does it justify why they'redoing what they're doing?
A lot of people said that lookingat community dialogues or peace
building through the lens of Ubuntulends itself to a more relational
(24:42):
approach to peace building.
So it forces you to focus on mendingrelationships as opposed to , other
forms of peace building, it focuseson the fact that the conflict at
the end of the day is between.
relationships and broken relationships,particularly in South Africa, which
is, , had histories of , racialconflict and colonialism.
(25:05):
So I think, yeah, it's, it's adifficult one to explain practically.
And I think you don't necessarily need to.
And I think that might be a Western peacebuilding necessity to have to have these
tangible approaches that are very neat andthat we do this and this is the outcome.
Laura May (25:26):
And it's, it's interesting.
Cause you started this answer bysaying, one of the reviewers asked,
but how was it used in practice?
And maybe it's that it's practicedwithout being used per se, right?
Bryony Vince (25:40):
Mm hmm.
Laura May (25:41):
Like it's just done.
And, you really got me thinking, Iwas like, all right, well, so if it's
a value system or worldview, how dowe learn about those other words?
And all I could think about waslike little kid stories, right?
Where you read this, you read a fableor whatever, and there's a moral at
the story, and you sit around with yourteacher in your class or whatever, you
say, what's the moral of the story?
And that's how you learn values.
(26:02):
And so, but then we don't reallyuse values in a way, right?
We don't go out to people and say,all right, well, now apply the
moral of Little Red Riding Hood.
It's something that we actually just live.
And so I understand it in many ways.
That's what Ubuntu is, as a worldview.
, when there's these community dialoguesthat you've mentioned, it's about
(26:23):
reminding people of the LittleRed Riding Hood or, or, or these
underlying stories and shared ideas.
That's fascinating.
Bryony Vince (26:31):
Yeah, it's, it's, I think also it became quite prominent
after Apartheid because the governmentutilized it as part of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.
It was evoked particularly by ArchbishopDesmond Tutu and it was actually added
to the South African Constitutionin the interim constitution in 1993,
(26:54):
which was during the transition fromapartheid to democracy in South Africa.
So it was added to the constitution asclaiming that there was a need for Ubuntu.
And it was evoked quite a lot ingovernment discourse to the public
about, we need Ubuntu, we need tobe brought together, this idea of
(27:14):
the rainbow nation in South Africa.
And that was how I also became quiteintrigued by it because I think
there was a lot of romanticizationabout Ubuntu and how it was used
by the government and also how it'scan be this, you know,, alternative.
Indigenous approach to peace building.
(27:36):
A lot of people that I spoke to inCape Town about the government's use
of Ubuntu were quite apathetic aboutit, and they said they co-opted Ubuntu
as a way to move forward and not haveto deal that much with what happened.
It was like we need Ubuntu and thegovernment also use it arguably to
(27:57):
put the onus on individual citizensto resolve conflicts themselves.
Whereas, this kind of whitewashes thesocio economic drivers of conflict,
it puts the onus on individualcitizens to be the drivers of change.
And I guess that's another issue,particularly when you focus too
much on bottom up peacebuilding.
I mean, I am definitely a proponentof local peacebuilding, don't get me
(28:21):
wrong, but if you put too much onuson the individual citizens, it does
obscure the government or nationallevel complicity in the causes of
conflict, particularly in South Africa.
And so I think we also need to be reallycareful when we talk about Ubuntu and
any indigenous worldviews really, so asnot to romanticize them and to recognize
that they can become co opted and misusedby government and even by NGOs, some
(28:45):
people have asked me, is, does thisnot, are your NGOs not co opting Ubuntu?
And that's something that I, thatI focus on in the thesis as well.
Laura May (28:54):
It's a, from a different field, but when you're talking about this use of
Ubuntu to put all the blame on individualsand get them to fix things, it reminded
me of sort of corporate discussion aboutburnout, where people are told this
is how you prevent your own burnout.
And it's ignoring the fact thatmaybe they have a toxic boss.
Maybe the organization keeps changing.
(29:14):
Like maybe there'ssystemic stuff going on.
And so clearly someone sleepingenough and eating good food is not
going to solve a systemic problem.
And so maybe there's that type of erasure.
And so just thinking about theseinterviews you did on the ground
in South Africa, I want to knowwhat was your favorite thing you
(29:35):
learned and was there anythingreally, really that surprised you?
Bryony Vince (29:41):
Ooh, that's a great question.
I guess my favorite thingthat I learned is the power of
community in areas that are stillstruggling with horrific conflict.
I spoke to just regularpeople living in Cape Town.
I spoke to NGO workers, moread hoc community organizations.
(30:04):
And it's actually incredible the workthat these people are doing, a lot of
the time unpaid funding things throughtheir own means, taking time out of
their busy lives to do peace buildingwork, which a lot of the time isn't
recognized as real peace building work.
(30:24):
And it was just incredible to speakto all of these organizations and
individual people about how, A, they'reliving in sometimes really violent
conflict every day in the townships andstill they have this spirit of Ubuntu.
A lot of them still believe in Ubuntu.
(30:44):
They still believe that other people canhave it and they're clinging on to that.
The spirit of community is stillthere, even in horrible circumstances.
And that was probably my favorite thing.
It was probably the saddest and alsobest thing that I learned as well.
(31:05):
Just this power of community and how yeah,and it was quite shocking how many people
were just doing this off their own backs.
Even stuff like soup kitchens,individual people who are acting as
conflict mediators, or doing conflictresolution in their own communities,
or setting up ad hoc peace committees,for example, in their communities.
(31:25):
It was incredible.
So that was my favorite thing that Ilearned, and I think I want to look
more into that thing post PhD, becauseit really, it really struck me this
unpaid care work of peace building.
Laura May (31:39):
Pause there for a moment because when I hear unpaid care, is
there a particular demographic youfound that is doing more of this?
Can I assume it's women doing this work?
Bryony Vince (31:49):
You assumed correctly
Yeah,
Laura May (31:52):
Right.
Bryony Vince (31:54):
This is something that I'm I actually wrote this recently.
I wrote a chapter on this recently inmy thesis, because this was something
that I wasn't intending to find.
And yes.
A lot of the problems that cameout is that this unpaid care
work is being done by women.
So one woman that I spoke to was thecommunity leader in one of the townships.
