ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the aim and the global challenge that the book intends to address, i.e., the fact that a convincing grand narrative has failed to materialize since the discrediting of globalization. In the search for a new narrative, it argues at a meta-normative level for a reformulation of the term ‘global’ away from its close connection to the globe as an unbounded self-propelling market that exists beyond human influence. ‘Global’ should no longer be reduced to auto-playing market fiction but instead be connected to the planet, Terra, the Earth. And, in turn, the planet should be distinguished from the astronomical connotation of a dot in an endless universe, and instead be enriched with the meaning of a place full of life. With reference to Latour and Chakrabarty, ‘global’ and ‘planetary’ mean cohabitation; life on earth is seen as an infinite symbiotic system, nurtured, and protected, but also destroyed, by human action.
The chapter specifies and clarifies the book’s argument that a new conceptualization of ‘the global’ and ‘the planet’ requires input from African and Asian language cultures. The chapter introduces the two key African concepts of ujamaa and ubuntu and argues that they are cases showing how work on a new global/planetary narrative might look. The investigation of the two concepts demonstrates that translations can be seen as juxtapositions that point up what is shared and what isn’t between concepts in two or more languages. The point of comparison is not to develop a uniform, global perspective, even if that were possible, but, as the Introduction argues, to develop a global understanding of difference and, through that, to begin to look for a common ground.
