A Translational Sociology: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Politics and Society

187 Pages·2022·4.045 MB·English

by  Esperança Bielsa

A TRANSLATIONAL SOCIOLOGY
A Translational Sociology provides an interdisciplinary investigation of the key
role of translation in society. There is a growing recognition of translation’s
intervention in the intellectual history of sociology, in the international
reception of social theory, and in approaches to the global literary and
academic fields. This book brings attention to aspects of translation that have
remained more elusive to sociological interpretation and analysis, investigating
translation’s ubiquitous presence in the everyday lives of ordinary people in
increasingly multilingual societies and its key intervention in mediating politics
within and beyond the nation.
In order to challenge a reductive view of translation as a relatively straightforward
process of word substitution that is still prevalent in the social sciences, this book
proposes and develops a broader definition of translation as a social relation across
linguistic difference, a process of transformation that leaves neither its agent nor its
object unchanged. The book offers elaborations of the social, cultural and political
implications of such an approach, as a broad focus on these various perspectives and
their interrelations is needed for a fuller understanding of translation’s significance in
the contemporary world.
This is key reading for advanced students and researchers of translation studies,
social theory, cultural sociology and political sociology.
Esperança Bielsa is an Associate Professor and ICREA Academia Fellow at the
Department of Sociology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. Her most
recent books are The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Media (ed. 2022) and The
Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization (with D. Kapsaskis, eds. 2021).
Translation, Politics and Society
Series Editor: Esperança Bielsa, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona
Translation is increasingly becoming a broad topic of scholarly reflection in the
social sciences. In disciplines like sociology, anthropology, international relations,
policy studies and human rights studies a new concern with the significance of
translation in social life is emerging among interdisciplinary scholars who pro-
ductively draw from accounts developed in postcolonial studies, translation stu-
dies, and science and technology studies. This heterogeneous body of research
shares the following distinctive traits:
• An association of translation with movement and transformation.
• An attention to the key intervention of local actors and to spaces of
contestation and resistance to the global diffusion of practices and
norms.
• A broad view of translation as relating not just to texts but to
emerging social relations between previously unconnected people,
materials and things.
• A critical call to rethinking their disciplines through translation.
Translation, Politics and Society is a series providing an interdisciplinary space
where different approximations to the role of translation in contemporary politics
and society can flourish and interconnect, becoming more widely visible. The
series publishes broad-ranging, accessible titles that will be of interest to advanced
students and researchers with disciplinary backgrounds in sociology, political
science, anthropology, international relations, human rights studies, cultural stu-
dies and translation studies.
A TRANSLATIONAL
SOCIOLOGY
Interdisciplinary Perspectives
on Politics and Society
Esperança Bielsa
Cover image: Antonio Aguilera
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 Esperança Bielsa
The right of Esperança Bielsa to be identified as author of this work has been
asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs
and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Names: Bielsa, Esperança, 1971- author.
Title: A translational sociology : interdisciplinary perspectives on politics and
society / Esperança Bielsa.
Description: First edition. | Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY :
Routledge, 2023. | Series: Translation, politics and society | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022028975 | ISBN 9781032112121 (hardback) | ISBN
9781032112138 (paperback) | ISBN 9781003218890 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Translating and interpreting‐‐Social aspects. | Translating
and interpreting‐‐Political aspects.
Classification: LCC P306.97.S63 B546 2023 | DDC 418/.02‐‐dc23/eng/
20220715
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028975
ISBN: 978-1-032-11212-1 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-032-11213-8 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-21889-0 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003218890
Typeset in Bembo
by MPS Limited, Dehradun
For Antonio, recalcitrant monolingual

CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ix
Introduction 1
PART I
Translation and society 7
1 Translation and identity 9
2 Translation and transformation 30
3 For a translational sociology 45
PART II
Translation and politics 65
4 Politics of translation 67
5 Translating democracy 77
6 The translator as producer 94
viii Contents
PART III
Translation and experience 113
7 Translation and modernity: Benjamin’s Baudelaire 115
8 Translating strangers 135
9 Homecoming: an auto-analysis 152
Conclusion: translation and reflexivity 164
General bibliography 167
Index 170
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The materials that have gone into writing this book have been evolving for a long
time and if I try to thank all those who have been relevant during a period of
almost 20 years I will fail miserably. Instead, I express my gratitude only to those
who have significantly intervened since the book was first conceived as such,
about three years ago.
Intensive intellectual work isolates but it can also bring people together in the
most fruitful of ways. I have had the good fortune of having been able to enjoy
regular extended conversations with Antonio Aguilera and Mattea Cussel during
the writing of this book and both have offered a stimulating sounding board for
new ideas and thoughts. Antonio has always pushed me to go further into the
more general social and political significance on translation. My engagement with
Walter Benjamin has also greatly benefited from his own. Mattea suddenly
appeared with a doctoral project that cleverly defied from the start key received
ideas in translation studies. Supervising her research has been a constant source of
enjoyment and learning. This book is coming to an end roughly at the same time
as her thesis. I hope my guidance compensates for the guilty pleasure of
assimilating her name into Catalan/Spanish.
I have benefited, during the past two years, from pleasant and productive
collaborations with the team members of the project I lead on ‘Political
Translation’ at the Autonomous University of Barcelona: Oriol Barranco,
Carmen Bestué, Mattea Cussel, Dionysios Kapsaskis, Judith Raigal. I believe the
work we undertake together in this project can drive the main insights offered in
this book in new productive directions.
I am also very grateful to Gerard Delanty and Bridget Fowler for their readings
and critical comments on previous versions of several chapters of the book and for
thought-provoking conversations, and to Robert Gibb for his advice on a difficult
issue and for telling me that the book needed a conclusion.