Changing Theory Concepts from the Global South

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.

1. Changing Theory: ThinkingConcepts 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

Dilip M. Menon is the Mellon Chair in Indian Studies at the University of Witwatersrand, and Director, Centre for Indian Studies in Africa. He is a historian of South Asia and has recently been working with oceanic histories and questions of epistemology from the Global South. His recent publications include the co-edited volumes Capitalisms: Towards a Global History (2020) and the forthcoming Ocean as Method: Thinking with the Maritime (Routledge, 2022). Professor Menon was recently awarded the 2021 Falling Walls Foundation Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities.