Towards a World Where Many Worlds Fit: The Black Consciousness Movement as Ontological Resistance

This thesis looks at the Black Consciousness Movement (BCM) which was an anti-apartheid movement that emerged in South Africa during the 1970s. The thesis aims to showcase how the Black Consciousness Movement’s approach to counteracting white supremacy in the apartheid state can be understood as ontological resistance. I argue that the BCM recognized that the suppression of blacks was the foundation of European hegemony. Therefore, it was not possible to try to integrate into European values or to try to adapt European systems - that is, capitalism or socialism- to benefit blacks. Instead, the BCM began to pursue a world which would be primarily cultivated according to the values and needs of black communities. This thesis will explore how this approach by the BCM was contributing to, in the famous words of the Zapatistas, “a world where many worlds fit.”Bachelor of Art