ABSTRACT
African conceptions of knowledge contain a strongly relational element that is also found in African ontology and ethics. Coming to know is understood as a process of persons developing insights in relation with one another and with all that exists. This indicates not only an intimate relationship between knower and known or between what it is to know and what it is to be known, but in effect also a communalist understanding of knowledge: I know because we know. However, although “African indigenous knowledge for sustainable development” has an initial appeal, I argue that this approach is largely a nonstarter—conceptually, epistemologically, and ethically—for two reasons: (1) “Indigenous knowledge” faces substantial logical and epistemological difficulties and can, at best, be understood either as “indigenous skills” or as “indigenous beliefs”; (2) “Sustainable development” is ethically suspect, given that its market-driven obsession with growth and inherent anthropocentrism are unlikely to contribute to a fundamental rethinking of our relationship with the natural environment. In order to set a compelling example for environmental ethics, African relationalism needs to be more radical than previously intended in African thought and practice, and more radically egalitarian.
