Special themed issue: Majority world epistemologies

Abstract

We are very happy to co-author the editorial for this special issue on majority world epistemologies. Apart from having the pleasure of working with colleagues researching and writing in Practical Theology from around the world, we also enjoyed collaborating with the wider group of guest editors working on and introducing this special issue. Practical theologians are situated in all corners of the globe embodying the quest to make sense of their own lived experiences and of those around them from a faith perspective. A significant number of these theologians find themselves in the so-called ‘majority world’. While we would like to employ the term majority world in a neutral and practical sense to denote the countries where the majority of the world population reside, it is not that simple, as all designations applied to people are tainted in some way or another. Mindful of the fact that the term majority world was partially born as replacement for the now, derogatory term ‘third world’, it is not above reproach. Many still associate the majority world with the ‘third world’ and the later designation of ‘developing countries’. In the postcolonial era, this is however regarded as problematic because these designations are suspected of perpetuating stereotypes and sustaining historical divides among people. And maybe, herein lies the challenge, that we sometimes need designations to denote groups of people or nations, without attributing stereotypical characteristics. It might be helpful to view terms like the majority and minority worlds through a less tainted lens, namely that of the global village. This term organically grew from the sense of connectedness that resulted from our interconnectedness via the world wide web (Anderson 2006). The notion of the global village recognises two important aspects of our current existence in the world. One is that the globe has indeed shrunk to a ‘village’ of shared experiences as a result of web-based interconnectedness as seen in news networks and social media. In African thinking, the notion of a village conjures up a pleasant sense of belonging based on shared experiences and the embodiment of Ubuntu, which is a constant reminder that we can only truly be human with and through others. In this sense, the notion of the global village encourages us to constantly find ways to deepen global communal sharing and living. The notion of the global village, however, also recognises another important aspect of our current being, which is the fact that the communal village remains scattered around a vast globe. The lived experiences of global villagers thus inadvertently play out in different geospatial, social, political and economic realities. Each of these contexts represent unique histories, cultures and belief systems which result in distinctive ways of knowing and living. One of the historic downsides of geographical divides is the ignorance of other ways of knowing and living – often contravening the sentiments of Ubuntu. In this regard the thinking of Portuguese social theorist Boaventura De Sousa Santos (2007, 2016) is most helpful in reminding us of abyssal thinking that made us ignorant of other ways of knowing and knowledge – creating abyssal lines between our own ways of knowing and knowledge and others. At