(32:16):
And the amount of work that she doeson top of her day job was remarkable.
She runs a soup kitchen, she worksin security at the school, she's
part of the local neighborhood watch,which is a voluntary initiative they
act as the first responders onthe ground in times of conflict.
(32:36):
And she runs a walking bus to transportthe children from their homes to school
safely, because walking from their, fromtheir houses to school is too unsafe.
And all of that stuff doesn't getrecognized enough as peacebuilding,
particularly in the academicliterature, but also I think on
(32:58):
the, on the practitioner side.
There are people in these communities,a lot of them women, as you said, who
are actually doing the brunt of thepeacebuilding work and they're not
even in community organizations thatbrand themselves as peacebuilding.
It's.
Yeah, it's incredible.
Laura May (33:16):
And so, when you talk about these organizations that do
brand themselves as doing peacebuilding, do they tend to be local
or national or international?
Is it a case of Western peace buildersgoing to South Africa and saying,
we're doing peace building, ignoringwhat's being done on the ground.
Maybe I'm too cynical.
Maybe I am.
Bryony Vince (33:35):
No, so this was something that I thought too, before I went over,
because that's how it had been framed.
Like the the justification for thelocal turn in peace building was
because Western organizations goover to places that they don't know
anything about and impose solutionsthat aren't relevant to that context.
That's where I came from.
And so I was expecting that inCape town, but actually a lot of the
(33:58):
organizations that I spoke to are local.
They were born from thebottom up in Cape Town.
Two of the main ones who had themost funding and who were permanent
NGOs were born out of the Truthand Reconciliation Commission.
So they were created tocarry on the work of the TRC.
But one of them has now shifted theirfocus away from South Africa and they
(34:22):
now do more international peace buildingstuff because that's where the funding is.
And that's obviouslyone of the major issues.
And the other one still worksin South Africa, but they
also work internationally.
Which was a common themefor the more permanent ones.
The rest of the organizations that Ispoke with were completely bottom up.
(34:43):
I spoke with a guy called Zoe, whoruns an organization called Africa
Unite, which do amazing social cohesionwork in the townships in Cape Town,
particularly around xenophobic conflict.
And he, I was in the car with himbecause he took me, I observed one of
their social cohesion events they did,and I was in the car with him and he
(35:05):
was telling me how he basically startedAfrica Unite from the boot of his car.
He came over from Zimbabwein, I think the early 2000s.
And he realized how awful the situationwas and how badly people like him were
being treated in Cape Town, and hestarted Africa Unite from the boot of
his car with all of his own resources.
(35:26):
And so, yeah, there was quite a lackof, maybe I might be being naive and I
didn't, just didn't interact with them.
But it does seem that in CapeTown particularly that a lot
of the organizations are local.
There's not too muchinternational presence there.
I know that that's a good thingfor keeping the approaches local,
but I don't think it's a good thingin terms of funding because these
(35:46):
organizations are so ad hoc.
When I was trying to find organizationsto speak to, I'd find amazing
organizations on Facebook andonline and see when they were last
active and they all just disband.
I think I found about 20 ofthem that I wanted to speak to
and they'd all just dissipated.
And when I asked people aboutthem, they were just like, yeah,
(36:06):
they just, they ran out of money.
Or, and what tends to happen is theseorganizations crop up ad hoc when
big instances of conflict or violencehappen, and then they disband again.
Laura May (36:19):
And then now I want to ask you about the surprising thing.
What surprised you in your research?
You haven't escaped this question.
Bryony Vince (36:27):
What surprised me?
Goodness, I think a lot of things.
Doing a PhD is just surprising.
What surprised me?
I would say the first thing, and thisisn't necessarily related to what I
found, but more just the process ofdoing research, is I was surprised
at how exhausting fieldwork is.
(36:49):
I knew that it was, and I'd beentold this, but I would do two
interviews a day and just thatwould just completely floor me.
I'd be absolutely exhausted.
I spent four months inCape Town for my fieldwork.
And I had to take time off afterwardsbecause I was just so tired from it.
So that definitely surprised mebecause I wasn't expecting to have
(37:11):
to take time off after fieldwork.
I wasn't expecting forit to be so so tiring.
So that's one thing that I wouldsay to any any aspiring PhD students
that are listening, fieldworkis tiring and make sure to take
care of yourself while you do it.
And my supervisors actually gave mevery good very good advice when I
think halfway through they realisedI was extremely exhausted and they
(37:32):
just said, look, when you're not doinginterviews, just go and have fun.
Go and experience Cape Town.
Go and do some fun stuff.
Because it's really hard when you're onlyover there for a short amount of time.
You feel like every second needsto be utilized for fieldwork.
The second thing, is howdifficult it was to do participatory
research as a PhD student.
(37:54):
So as I said, when I didmy third masters, no third
Laura May (37:58):
Sorry.
Your what?
It's still
Bryony Vince (38:01):
goodness, my second masters in social research.
Laura May (38:05):
Still excessive.
For
Bryony Vince (38:07):
yeah, we learned about decolonial methodologies
and participatory research.
So basically, including those who are mostaffected by the research was something
that I really wanted to do because Ididn't want to do extractive research, I
wanted to give something to the community.
I wanted it to be impactful tothe people that I was speaking to.
(38:28):
I didn't just want to go over there andInterview them and leave, basically.
And I was reading all of these examplesof participatory action research.
And I was like, I'm goingto do this at PhD level.
I'm, I'm going to go in withbasically no research questions.
We're going to createresearch questions together.
We're going to do something that'suseful for the organizations.
(38:50):
And very quickly I realized that that wasquite an ambitious thing to try to do at
PhD level, particularly in the time thatyou're given the funding that you have.
And also I think quite importantlyfor me, although I wanted to have that
impact on the ground, I wasn't in aposition to be able to offer the things
that I wanted to be able to offer them.
(39:11):
I would have loved to say, okay, we'regoing to take what we found , about
the funding issues or the challenges ofusing local knowledge for peace building.
We're going to take that to theseorganizations and we're going to do a
research dissemination event and I wasgoing to hire them as co researchers
and all these kinds of things.
It just wasn't feasible and that's fine.
And I realized that it's actually okaynot to do that at PhD level, because
(39:35):
that is just extremely overambitious.
But that was probably one thing thatsurprised me and I do hope that in the
future it will be easier for PhD studentsto be able to do research like that in
a more collaborative, participatory way.
