Gramsci’s dirigere terms resist single English translation equivalents
Evidence
Questions of censorship apart, Gramsci’s terminology presents a number of difficulties to the translator. Wherever possible we have tried to render each term of Gramsci’s with a single equivalent, as close as possible to the original. In one particular set of cases this has proved impossible, and that is with the group of words centred around the verb dirigere (dirigente, direllivo, direzione , etc.). Here we have in part followed the normal English usage dictated by the context (e.g. direzione - leadership; classe dirigente = ruling class) but in certain cases we have translated dirigente and direttivo as “directive” in order to preserve what for Gramsci is a crucial conceptual distinction, between power based on “domination” and the exercise of “direction” or “hegemony”. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 26
Categorization
Category: Definitional Content
- XREF: The untranslatable dirigere/direzione cluster feeds into Gramsci’s later distinction between domination and hegemony — a core toolkit concept for the Islamophobia readings.