Using the Concepts of Hermeneutical Injustice and Ideology to Explain the Stability of Ancient Egypt During the Middle Kingdom |
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| Authors: | Zeyad El Nabolsy |
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| Institution: | Zeyad el Nabolsy is a PhD student at the Africana Studies and Research Center, Cornell University. He can be contacted via email at: ze44@cornell.edu
This paper has benefitted tremendously from suggestions made by Christopher M. Monroe, as well as the comments and suggestions that were made by anonymous reviewers for The Journal of Historical Sociology. I also wish to acknowledge Michelle Kosch's encouragement of my rather unorthodox engagement with the concept of hermeneutical injustice, which eventually led to this paper. |
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| Abstract: | This paper argues that the relative stability of ancient Egyptian society during the Middle Kingdom (c.2055 – 1650 BC) can in part be explained by referring to the phenomenon of hermeneutical injustice, i.e., the manner in which imbalances in socio-economic power are causally correlated with imbalances in the conceptual scheme through which people attempt to interpret their social reality and assert their interests in light of their interpretations. The court literature of the Middle Kingdom is analyzed using the concepts of hermeneutical injustice and ideology. It is argued that while it is true that there was room for maneuver and for internal critique, the efficacy of internal critique was hindered by the structure of the intellectual discourse of Middle Kingdom Egypt. This intellectual discourse was suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that allowed the elites to assert their interests, but it was not suitable for the interpretation of social reality in a way that accorded with the interests of the exploited peasantry. |
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