African philosophy of development as expressed in Shona proverbs

Abstract

The paper examined the African philosophy of development as it is expressed in Shona proverbs. It analysed the African people’s perspectives with regards to the question of development as expressed in their arts and beliefs. The proverbs analysed in this article candidly express perspectives on development among the Shona people of Zimbabwe. There has always been an intricate relationship between art and life and this paper is mainly based on the assumption that African oral art forms are used to formulate models of development. Particular reference is given to the socio-economic aspect of development and how this is emphasised and outlined in Shona proverbial lore. The Afrocentric theory is used in our analysis of the subject under study. The researchers argued that the aspects of Ubuntu and communalism that are emphasised in most of the proverbs to be analysed contribute a lot to development and we consequently argued that there is a lot to be drawn from Shona proverbs and that can be used to solve Africa’s numerous problems, the socio- economic problem being chief among them.

Keywords: Proverbs, Shona