African Philosophy and Deep Ecology (Routledge Studies in African Philosophy)

This book investigates African philosophical contributions to the concept of deep ecology, which advocates for rethinking human and non-human relationships within our ecosystems, by promoting the inherent and earned worth of all beings.

With ecological crises impacting lives around the world, this book interrogates deep ecology thinking from African philosophical perspectives, highlighting the continent’s important ontological, epistemological, ethical, aesthetic, and broad philosophical contributions. The book investigates issues such as the eco-phenomenology of human / non-human animals’ relations, Ubuntu and the environment, the superiorist fallacy, environmental belongingness, the impact of colonization and modernity on non-human trauma, the politics of ecological narrative about African places, the question of moral status, African socialist perspectives, the question of degrowth, selective subordination, biodiversity loss, land ethics, the ontology of waste, and the concept of personhood in relation to global climate and ecological justice.

Providing a significant intervention in our understanding of the ecological crises and our duties toward ecosystems and the non-human other in the twenty-first century, this book is an important read for researchers, advocates and other stakeholders working in the fields of environmental philosophy, climate change, indigenous studies, and African Studies.

Kenneth Uyi Abudu lectures at the Department of Philosophy, Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, Nigeria. He currently is a PhD. Student at the Department of Philosophy, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria. His research interest is includes African Philosophy, with keen interest in Epistemology, Disability, Language, and the Environment. He is the author of several essays including “Exploring Ignorance and Injustice in African Epistemology” (2023), “Africa and the Epistemic Normativity of Disability” (2024), and “An Afro-relational Account of the Non-human and Transhuman Entities” (2024).

Kevin Gary Behrens is a Professor and the Director of the Steve Biko Centre for Bioethics, University of the Witwatersand, South Africa. His research interests lie in the area of Applied Ethics, in particular in Bioethics and Environmental Ethics. A major emphasis in his work is on applying African moral philosophical notions to ethical questions. He has published widely in international and national journals. He holds a rating of “Established Researcher” (C1), from the National Research Foundation.

Elvis Imafidon is a Reader in African Philosophy and Director of the Centre for Global and Comparative Philosophy at SOAS University of London. He is also a Research Associate at the African Centre for Epistemology and the Philosophy of Science (ACEPS). His research interests include African philosophy, philosophy of corporeality and disability, and philosophy of healthcare. He is the editor and author of several books and essays including African Philosophy and the Otherness of Albinism: White Skin, Black Race (2019), Handbook of African Philosophy of Difference (2020), and Handbook of African Philosophy (2023).