Librería Portfolio

This book is an original, systematic, and radical attempt at decolonizing critical theory. Drawing on linguistic concepts from 16 languages from Asia, Africa, the Arab world, and South America, the essays in the volume explore the entailments of words while discussing their conceptual implications for the humanities and the social sciences everywhere. The essays engage in the work of thinking through words to generate a conceptual vocabulary that will allow for a global conversation on social theory which will be necessarily multilingual.

With essays by scholars, across generations, and from a variety of disciplines - history, anthropology, and philosophy to literature and political theory - this book will be essential reading for scholars, researchers, and students of critical theory and the social sciences.

Table of Contents

1. Changing Theory: Thinking Concepts from the Global South

Dilip M. Menon



Part I: Relation

2. Ubuntu/Guanxi

Jay Ke-Schutte

3. Tarbiyya

Noha Fikry



Part II: Commensuration

4. Logic

Edwin Etieyibo

5. Andaj

Arjun Appadurai

6. Izithunguthu

John Wright and Cynthia Kros



Part III: The Political

7. Eddembe

Edgar C. Taylor

8. Minzu

Saul Thomas

9. Kavi

Shonaleeka Kaul

10. Rajo gu?a

William R. Pinch

Part IV: The Social

11. Asabiyya

Magid Shihade

12. Dadani

Kaveh Yazdani

13. Marumakkathayam

Mahmood Kooria

Part V: Words in Motion

14. Rantau

Saarah Jappie

15. Musafir

Mahvish Ahmed

16. Feitiço/Umbanda

Iracema Dulley



Part VI: Rooted Words

17. Nongqayi/Nongqai

Hlonipha Mokoena

18. Naam

Amy Niang



Part VII: Indeterminacy

19. Pajuba

Caio Simões de Araújo

20. Ardhanariswara

Shalinee Kumari and David Szanton



Part VIII: Insurrection

21. Awqat/Aukat

Francesca Orsini