Laura May (39:51):
And so you've hinted at this a bit already, but what's next for you
because you're handing your PhD shortly.
What's next?
I hope it's a holiday.
Bryony Vince (39:59):
I do too.
Laura May (40:01):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (40:02):
Yeah, hopefully submitting in the summer.
That's the plan.
Afterwards, I really want tomove into participatory research.
So actually do researchthat's participatory.
I want to stay in thepeace building realm.
So I think, I would quite like towork on a existing project that's
using participatory research methodsin the field of peace and conflict
(40:25):
to learn from those people doing it.
Because as I said, you're not reallygiven that opportunity at master's,
undergrad, PhD level . So I thinkthat's, that's what I want to do.
I want to learn more about how to do that.
And yeah, I'm quite interested inhow dialogue is used as a tool for
(40:45):
peace building, particularly in smallscale, well, not small scale, but
local level identity based conflicts.
And something that came up during myresearch was also the idea of public
space, because Cape Town is quite,well, the townships in Cape Town, even
just the spatial layout of them breedsconflict, because people are living
(41:07):
essentially on top of each other.
And that came up implicitly a lot in myresearch, and I was really interested.
In this idea of public space and whetherthat helps or hinders dialogue and how
dialogue and public space are connected.
It's a very rough idea.
Laura May (41:23):
Like the Agora, right?
So going to the ancient Agoraand having a good old chat.
Bryony Vince (41:28):
exactly
Laura May (41:29):
Yeah.
Interesting.
Bryony Vince (41:31):
I've come all the way from non Western IR theory, looking
at Ubuntu as a worldview, and thenthrough into the peacebuilding realm.
And that's where I'm going, Ithink, contextually specific
approaches to peacebuilding,dialogue, that kind of thing.
Laura May (41:46):
Very cool.
And so for those who are interestedin learning more about your
work, where can they find you?
Bryony Vince (41:52):
I am on Twitter, or X, as it's now called.
Laura May (41:56):
definitely still Twitter.
Bryony Vince (41:57):
Definitely.
Laura May (41:59):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (42:00):
Bry Vince on Twitter.
I'm also on LinkedIn, Bryony Vince.
And on the University of Sheffieldwebpages, there's a profile of me and
it explains more about my research.
And there's a case study as well,explaining in more detail about my PhD.
Laura May (42:17):
Excellent.
And I'll make sure to includethose links in the description.
So look, Bryony thanks so muchagain for joining me today, and
for everyone else until next time,this is Laura May with the Conflict
Tipping podcast from Mediate.com.
Hello and welcome to the Conflict Tipping podcast from Mediate.
com.
The podcast that explores socialconflict and what to do about it.
I'm your host, Laura May.
And today I have with me, Bryony Vince.
Bryony is the editor at large for IainShash Relations, committee member of
the Participatory Research Network, coeditor of the Global Dialogue series
(00:31):
for Roman and Littlefield International,and is currently wrapping up her PhD at
the University of Sheffield in the UK.
She is especially interestedin context specific indigenous
approaches to peace building,which we'll be talking about today.
So welcome, Bryony.
Bryony Vince (00:47):
Hi Laura.
Thank you so much for having me,
Laura May (00:50):
So happy to have you here.
After all of my Twitter stalking,your research looks incredible
and I can't wait to talk about it.
So your PhD is about the idea of Ubuntuas a piece building tool in South Africa.
What made you interested in the subject?
Bryony Vince (01:05):
So when I was doing my undergrad and masters, I learned about
how everything that we've been taughtabout international relations, about
peace building has been particularlyskewed through a Western lens.
And so I became quite interested innon western approaches to international
relations, global, the global IRliterature, global international
(01:27):
relations literature, which basicallylooks at how so called non western
worldviews or approaches can articulatealternatives to international
relations or to peace building.
And so I looked at a lot of the,there's a lot of literature, , looking
at Islamic approaches to IR.
There's a book that I've got onDharma and how that is, can sort
(01:50):
of rearticulate alternatives to IR.
And Ubuntu was one of the things thatcame up when I was looking at this.
And so I've always been quiteinterested in, okay, how can we re
articulate international relations?
How can we do better, particularlyas Western scholars in making IR and
international relations and peace buildingtruly international, and not just focusing
(02:14):
on top down or Western approaches.
So I did my undergrad and master'sthesis on, on those, and then I realized
through doing that there wasn't thatmuch empirical research looking at if
alternative worldviews or if alternativeapproaches are being used on the ground.
So I kind of took peace buildingas a, as an example here.
(02:36):
And I was reading literature on howUbuntu was used as a tool for peace
building by the South African governmentduring the transition from apartheid.
And I found that really interesting.
And lots of scholars were drawingon that use of Ubuntu as a way to
say, look, Ubuntu can be used as acontextually specific alternative
indigenous approach to peace building.
(02:56):
And we should be doing this on the ground.
And so I thought, okay, that's great.
Well, let's see if that's the case.
Let's see if people areusing Ubuntu on the ground.
So my research essentially asks, how dopeople understand Ubuntu and practice
its values in their everyday lives?
Because It was important for meto understand it in the context
that I was looking at it in.
(03:18):
And how has Ubuntu been used?
and even misused by government, nongovernment organizations and community
organizations to inform peace building.
So I wanted to know how, if itwas used on the ground, like
people are saying, and if so, how?
And what can that tell us about peacebuilding, and the theory and practice
of international relations more broadly?
So it particularly speaks to , how can weuse indigenous approaches or contextually
(03:43):
specific approaches to internationalrelations phenomenon in practice?
And are there anychallenges in doing that?
Are they romanticized?
Are they being misused or co opted?
So I wanted to tryand add nuance into it.
And that's, that's I guesswhere I, where I came from.
Laura May (04:00):
Okay.
And so, I mean, a lot of the time whenpeople do PhD research, it's about
something that's important to them.
It makes me wonder why, why isthis topic important to you?
Bryony Vince (04:10):
That's a really good question.
So, I mean, as I said, I was learningabout how, what we study in international
relations is skewed from a Westernlens and a European lens and That just
really bugged me personally, I don'tknow why it just I mean, I mean, I know
why because it's not it's not good.
(04:31):
And it just really resonated withme during my undergrad and I,
I just thought I, I didn't feellike I could do research that way.
