Land in African Ontology (PDF)

This research is an ontological examination of land in Africa. Land in Africa occupies the central position of existence in the ontological order of the hierarchy of the ontology of being in Africa, because land defines the bases of African history, spirituality, identity, morality, unity, kinship, economic progress and other essentialities of being which place land as the first principle in hierarchy of the cosmic order. Land in Africa is force and force is being, hence land in Africa is more than economic property, it includes, also, a field of events, where vital forces responsible for various natural occurrences act upon nature and existence. Land in Africa is a phenomenon that connects man to the essential elements of nature as opposed to the Western conception of land as geographical entity for economic gains. Adopting analytic method, this research helps to recreate an African orientation of land in the face of global warming and other ontological issues attached to land. This study intends to show that contemporary Africa, over time has lost the ontological status of land, owing to land desecration, grabbing and court litigations that have characterized the present African society and the need for Africans to return to the foregone ontological orientation of land that have existed before now by identifying the historical, spiritual and moral connections that exist between land and the human person by returning to the normative ways of land retributions for justice. Finally our thesis here concludes that land in Africa serves as the beginning and end of being "thing", because land among Africans is conceived as the finitude of existence and mans ambitions. In discovering this African understanding of land, one will drag a premise that as soon as mans activities is not done in an empty space; land defined the connection that exists between the human person and nature. It regulate the order of things in the universe.