ABSTRACT
This short conclusion refers back to the Introduction and the problem formulated there: the development of a planetary perspective through a comparison of translations which aim to understand difference and, on that basis, promote the search for shared norms and institutions, in particular through translations of African and Asian key concepts about the social, the economic, and the political. The conceptual history of ujamaa and ubuntu in Chapters 2 and 3, and the reason of their failures, provoke a critical reflection. The Epilogue also refers to Bruno Latour’s desire for a Copernican conceptual revolution mentioned in the Introduction, and, lastly, it reflects critically on Karl Polanyi’s understanding of the dynamics between governments and political pressures on the one side and capitalism on the other, and his use of the terms ‘embedding’ and ‘disembedding.’