And in a way that isn't reflective ofwhat the world actually looks like.
And I thought it was quite ironicthat, , international relations is called
(04:52):
international relations when for mostof its existence, it has only focused
on a very small part of the world.
So quite simply, it just bugged me.
Laura May (05:06):
And so tell me then about Ubuntu.
What is it?
How is it used?
Where is it used?
Tell me all the things.
Bryony Vince (05:13):
Okay.
So, Ubuntu is commonly defined throughthe Isixhosa and Isizulu phrase, umtu,
umgamuntu, umgabantu, which looselytranslates to "I'm a person because
of or by or through other people".
So it's a worldview or set ofvalues that views human beings
(05:35):
as inherently interconnected andunconditionally dependent on one another.
It stresses community, sharing,generosity, selflessness.
So there's lots of literature on this.
What I am interested in, and thedefinition that I take of Ubuntu in
my research is how the people that Ispoke to define it themselves and how
(05:59):
they use it in their everyday lives.
So, I didn't want to rely too heavilyon, the academic literature and how
Ubuntu is explained in popular discourse.
I wanted to forget all of that and findout how people are actually using it on
the ground, how they understand it, howit's important to their everyday lives.
(06:20):
So I spoke with people who speak Isixhosain Cape town where I did my fieldwork.
And I also spoke to people workingin community organizations,
NGOs, who are using Ubuntu.
So I spoke to both those peoplewho are using it and those who
ascribe to its values personally.
And the way that they explainedit to me was far more simple than
(06:44):
the academic literature makes itout to be, as you can imagine,
Laura May (06:47):
That's never happened before.
Bryony Vince (06:50):
Um, And it was funny because when I was speaking with people, they
were saying, "nobody's ever really askedme to define what this is because it's
not really something that we talk about.
It's something that we're justbrought up with in our families.
And it's just inherent.
to us.
It's what we're taught.
It's how we're taught torelate to other people".
(07:12):
These, , values of sharing andgenerosity and that kind of thing.
So it's this implicit thing and peoplefound it quite difficult to explain
what it means in this neat definitionway that people seek in academia.
And I tried to do a a method, where Iwas asking people to take photos of things
(07:35):
that represent what Ubuntu means to them.
Laura May (07:37):
Very cool.
Bryony Vince (07:39):
Yeah, it would have been cool.
It didn't work out.
It would have been very
Laura May (07:42):
no, my
Bryony Vince (07:45):
I was going to do that as a non verbal way of explaining
what Ubuntu means to people.
And that people also found quitedifficult when I asked, I gave them
the opportunity, and I said, you cantake them on your phones and send them
to me if anything, if you just stumbleupon anything that represents Ubuntu.
And it never materialised, and it was onlyuntil I was writing up that I realised
(08:08):
that it's not really something that can beneatly described, or even shown visually,
because it's a set of value, it's inherentin how people interact with each other.
And I came to the conclusion that Ididn't want to define it definitively
in the, in the thesis, but I justwanted to show some of these examples.
(08:30):
So people were talking about a time wherethe entire community rallied together to
help a friend whose shack had burnt down.
And she said that neighbors thatpreviously didn't like each other or
didn't even talk to each other were there.
to help.
And it was things like that.
So it was generosity, sharing,ideas of reciprocity this idea of
(08:50):
if something happens to me, thenit happens to my entire community.
And people in interviews linkedthat quite heavily with peace.
Before I even asked themanything about peacebuilding
. Laura May: That's so interesting.
So, let me ask you aboutpeace-building then, as that's
my own association with Ubuntu.
How does that work?
(09:13):
when I spoke to participants about Ubuntu and peace,
a lot of people who were Xhosa saidto me, that "Oh yeah, like Ubuntu.
Well, I think about when I think aboutUbuntu is the sort that conflicts were
resolved, like, back in the day" wherebasically the whole community would be
involved, and say there was a disputebetween two members of the community,
(09:35):
everybody would come together, the victimand the perpetrator would have a chance
to tell their story community wouldcome to a decision together basically
and it would be resolved like that.
And the point of it was to transformthe relationship between these
people as a way to create kindsustainable peace in the community.
it was very restorativeapproach to justice.
(09:57):
And Ubuntu has been linked to that.
It's Ubuntu values are implicit inrestorative approaches to justice.
And so that's why it was evoked duringthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
I think it also helped after Apartheidto kind of give South Africa onus
over the, the peace building process,particularly the Black South Africans
(10:20):
who had been completely marginalizedand horrendous human rights violations
had happened during Apartheid.
So it was kind of a way to reclaimsouth African culture in a way.
And so that the kind background as to howUbuntu is linked to conflict resolution.
And because it was used in Truth andReconciliation Commission, a couple of
(10:42):
organizations who out of the Truth andReconciliation Commission still use
Ubuntu in their community dialogue.
So they use it as a kind offocal point around which they
centre their community dialogues.
And they kind people the values of Ubuntu,or they frame the Community dialogue
sessions through the lens of Ubuntu.
(11:03):
Well, they kind Ubuntu language.
the way that people said that this helpedthem uh, I asked them, you is the value
of using Ubuntu and talking about it?"
that it, it kind of encourages peoplethat are part of the community dialogue.
So there might be people from differentcommunities, like the Black and so
called Colored communities, cometogether if they're in conflict,
and it would help them to understandthat they have a kind mutual common
(11:26):
humanity or a common struggle.
it was used also particularly forxenophobic conflict to emphasize that
there was this common struggle betweenlocals and foreign nationals and is sort
used as a method of tolerance, I suppose.
So they're quite a common.
peace building tool, I suppose,you like the community dialogues
approach and people recognizingthat they're you relational,
(11:48):
they're, they're interconnected.
They have a common humanity, but they'reusing Ubuntu within that as a sort of
educational tool, I suppose, or likea focal point around which to use it.
Laura May (12:02):
Very cool.
And so how does it actually work onthe ground as far as peace building
goes in South Africa, because thatcame out of your case studies, right?
Bryony Vince (12:10):
Yeah.
So, well, when I was speakingwith people who speak Isixhosa.
Laura May (12:15):
Which includes you, by the way, right?
Because I understand you've learnedsignificant Isixhosa for your
research, which is wild to me.
Bryony Vince (12:22):
Yeah, I wouldn't say it includes me.
I, I'm definitely learning.
