Context, here, is not so much an introductory chapter as a description of the global mise-en-scène that has necessitated this rethinking of our understanding of the concept of the political. Today, we are facing a global environmental catastrophe without adequate conceptual tools to address the issue and without an understanding that the impending catastrophe comes from the very industries, technologies, and types of thinking that produced modernity. Highlighting the ever-expanding role of markets, and recognizing them as both economic growth machines and knowledge systems producing echo chambers of understanding, this chapter argues that we cannot address our problems unless we begin to creatively and fundamentally rethink basic concepts by drawing on knowledge traditions that lie outside a Western framework.