The need for social connection is a fundamental human motive, and it is increasingly clear that feeling socially connected confers mental and physical health benefits. However, in many cultures, societal changes are leading to growing social distrust and alienation. Can feelings of social connection and positivity toward others be increased? Is it possible to self-generate …
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Session V – Reparative Humanism: Exploring the Meaning of Ubuntu
A spirit of Ubuntu gestures towards both an embrace and a challenge that holds Others to greater moral accountability, and calls on them to be ethical subjects. Ubuntu is fundamental in both ethics and politics, and is relevant to the embodied politics of forgiveness after mass trauma and violence. I will elaborate on this notion …
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Trust and Christian contemplative practice: A social neuroscientific study of spiritual capital in a contemplative tradition
Growing recognition of the benefits of contemplative practice for the reduction of harmful stress and the improvement of prosocial behavior is prompting research into how these effects arise. We define contemplative practice as intentionally attempting to suspend all discursive and evaluative thought. In practice, most forms of contemplative practice emphasize compassion for self and others, …
Session IV – The Role of Botho/Ubuntu in Modern Responses to Children’s and Women’s Rights Issues in Africa
How can the role and nature of Botho/Ubuntu in African societies be reconciled with the many incidences of violations of women and children’s rights we witness in modern society? How have African societies travelled from historical perspectives that highlighted definitions of integrated individual and collective humanity of all peoples to current violations that include far …
Session IV – The Biology of Care and Conflict in Groups
Relations between groups can be peaceful and mutually beneficial. Human groups co-exist, trade goods and care for one another. But relations between groups can also be competitive, and sometimes violent. Indeed, the human ability to care for “us” (our in-group) often seems to coincide with an ability to compete against “them” (out-groups). In our work …
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Session I – The Concept of Botho/Ubuntu: its Expression and Resilience in the Lived Experiences of Batswana and Other Indigenous Africans
The concept of Botho/Ubuntu encapsulates the fundamental values, belief systems, cosmological worldviews and livelihood practices of indigenous Africans generally and Batswana in particular. Botho/Ubuntu is manifested in the Botswana internal and external environment, and it guides the manner in which communities interact with one another and with their external environment. Tswana idioms and proverbs, and …
Session III – I am Because we are: Dynamic and Embodied Brain-to-brain Coupling as a new Framework for Social Interaction Between People
The Botho/Ubuntu view of “a person is a person through other persons” can illuminate both the best and the worst sides of humanity. Our research investigates how the brain responses of individuals are shaped by their interaction with other brains. We test how the brain responses of listeners, during verbal communication, are shaped to match …
Session II – Traditional Healer as Medium for Addressing Afflictions and Restoration of Wholistic Order within Botho/Ubuntu Cosmology
My presentation develops an understanding of the art of traditional healing as one pillar of the lived community experience of Botho/Ubuntu cosmology. Such healing holistically addresses afflictions at multiple levels — self, community, 11 nature and spirit. It signifies the co-agencies of God (creator/life-giver), ancestors (guiding/protecting), spirit-mediums (messengers between spirit/ material worlds), chiefs (custodian of …
Session I – The History and Contemporary Frame of Botho/Ubuntu: Philosophical and Sociocultural Complexities
The common conception of Botho/Ubuntu is that it is a theory of African humanism. Many reasons suggest however, that its application and understanding in the contemporary socio-political imagination in societies where Botho/ Ubuntu is preached, is merely as a practical ideology. Viewed as an ideology, its role as an ethical guide for conduct is also …
Welcome
The welcome session featured a performance of the National Anthem of Botswana, introductory remarks, official welcomes from Botho University, the Republic of Botswana, and Mind & Life, and a video message from the Dalai Lama. Participants Mind & Life Connections