I tried to learn before I wentover and did my interviews.
Laura May (12:28):
Wait, so you were in Sheffield in the UK learning Isixhosa.
Bryony Vince (12:32):
Yes.
Which sadly they don'tteach at the university
Laura May (12:36):
a huge shock to me.
Bryony Vince (12:38):
I know, I know.
And I also tried to find it on Duolingoand they do have loads of languages
on there, but it's not on there.
And it really, it upset me, but
Laura May (12:47):
I'm very interested.
Yeah.
And how you managed to learn.
That's incredible.
Incredible.
Bryony Vince (12:51):
did an online summer school from the University of Cape
Town and met a wonderful womancalled Nalu who taught me Isixhosa.
It was a three week summer school so wedid every evening for three weeks and
then she carried on, I asked her if she'ddo individual lessons and she carried
on teaching and then she was very kindwhen I was in Cape Town and I met up with
her and her family and it was amazing.
Laura May (13:13):
It was almost like you were practicing Ubuntu together
in this whole process then.
Bryony Vince (13:17):
It's so true and actually part of the um, the summer school that
we did she spoke about Ubuntu quitea lot and how it's intertwined with
the language and how people speak toeach other and how people greet each
other, which is really interesting.
Laura May (13:29):
Anyway, I completely distracted you.
We were talking about Ubuntu in peace,before I was Oh, you speak Isixhosa
Bryony Vince (13:36):
so yes, people, people linked Ubuntu to peace quite a lot,
even without me asking about it.
And the common thing that people saidwas that these days in Cape Town,
people don't have Ubuntu anymore,because there's a lot of conflict.
Both within and between communities.
There's gang violence, there's ahigh level of gender based violence.
(13:59):
And people were basically saying, we'velost Ubuntu, we need to get Ubuntu back.
People don't have it anymore.
And it was described to me as theantithesis, basically, to conflict.
So, that was interesting to mebecause I was then thinking, okay,
maybe Ubuntu isn't necessarilya tool for peace building, like
some of the literature has said.
(14:21):
Is it just peace?
Is it just the end goal, as opposedto the means of achieving peace?
So that's one thing that I tacklewith actually in the, in the thesis
is that this understanding of Ubuntu.
There's two understandings of it, whereit's either a set of values that people
have, or in the academic literature, it'sbeen described as a, an alternative to
(14:44):
Western peacebuilding, an alternative todevelopment as a tool for us to do that.
And so, yeah, that's somethingthat I'm grappling with.
In terms of how it's used on theground, so there's some organizations
that are using Ubuntu in theircommunity dialogues workshops.
And they use it as a tool to facilitateboth dialogue, but also an understanding
(15:06):
of mutuality between the people.
So they teach people the valuesof Ubuntu in a way that I think
one participant explained itto me as a method of tolerance.
So, particularly for xenophobicconflict, it's this idea that
we have common struggles.
So it's resonating with, , localsand foreign nationals, getting them
(15:27):
together, talking about Ubuntu asthis, we're all interconnected, I
am because you are, those values.
Laura May (15:35):
Is there anything concrete or consistent across
these workshops that you've seen?
Bryony Vince (15:40):
It depends on the context really, but it's, it's more
that they're leading these workshopswith the values of Ubuntu as a
way to say "what you went through.
I have also gone throughsomething and we have a shared
trauma or a shared experience".
(16:01):
So there's another organization calledthe Institute for the Healing of Memories.
Which kind of have carried on the work ofthe Truth and Reconciliation Commission
in South Africa and one of the founders ofthe organization, Father Michael Lapsley,
I interviewed him and he spoke to meabout how they do sessions with military
veterans who were on opposite sides duringApartheid, and they refer to Ubuntu in
(16:26):
those kinds of sessions, not necessarilyexplicitly, sometimes it's implicit.
It's the people who are facilitatingthose workshops, explained to me that
Ubuntu values were implicit to the waythat the dialogues were being set up.
And it's just this idea of relationality.
Laura May (16:43):
So I'm curious about how this has affected you, when you've been
speaking to practitioners of Ubuntu.
And learning from your interviewees orinterlocutors, I mean, have you started to
practice something that looks like Ubuntu?
Bryony Vince (17:01):
That's an interesting question.
Yeah, I mean, it's, when I was speakingto people, they were all saying, this
isn't an inherently South African thing.
It's universal.
Ubuntu is obviously a South African wordand it belongs there, but the aim is
for it to be a universal world view andit doesn't discriminate, essentially.
(17:26):
And what's quite nice actually isthat we did, so I did an exhibition
recently showcasing some initialfindings from the research.
And we put it in the public in Sheffield,in a place called the Winter Gardens,
which is quite in the city center.
So we had pictures and quotesand stuff of our research.
There was five of us that did it.
(17:47):
And we let people put post itnotes on one side of the exhibition
board to leave their reflections.
And I actually have themright next to me in my office.
And it was really, really nice to seehow many people resonated with Ubuntu.
Because it did show mehow universal it is.
(18:09):
, people started thinking, startedsaying, , oh this, this is reminding me
of of racism and how terrible racism isand how we should all treat others how
we want to be treated and all of thepost it notes were just about kindness
and it's it's so, it's so lovely.
So I think, even implicitly, it's it'saffected me and I want, I always want to
(18:32):
do research in a way that is full of care.
And I think it would be ironic touse Ubuntu as a case study and then
do research that was extractive andnot very, not very full of care.
And that's another thing that I'mreally passionate about is doing
(18:53):
this research in a participatory way.
Um, as much as possible.
Laura May (19:00):
So just for a moment though, I mean, what actually
is participatory research?
And what's the value of doing it?
Lovely.
Bryony Vince (19:10):
Yeah, so, participatory research in a nutshell is basically
research that includes those whoare impacted by the research that
you're doing in the creation, conductand dissemination of that research.
So you'd sit down, for example,with the community that you're
working with and you'd say, whatis the most important thing to you?
(19:30):
How can this research benefit you?
You craft the research questions together.
In some participatory projects,they'll have those community
members as co researchers.
So you'll train them up.
They'll be, you know, conducting theresearch alongside you and with you.
Essentially to make it the mostrelevant and impactful to the
(19:50):
communities that you're researching.
And it's a really good way to I wouldsay avoid extractive research practices.
It's not perfect, by all means,there are loads of issues
with participatory research.
