Undertaking Empirically-Engaged African Philosophy: The Development and Validation of the African Time Inventory

• Authors: Aïda C. Terblanché-Greeff , Petrus Nel

Abstracts

EN

Cross-cultural conflict is often rooted in variation between values from different cultures, for example, differences in time orientation. Usually, individuals are monochronic or polychronic regarding time orientation. In South Africa, the term African time represents a nuanced polychronic time orientation. As this term is often used pejoratively, it is cardinal to break down stigmatization and create cultural awareness regarding this unique time orientation. In this paper, we argue that people must be cognizant of particular time orientations to facilitate intercultural dialogue better and lessen conflict. With this in mind, we employed empirically-engaged African philosophy and developed the African Time Inventory (ATI). We theoretically introduce African time as a unique time orientation during the scale development process. The psychometric properties of the ATI are presented and proved to be reliable and valid in South Africa. In praxis, utilizing the ATI can facilitate decolonization resulting from some needed cultural awareness for dialogue and conflict mitigation.

Keywords

EN

African time; African Time Inventory; cultural awareness; polychronism; time orientation; intercultural communication; African philosophy; experimental philosophy

• Publisher: Uniwersytet Warszawski
• Journal: Eidos. A Journal for Philosophy of Culture
• Year: 2023
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 47-64

Dates

published

2023

Contributors

author

Aïda C. Terblanché-Greeff

• Department of Philosophy, University of Johannesburg

• https://orcid.org/0000000160220193

author

Petrus Nel

• Department of Industrial Psychology and People Management, University of Johannesburg

• https://orcid.org/0000000317031789

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Identifiers

DOI

10.14394/eidos.jpc.2023.0004

Biblioteka Nauki

2902712