Abstract
Begriffsgeschichte or conceptual history traces genealogies of concepts through changes and exchanges of their meanings and usages. Abandoning the evolutionary path in historical investigation, conceptual historians evade positivistic and universalistic models of language (Skinner 1969: 13). Instead, the plurality of meanings implies new constellations for interpretation.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Following Melvin Richter (1987: 247), I use conceptual history (or history of concepts) as the English translation for Koselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte. This label also includes John Pocock and Quentin Skinner’s history of ideas (Richter 1990). As Richter (1996: 17) suggest: “These German and Anglophone styles converge to an extent that justifies dialogue among their practitioners. Out of this might come a meaningful comparative analysis of how different political and social languages in [different, TM] speaking societies have converged and diverged”.
- 2.
See for example Skinner’s work on ‘liberty’ in his book liberty before liberalism (1998), and on the ‘state’ in “A Genealogy of the Modern State” (2009).
- 3.
Critical voices towards Skinner’s “revisited historical contextualism” (Lamb 2009) are gathered in the compilation edited by James Tully: Meaning and Context: Quentin Skinner and His Critics (1988).
- 4.
For a definition of the chronicle and an interpretation of the chronicler as translation see the chapter on the Valladolid Debate.
- 5.
In his analyses on the German concept of Volksgemeinschaft, Koselleck (2006: 56–58) quotes Koebner’s work and life. He traces Koebner’s changes in the usages of the term nation as he wrote from within Germany and after his exile to Palestine. Thereby, Koselleck explains that when we speak about the nation, we do it from a particular point of view. By reason of the situated thinking, Koselleck considers Koebner a precursor thinker of Skinner and Pocock.
- 6.
The interview was conducted in Madrid (2005), according to the interviewers: “during Koselleck’s first professional visit to Spain” (in: Koselleck 2016: 127). It originally appeared in Spanish in Revista de Libros, no. 111, in March 2006. Only ten years after this interview receives attention from conceptual historians ‘at the other side of the Pyrenees’.
- 7.
See e.g.: Skinner’s “History and Ideology in the English Revolution” (1965) and Michael Freeden’s “Ideologies and conceptual history” (1997).
- 8.
Koselleck (2016: 113) defines the political actors framing “the collective identity” as building “the German seven P’s”: professors who produced collective memory, priests, politicians, poets, press…”.
- 9.
Iberconceptos is a research project put in place Fernández Sebastián in 2005, which deals with the conceptual production of political concepts at both sides of the Atlantic. The purpose of such a post-national historiography, which compares the concepts’ trajectory among Spain, chosen Latin-American countries (such as Argentina, Venezuela, Colombia, and Peru) and Brazil, is also to create transversal conceptual histories (Fernández Sebastián 2007). It is interesting to note, that Fernández Sebastián localizes the requirement for a transnational historiography at the 21st century, and yet uses concepts that historically respond to the Spanish Imperial times, such as Iberoamerica. The name derives from Hispanoamerica, a concept created to designate the colonies of the Spanish Crown. To my knowledge, this concept does not circulate as cultural self-definition nor as geographical designation in any of the ‘studied’ countries.
- 10.
The politics of identity are discussed in the chapter on multiculturalism. See also: Avigail Eisenberg’s and Will Kymlicka’s edited volume Identity Politics in the Public Realm (2011). For a critique to these liberal politics, see: Alana Lentin’s article “Post-race, post politics: the paradoxical rise of culture after multiculturalism” (2012).
- 11.
See chapter Translation and Culture.
- 12.
This mutation is found in the canon of ‘world literature’ and the life of a literary masterpiece. In the labelling of a work as ‘classic’, translations play a decisive role. It is through the trajectory undergone by the original meaning that the work becomes a component of the universal history. As Aranda (2008: 52) states: “Universal literature gains when national literatures are translated”. The label of classic is gained in retrospective, i.e., after the intercourse with second and third languages has occurred.
- 13.
Being a current concept in the social sciences within Latin American discourses, acculturation stands for the phenomenon of renouncing one’s own culture for adapting into an alien one, which is considered dominant (Mujica Bermúdez 2002). This process presupposes the annihilation of the ‘hosting’ culture, which is being translated (Mancheno 2015).
- 14.
Through social dynamics, and contradictory interpretations, the classical book Kama Sutra has either been partially accepted or rejected inside and outside of India (see: Bassnett/ Trivedi 2002: 6–7). For further examples on cultural censorship see: Spivak (2005).
- 15.
Translated from the Castilian concept Indio, indigène denotes the colonial subjects from the former French colonies in the Maghreb and the Caribbean (Guadalupe and Martinique). In words of Spivak (1993: 189), the concept of indigène presents an ethno-cultural agenda, an “obliteration of third world specificity”, as well as a denial of cultural citizenship.
- 16.
Fanon’s biography shows that Appiah’s dialogue is not an individual anecdote. After having migrated to France, Fanon adapted his name of birth into Western standards. Consequently, academic audiences usually ignore Fanon’s middle name Omar. Nowadays, this translation and cultural censorship are found in the omission of Appiah’s first name Kwame. In both cases, the authors veiled their non-Western names.
- 17.
Fanon and Benjamin were members of so-called minorities and were forced to migrate. By virtue of birth, and in legal terms (solis sanguinis), Fanon was a French colonial indigène and Benjamin was a Jew. Both identities were politically considered a betrayal of the European totalitarian cultural norm. Fanon left Martinique for higher education to Paris and afterwards to Lyon. Afterwards, he migrated for practicing his medical licence to the other French colonies Algeria and Tunisia. In his writings, he continually reflects upon the experiences of his travelling identities in being called French, migrant, Black and mulatto. Against his will, Fanon died in the United States. Neither Benjamin returned to his country of birth. Once he was forced into exile, he committed suicide.
- 18.
For a definition of the translation regime see the introduction to this book.
- 19.
Although Wittgenstein did not explicitly refer to race and racism, his writings on language are inevitably related to these subjects. See: Richard A. Jones’ Black Book. Wittgenstein and Race (2013), and Peg O’Connor’s Oppression and Responsibility: Wittgensteinian Approach to Social Practices and Moral Theory (2002).
- 20.
Fanon’s (1967: 17–8) uses of the French term nègre (Negro) neither refer to phenotypes nor to a ‘culture’ proper to all Black individuals around the world. He uses the concept in a political manner by including agency and singularity into the analysis of racialized identities.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2023 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Mancheno, T. (2023). Translation as Method. In: Ma(r)king the Difference . Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40924-1_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-40924-1_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer VS, Wiesbaden
Print ISBN: 978-3-658-40923-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-658-40924-1
eBook Packages: Social Science and Law (German Language)