But right now, particularly inacademia, it's, I think, one of the
(20:11):
best ways that we can start to try tomitigate extractive research practices.
And make the research that we'redoing genuinely impactful for
those communities it's also avery transparent way, or a more
transparent way of, of doing research.
Laura May (20:30):
And I mean, I think I have a confession because I think
I'm part of the problem with Ubuntu.
Because before we started recordingtoday, I mentioned to you, I used to
teach peace negotiation mediation.
Right.
And, you know,, at one point sort of thisidea of, well, there are also other views
or methods or what have you of peacebuilding in different places in the world.
(20:52):
And obviously Ubuntu is usually mentionedas one of the more known ones, but
I remember reading a couple of booksabout it and I didn't really get it.
Because yeah, from the sort of Westernpeace building framework or mediation
framework, it's quite regimented.
It's like you do this.
This is like very process focused, right?
And it's like, well, thisis how you group everything.
(21:13):
This is like what kind ofconflict it is and so on.
And then I read these books about Ubuntuand I was like, tell me how to fix things.
Because I was applying that mindsetand I wasn't obviously embedded
in this world view of Ubuntu.
And so I was definitely part of theproblem that you're referring to.
So apologies to everyone.
(21:35):
Sorry, South Africa.
Sorry, Ubuntu practitioners.
I will be reformed.
I promise.
Bryony Vince (21:42):
it's a really interesting point though, because this is
something that people ask me quite alot when I present my research or if
they've read a chapter or something.
So I have a chapter that looksat how NGOs are using Ubuntu
as a tool for peace building.
And after reading it.
One of the comments that I got on theinitial draft chapter of this was like,
(22:03):
Yeah, but I still don't understand.
They were like, I don't gethow this is used in practice.
Like, as you said, there isn't atangible set of like, This is how you
do peace building based on Ubuntu.
Laura May (22:18):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (22:19):
and I think that I I had this issue too, and in a
previous iteration of the chapter, Ithink I tried to form that into it.
So I tried to write it in this way whereI was like, this is what Ubuntu based
peacebuilding looks like, because Ithought that that was the purpose of my
(22:40):
thesis, was to basically be like, look,this is a local approach to peacebuilding.
I then reflected on thatand reminded myself.
Because when I first startedthis research, I wanted the
data to speak for itself.
I wanted to as much aspossible, let the data speak.
Obviously, , the researcher is neverseparate from the data, but I wanted
Laura May (23:02):
All research is me search.
Bryony Vince (23:05):
Exactly.
Laura May (23:05):
Yep.
Bryony Vince (23:07):
I've not heard that before.
That's funny.
Laura May (23:09):
Yep.
Bryony Vince (23:11):
But I found myself trying to do that.
I was trying to fit it into this.
This is how to do peace buildingwith Ubuntu values in mind.
And what I realized is that it'snot necessarily, so the academic
literature says that it's,that it can be used as a tool.
It can rearticulate howwe do peace building and.
(23:33):
It can, and it was used by thegovernment, but the way that people use
it is really nuanced, and sometimes,as I said, it is used in workshops.
So they'll do community dialoguesessions and those things, again, this
is another thing that people have saidto me, like community dialogues are
very common, local peace building tools.
(23:53):
So why does that mean that it's Ubuntu?
And it doesn't mean that it's Ubuntu.
It means that they're using the values ofUbuntu within those community dialogues.
And sometimes that's just it.
It's just a focal point around whichthey center these, these dialogues.
But I ask, okay, butwhy are they doing that?
It's interesting that they're usingthese, this worldview as a central point.
(24:18):
And what is the value added of doing that?
Is it because.
Are they trying to localize thepeace building that they're doing?
Does it provide a language throughwhich they can describe the activities?
Does it justify why they'redoing what they're doing?
A lot of people said that lookingat community dialogues or peace
building through the lens of Ubuntulends itself to a more relational
(24:42):
approach to peace building.
So it forces you to focus on mendingrelationships as opposed to , other
forms of peace building, it focuseson the fact that the conflict at
the end of the day is between.
relationships and broken relationships,particularly in South Africa, which
is, , had histories of , racialconflict and colonialism.
(25:05):
So I think, yeah, it's, it's adifficult one to explain practically.
And I think you don't necessarily need to.
And I think that might be a Western peacebuilding necessity to have to have these
tangible approaches that are very neat andthat we do this and this is the outcome.
Laura May (25:26):
And it's, it's interesting.
Cause you started this answer bysaying, one of the reviewers asked,
but how was it used in practice?
And maybe it's that it's practicedwithout being used per se, right?
Bryony Vince (25:40):
Mm hmm.
Laura May (25:41):
Like it's just done.
And, you really got me thinking, Iwas like, all right, well, so if it's
a value system or worldview, how dowe learn about those other words?
And all I could think about waslike little kid stories, right?
Where you read this, you read a fableor whatever, and there's a moral at
the story, and you sit around with yourteacher in your class or whatever, you
say, what's the moral of the story?
And that's how you learn values.
(26:02):
And so, but then we don't reallyuse values in a way, right?
We don't go out to people and say,all right, well, now apply the
moral of Little Red Riding Hood.
It's something that we actually just live.
And so I understand it in many ways.
That's what Ubuntu is, as a worldview.
, when there's these community dialoguesthat you've mentioned, it's about
(26:23):
reminding people of the LittleRed Riding Hood or, or, or these
underlying stories and shared ideas.
That's fascinating.
Bryony Vince (26:31):
Yeah, it's, it's, I think also it became quite prominent
after Apartheid because the governmentutilized it as part of the Truth
and Reconciliation Commission.
It was evoked particularly by ArchbishopDesmond Tutu and it was actually added
to the South African Constitutionin the interim constitution in 1993,
(26:54):
which was during the transition fromapartheid to democracy in South Africa.
So it was added to the constitution asclaiming that there was a need for Ubuntu.
And it was evoked quite a lot ingovernment discourse to the public
about, we need Ubuntu, we need tobe brought together, this idea of
(27:14):
the rainbow nation in South Africa.
And that was how I also became quiteintrigued by it because I think
there was a lot of romanticizationabout Ubuntu and how it was used
by the government and also how it'scan be this, you know,, alternative.
Indigenous approach to peace building.
