Rethinking gender liberation through Ubuntu relational ethics in the age of emerging technologies: Reflections from Alex la Guma’s A Walk in the Night and Tsitsi Danbgarembga’s Nervous Conditions

Abstract

This study embarks on a qualitative content analysis of gender relations in Alex La Guma’s A Walk in the Night and Tsitsi Danbgarembga’s Nervous Conditions in order to rethink gender liberation in the age of emerging technologies. The aim was to deconstuct the one-sided feminist liberation project in Africa, the type that disempowers the boy child of the much needed humane relational values. Through a purposively sampled literary data, the analysis identified and confirmed a lapse of relational ethics within the gender liberation project. The humane Ubuntu relational values were proposed as strategic needs for the psychosocial well-being and full functionality of individuals and communities in this age of emerging technologies in Africa. The major outcome was the reconstruction of a balanced gender liberation project for the well-being of all genders in Africa so that they can connect and interrelate humanely in this age of emerging technologies. The study used a gender relations theory and the Ubuntu relational ethics to reveal the paradoxical disempowerment of both genders when the liberation project considers only the girl-child’s predicaments. The emerging adult boys and girls become problems and threats in the technology emerging communities because they now lack humane relational values they need to strive psychosocially while creating and consumimg emerging technologies. In this light, the paper concluded that a shift from girl-child empowerment to girl and boy child empowerment could guarantee a safer future for both sexes as they would interconnect, interrelate and interdepend in mutual respect and confidence in the emerging technology world.