Postscript: Ihnā al-maṣriyyīn and al-sha‘b: The Untranslatabilities of Conceptual Languages

Abstract

This Postscript offers concluding reflections on the recent work by Rancière, Badiou, Butler and others, in light of the questions of untranslatability as posed by Cassin and Apter. Arguing the need for a new conceptual language in order to understand unique cultural processes and social collectivities, El-Desouky explores issues related to linguistic and cultural translations of the concept and term ‘the people’ and the Arabic terms: Ihnā al-masriyyīn and al-sha‘b. A comparative study of the socially resonant modes of expression of unhu and amāra and analysis of modern Arab and African intellectual discourses and their histories of resistance, El-Desouky argues, will be very useful in addressing the ontological, and indeed epistemological, limitations of political thought on populism, collective social movements and national and communal imaginaries.