(27:36):
A lot of people that I spoke to inCape Town about the government's use
of Ubuntu were quite apathetic aboutit, and they said they co-opted Ubuntu
as a way to move forward and not haveto deal that much with what happened.
It was like we need Ubuntu and thegovernment also use it arguably to
(27:57):
put the onus on individual citizensto resolve conflicts themselves.
Whereas, this kind of whitewashes thesocio economic drivers of conflict,
it puts the onus on individualcitizens to be the drivers of change.
And I guess that's another issue,particularly when you focus too
much on bottom up peacebuilding.
I mean, I am definitely a proponentof local peacebuilding, don't get me
(28:21):
wrong, but if you put too much onuson the individual citizens, it does
obscure the government or nationallevel complicity in the causes of
conflict, particularly in South Africa.
And so I think we also need to be reallycareful when we talk about Ubuntu and
any indigenous worldviews really, so asnot to romanticize them and to recognize
that they can become co opted and misusedby government and even by NGOs, some
(28:45):
people have asked me, is, does thisnot, are your NGOs not co opting Ubuntu?
And that's something that I, thatI focus on in the thesis as well.
Laura May (28:54):
It's a, from a different field, but when you're talking about this use of
Ubuntu to put all the blame on individualsand get them to fix things, it reminded
me of sort of corporate discussion aboutburnout, where people are told this
is how you prevent your own burnout.
And it's ignoring the fact thatmaybe they have a toxic boss.
Maybe the organization keeps changing.
(29:14):
Like maybe there'ssystemic stuff going on.
And so clearly someone sleepingenough and eating good food is not
going to solve a systemic problem.
And so maybe there's that type of erasure.
And so just thinking about theseinterviews you did on the ground
in South Africa, I want to knowwhat was your favorite thing you
(29:35):
learned and was there anythingreally, really that surprised you?
Bryony Vince (29:41):
Ooh, that's a great question.
I guess my favorite thingthat I learned is the power of
community in areas that are stillstruggling with horrific conflict.
I spoke to just regularpeople living in Cape Town.
I spoke to NGO workers, moread hoc community organizations.
(30:04):
And it's actually incredible the workthat these people are doing, a lot of
the time unpaid funding things throughtheir own means, taking time out of
their busy lives to do peace buildingwork, which a lot of the time isn't
recognized as real peace building work.
(30:24):
And it was just incredible to speakto all of these organizations and
individual people about how, A, they'reliving in sometimes really violent
conflict every day in the townships andstill they have this spirit of Ubuntu.
A lot of them still believe in Ubuntu.
(30:44):
They still believe that other people canhave it and they're clinging on to that.
The spirit of community is stillthere, even in horrible circumstances.
And that was probably my favorite thing.
It was probably the saddest and alsobest thing that I learned as well.
(31:05):
Just this power of community and how yeah,and it was quite shocking how many people
were just doing this off their own backs.
Even stuff like soup kitchens,individual people who are acting as
conflict mediators, or doing conflictresolution in their own communities,
or setting up ad hoc peace committees,for example, in their communities.
(31:25):
It was incredible.
So that was my favorite thing that Ilearned, and I think I want to look
more into that thing post PhD, becauseit really, it really struck me this
unpaid care work of peace building.
Laura May (31:39):
Pause there for a moment because when I hear unpaid care, is
there a particular demographic youfound that is doing more of this?
Can I assume it's women doing this work?
Bryony Vince (31:49):
You assumed correctly
Yeah,
Laura May (31:52):
Right.
Bryony Vince (31:54):
This is something that I'm I actually wrote this recently.
I wrote a chapter on this recently inmy thesis, because this was something
that I wasn't intending to find.
And yes.
A lot of the problems that cameout is that this unpaid care
work is being done by women.
So one woman that I spoke to was thecommunity leader in one of the townships.
(32:16):
And the amount of work that she doeson top of her day job was remarkable.
She runs a soup kitchen, she worksin security at the school, she's
part of the local neighborhood watch,which is a voluntary initiative they
act as the first responders onthe ground in times of conflict.
(32:36):
And she runs a walking bus to transportthe children from their homes to school
safely, because walking from their, fromtheir houses to school is too unsafe.
And all of that stuff doesn't getrecognized enough as peacebuilding,
particularly in the academicliterature, but also I think on
(32:58):
the, on the practitioner side.
There are people in these communities,a lot of them women, as you said, who
are actually doing the brunt of thepeacebuilding work and they're not
even in community organizations thatbrand themselves as peacebuilding.
It's.
Yeah, it's incredible.
Laura May (33:16):
And so, when you talk about these organizations that do
brand themselves as doing peacebuilding, do they tend to be local
or national or international?
Is it a case of Western peace buildersgoing to South Africa and saying,
we're doing peace building, ignoringwhat's being done on the ground.
Maybe I'm too cynical.
Maybe I am.
Bryony Vince (33:35):
No, so this was something that I thought too, before I went over,
because that's how it had been framed.
Like the the justification for thelocal turn in peace building was
because Western organizations goover to places that they don't know
anything about and impose solutionsthat aren't relevant to that context.
That's where I came from.
And so I was expecting that inCape town, but actually a lot of the
(33:58):
organizations that I spoke to are local.
They were born from thebottom up in Cape Town.
Two of the main ones who had themost funding and who were permanent
NGOs were born out of the Truthand Reconciliation Commission.
So they were created tocarry on the work of the TRC.
But one of them has now shifted theirfocus away from South Africa and they
(34:22):
now do more international peace buildingstuff because that's where the funding is.
And that's obviouslyone of the major issues.
And the other one still worksin South Africa, but they
also work internationally.
Which was a common themefor the more permanent ones.
The rest of the organizations that Ispoke with were completely bottom up.
(34:43):
I spoke with a guy called Zoe, whoruns an organization called Africa
Unite, which do amazing social cohesionwork in the townships in Cape Town,
particularly around xenophobic conflict.
And he, I was in the car with himbecause he took me, I observed one of
their social cohesion events they did,and I was in the car with him and he
(35:05):
was telling me how he basically startedAfrica Unite from the boot of his car.
He came over from Zimbabwein, I think the early 2000s.
And he realized how awful the situationwas and how badly people like him were
being treated in Cape Town, and hestarted Africa Unite from the boot of
his car with all of his own resources.
(35:26):
And so, yeah, there was quite a lackof, maybe I might be being naive and I
didn't, just didn't interact with them.
