Vygotskian Resonances With the African Worldview of Ubuntu for Decolonial Deaf Education

The African worldview of Ubuntu predates Vygotskian theory, but the Ubuntu view that the community defines the person aligns uncannily with Vygotsky’s biosocial proposition and contemporary conceptions of deaf ontology and epistemology. Unlike prevailing Euro-American thought, Ubuntu accentuates the view that it is not any physical or psychological characteristic of the individual that defines personhood. Instead, Ubuntu aphorisms, the containers of meaning in African epistemology, indicate that the reality of the communal world is at least equal if not superior to individual life histories. The author teases out similarities between Vygotskian thought and Ubuntu, illustrating deaf children’s development along a different axis, facilitated by a holistic, diversified biosocial process in which neither their deafness nor disability indicates inferiority or coloniality. Grounded on the African principle No language is complete without other languages, the present article contributes to a nascent indigenous theorization of contemporary deaf education. © 2023, Gallaudet University Press. All rights reserved.