New book by Devi Dee Mucina debuts Sept. 30

Drawing on anti-racist, African feminist and Ubuntu theories – and critically influenced by Indigenous masculinities scholarship in Canada – Ubuntu Relational Love: Decolonizing Male Masculinities is a powerful new book by Devi Dee Mucina.

Mucina is the director of UVic’s Indigenous Governance program and an Indigenous Ubuntu from the Ngoni and Shona people of southern Africa. Ubuntu Relational Love launches today with a virtual event by the University of Manitoba Press from 1:30 to 3 p.m. PST with Mucina and two presenters, followed by a Q&A.

When I thought my own family could not parent me, our diverse Indigenous Ubuntu and non-Ubuntu people other-mothered and other-fathered me. This is Ubuntu philosophy offering a relational decolonizing approach, which reminds me of our interconnectedness in a global society. Ubuntu as an ethical system of thought, let’s me hold intention our humanness, togetherness and our social politics of difference. So where do I end and you begin?
—Devi Dee Mucina, UVic scholar and director of the Indigenous Governance program

Mucina’s scholarship on Black Indigenous masculinities researches how Gule Wamukulu (performative spiritual mask dancing) and the Ngoni Ngoma function as tools of reviving Black Indigenous governance in the service of communal health and wellness. His other research explores the impact of parental and familial members’ incarceration on their children and questions the risk factors this creates for their future incarceration from an Indigenous intersectional theoretical framework.

Visit the UMP website to find out more about this book, its launch and all three presenters.