But it does seem that in CapeTown particularly that a lot
of the organizations are local.
There's not too muchinternational presence there.
I know that that's a good thingfor keeping the approaches local,
but I don't think it's a good thingin terms of funding because these
(35:46):
organizations are so ad hoc.
When I was trying to find organizationsto speak to, I'd find amazing
organizations on Facebook andonline and see when they were last
active and they all just disband.
I think I found about 20 ofthem that I wanted to speak to
and they'd all just dissipated.
And when I asked people aboutthem, they were just like, yeah,
(36:06):
they just, they ran out of money.
Or, and what tends to happen is theseorganizations crop up ad hoc when
big instances of conflict or violencehappen, and then they disband again.
Laura May (36:19):
And then now I want to ask you about the surprising thing.
What surprised you in your research?
You haven't escaped this question.
Bryony Vince (36:27):
What surprised me?
Goodness, I think a lot of things.
Doing a PhD is just surprising.
What surprised me?
I would say the first thing, and thisisn't necessarily related to what I
found, but more just the process ofdoing research, is I was surprised
at how exhausting fieldwork is.
(36:49):
I knew that it was, and I'd beentold this, but I would do two
interviews a day and just thatwould just completely floor me.
I'd be absolutely exhausted.
I spent four months inCape Town for my fieldwork.
And I had to take time off afterwardsbecause I was just so tired from it.
So that definitely surprised mebecause I wasn't expecting to have
(37:11):
to take time off after fieldwork.
I wasn't expecting forit to be so so tiring.
So that's one thing that I wouldsay to any any aspiring PhD students
that are listening, fieldworkis tiring and make sure to take
care of yourself while you do it.
And my supervisors actually gave mevery good very good advice when I
think halfway through they realisedI was extremely exhausted and they
(37:32):
just said, look, when you're not doinginterviews, just go and have fun.
Go and experience Cape Town.
Go and do some fun stuff.
Because it's really hard when you're onlyover there for a short amount of time.
You feel like every second needsto be utilized for fieldwork.
The second thing, is howdifficult it was to do participatory
research as a PhD student.
(37:54):
So as I said, when I didmy third masters, no third
Laura May (37:58):
Sorry.
Your what?
It's still
Bryony Vince (38:01):
goodness, my second masters in social research.
Laura May (38:05):
Still excessive.
For
Bryony Vince (38:07):
yeah, we learned about decolonial methodologies
and participatory research.
So basically, including those who are mostaffected by the research was something
that I really wanted to do because Ididn't want to do extractive research, I
wanted to give something to the community.
I wanted it to be impactful tothe people that I was speaking to.
(38:28):
I didn't just want to go over there andInterview them and leave, basically.
And I was reading all of these examplesof participatory action research.
And I was like, I'm goingto do this at PhD level.
I'm, I'm going to go in withbasically no research questions.
We're going to createresearch questions together.
We're going to do something that'suseful for the organizations.
(38:50):
And very quickly I realized that that wasquite an ambitious thing to try to do at
PhD level, particularly in the time thatyou're given the funding that you have.
And also I think quite importantlyfor me, although I wanted to have that
impact on the ground, I wasn't in aposition to be able to offer the things
that I wanted to be able to offer them.
(39:11):
I would have loved to say, okay, we'regoing to take what we found , about
the funding issues or the challenges ofusing local knowledge for peace building.
We're going to take that to theseorganizations and we're going to do a
research dissemination event and I wasgoing to hire them as co researchers
and all these kinds of things.
It just wasn't feasible and that's fine.
And I realized that it's actually okaynot to do that at PhD level, because
(39:35):
that is just extremely overambitious.
But that was probably one thing thatsurprised me and I do hope that in the
future it will be easier for PhD studentsto be able to do research like that in
a more collaborative, participatory way.
Laura May (39:51):
And so you've hinted at this a bit already, but what's next for you
because you're handing your PhD shortly.
What's next?
I hope it's a holiday.
Bryony Vince (39:59):
I do too.
Laura May (40:01):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (40:02):
Yeah, hopefully submitting in the summer.
That's the plan.
Afterwards, I really want tomove into participatory research.
So actually do researchthat's participatory.
I want to stay in thepeace building realm.
So I think, I would quite like towork on a existing project that's
using participatory research methodsin the field of peace and conflict
(40:25):
to learn from those people doing it.
Because as I said, you're not reallygiven that opportunity at master's,
undergrad, PhD level . So I thinkthat's, that's what I want to do.
I want to learn more about how to do that.
And yeah, I'm quite interested inhow dialogue is used as a tool for
(40:45):
peace building, particularly in smallscale, well, not small scale, but
local level identity based conflicts.
And something that came up during myresearch was also the idea of public
space, because Cape Town is quite,well, the townships in Cape Town, even
just the spatial layout of them breedsconflict, because people are living
(41:07):
essentially on top of each other.
And that came up implicitly a lot in myresearch, and I was really interested.
In this idea of public space and whetherthat helps or hinders dialogue and how
dialogue and public space are connected.
It's a very rough idea.
Laura May (41:23):
Like the Agora, right?
So going to the ancient Agoraand having a good old chat.
Bryony Vince (41:28):
exactly
Laura May (41:29):
Yeah.
Interesting.
Bryony Vince (41:31):
I've come all the way from non Western IR theory, looking
at Ubuntu as a worldview, and thenthrough into the peacebuilding realm.
And that's where I'm going, Ithink, contextually specific
approaches to peacebuilding,dialogue, that kind of thing.
Laura May (41:46):
Very cool.
And so for those who are interestedin learning more about your
work, where can they find you?
Bryony Vince (41:52):
I am on Twitter, or X, as it's now called.
Laura May (41:56):
definitely still Twitter.
Bryony Vince (41:57):
Definitely.
Laura May (41:59):
Yeah.
Bryony Vince (42:00):
Bry Vince on Twitter.
I'm also on LinkedIn, Bryony Vince.
And on the University of Sheffieldwebpages, there's a profile of me and
it explains more about my research.
And there's a case study as well,explaining in more detail about my PhD.
Laura May (42:17):
Excellent.
And I'll make sure to includethose links in the description.
So look, Bryony thanks so muchagain for joining me today, and
for everyone else until next time,this is Laura May with the Conflict
Tipping podcast from Mediate.com.
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