Article published In: Special inaugural issue: Translating the Extreme
[Translation in Society 1:1] 2022
► pp. 105–124
From translation zone to sacrifice zone
Minor perspectives on the tradosphere
Published online: 22 November 2021
https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.21014.cro
https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.21014.cro
Abstract
One of the most extreme challenges facing humanity at present is the climate crisis. Responding appropriately to this crisis requires a fundamental re-examination of received ways of thinking about translation, among other things. Contrasting the eco-minor with the eco-major mode of representing ecological crisis, we argue for the importance of minority perspectives in developing an expanded remit for translation studies in the context of the climate emergency. The concepts of relational and situational minority are advanced to explore how indigenous translation hermeneutics can inform climate debates. In line with environmental debates around the importance of ‘thinking outdoors’, we advocate for a notion of ‘translating outdoors’ and seek to incorporate this line of enquiry into the development of the concept of the city as more-than-human translation zone. In the coming age of extreme climate conditions, no socially responsible understanding of translation can afford to ignore ecological perspectives on the practice.
Keywords: ecology, city, minority, indigenous, climate, environment, Mexico, Ireland, Anishinaabe, hermeneutics
Article outline
- Eco-major
- Eco-minor
- Relational minority
- Situational minority
- Translating outdoors
- The city as more-than-human translation zone
- Note
References
References (49)
Alavez, Raymundo Isidro. 2010. “Para que traducir a la lengua hñähñu – Why Translate into Hñähñu.” In Beyond Words: Translating the World, edited by Susan Ouriou. 20–29. Banff: Banff Centre Press.
Andrews, Edna. 2003. Conversations with Lotman: Cultural Semiotics in Language, Literature, and Cognition. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Apter, Emily. 2006. The Translation Zone: A New Comparative Literature. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bonneuil, Christophe, and Jean-Baptiste Fressoz. 2016. The Shock of the Anthropocene: The Earth, History and Us [orig. L’événement Anthropocène: La Terre, l’histoire et nous]. Translated by David Fernbach. London: Verso.
Charney, Noah, and Charley Eisman. 2010. Tracks and Sign of Insects and Other Invertebrates: A Guide to North American Species. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole.
D’Hulst, Lieven, and Kaisa Koskinen. eds. 2020. Translating in Town: Local Translation Policies During the European 19th Century. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Herrera, Servín Enrique. 2010. “Literary Translation in the Indigenous Languages of the Americas.” In Beyond Words: Translating the World, edited by Susan Ouriou. 108–113. Banff: Banff Centre Press.
Hornborg, Alf. 2006. “Animism, Fetishism, and Objectivism as Strategies for Knowing (or Not Knowing) the World.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 71 (1): 21–32.
Ingold, Tim. 2006. “Rethinking the Animate, Re-Animating Thought.” Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 71 (1): 9–20.
Latour, Bruno. 2017. Facing Gaia: Eight Lectures on the New Climatic Regime [orig. Face à Gaïa. Huit conférence sur le nouveau régime climatique]. Translated by Catherine Porter. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Latour, Bruno, and Timothy M. Lenton. 2019. “Extending the Domain of Freedom, or Why Gaia Is So Hard to Understand.” Critical Inquiry, 45 (3): 659–680.
MacCormack, Patricia. 2020. The Ahuman Manifesto: Activism for the End of the Anthropocene. London: Bloomsbury Academic.
Magan, Manchán. 2020. Thirty-Two Words for Field: Lost Words of the Irish Landscape. Dublin: Gill Books.
Marais, Kobus. 2019. A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation: The Emergence of Socio-Cultural Reality. London: Routledge.
Maran, Timo. 2021. “The Ecosemiosphere is a Grounded Semiosphere: A Lotmanian Conceptualization of Cultural-Ecological Systems.” Biosemiotics, 1–12.
O’Connell, Mark. 2020. Notes from an Apocalypse: A Personal Journey to the End of the World and Back. London: Granta.
O’Connor, Ralph. 2014. “Irish Narrative Literature and the Classical Tradition, 900–1300.” In Classical Literature and Learning in Medieval Irish Narrative, edited by Ralph O’Connor. 1–22. Cambridge: DS Brewer.
Noodin, Margaret A. 2019. “EZHI-GIKENDAMANG AANIKANOOTAMANG ANISHINAABEMOWIN: Anishinaabe Translation Studies.” In At Translation’s Edge, edited by Nataša Durovičová, Patrice Petro, and Lorena Terando. 123–135. Newark: Rutgers University Press.
O’Gorman, Emily and Gaynor, Andrea. 2020. “More-Than-Human Histories.” Environmental History 25 (4): 711–735.
Ó Laoire, Lillis. 2003. “’…d’imeodh an aois díom’: Tír na nÓg agus Talamh na hÉireann.” In Cruth na Tíre, edited Wilson McLeod, and Máire Ní Annracháin, Máire. 39–68. Dublin: Coiscéim.
. 2007. “Human Exceptionalism and the Limitations of Animals: A Review of Raimond Gaita’s The Philosopher’s Do.” Australian Humanities 421 (August). [URL]
. 2009. “Nature in the Active Voice.“ Australian Humanities Review 461. [URL].
Rafael, Vicente. 1992. Contracting Colonialism: Translation and Christian Conversion in Tagalog Society Under Early Spanish Rule. Durham (NC): Duke University Press.
Ring, Grete. 1945. “St. Jerome Extracting the Thorn from the Lion’s Foot.” The Art Bulletin, 27 (3): 188–194.
Ritchie, Hannah and Roser, Max. 2019. “Urbanization.” Our World in Data. [URL]
Rumiz, Paolo. 2015. The Fault Line: Travelling the Other Europe, from Finland to Ukraine [orig. Aux frontières de L’Europe]. Translated by Gregory Conti. New York: Rizzoli Ex Libris.
Salmond, Anne. 2017. Tears of Rangi: Experiments across Worlds. Auckland: University of Auckland Press.
Simon, Sherry, and Michael Cronin. 2014. “Introduction: The City as Translation Zone.” Translation Studies, 7 (2): 119–132.
Smethurst, Paul. 2013. Travel Writing and the Natural World 1760–1840. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Snowden, Frank M. 2020. Epidemics and Society: From the Black Death to the Present. London: Yale University Press.
Cited by (4)
Cited by four other publications
Mancosu, Paola
Mancosu, Paola
Torres-Simón, Ester, Susana Valdez, Hanna Pięta & Rita Menezes
2023. Is indirect translation a friend or a foe of sustainable development?. Translation Spaces 12:2 ► pp. 204 ff.
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 6 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.
