Cover not available

Article published In: In Search of Round Trips: Travelling concepts in translation studies and beyond
Edited by Cornelia Zwischenberger
[Translation in Society 4:1] 2025
► pp. 97–113

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload EPUB
authorization required

Bridging disjunctures

Appadurai’s cultural anthropology of globalisation and literary translation studies

ORCiD logo with link | University of Limerick
Published online: 7 July 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.24016.lin
Abstract
The concept of globalisation emerged in Translation Studies (TS) in the early 2000s, driven by works such as Cronin’s Translation and Globalization (Cronin, Michael. 2003. Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and Esperança Bielsa’s contributions (Bielsa, Esperança. 2005. “Globalisation and Translation: A Theoretical Approach.” Language and Intercultural Communication 5 (2): 131–144. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar, . 2007. “Translation in Global News Agencies.” Target 19 (1): 135–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar). However, despite a surge of initial interest, the discipline has not consistently engaged with recent globalisation theories or global studies, but has rather focused on the use of theories, such as Even-Zohar’s or Bourdieu’s, that were elaborated either before or outside discussions on globalisation. This article proposes integrating Arjun Appadurai’s cultural globalisation theory into TS, focusing on global literary translation flows. Appadurai’s theory introduces five scapes — ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes — that represent different dimensions of global culture and whose connections and disjunctures offer productive exploration sites in TS. This article identifies areas where Appadurai’s scapes can expand and invigorate translation research, such as the impact of technoscapes on book distribution in an algorithmic era, financescapes on translation promotion, and ideoscapes on institutional translation policies. By integrating these scapes this article aims to explore multifaceted translation processes and highlight new potential research avenues in TS.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Sociology and anthropology of translation: From Bourdieu to Appadurai’s landscapes
    • 2.1Sociological approaches to translation
    • 2.2Appadurai’s anthropological theory of landscapes
    • 2.3Landscapes of translation
  • 3.The production and distribution of translations in a globalised world
    • 3.1Ideoscapes and institutional translation policies
    • 3.2Technology, media, translation and visibility
  • 4.Criticism of Appadurai’s theory of globalisation
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
References
Airoldi, Massimo, and Joonas Rokka. 2022. “Algorithmic Consumer Culture.” Consumption Markets & Culture, 25 (5): 411–428. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alter, Alexandra. 2020. “Bookstores are Struggling. Is a New e-Commerce Site the Answer?” New York Times. 16 June 2020. [URL]
Anderson, Benedict. 1991. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. (Rev. and extended ed.) London: Verso.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anderson, Porter. 2021. “In London, a Call for Publishers to ‘Name Translators on the Cover.” Publishing Perspectives. 30 September 2021. [URL]
Appadurai, Arjun. 1990. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy.” Theory, Culture & Society 7 (23): 295–310. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1996. Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Arjun Appadurai.” Globalizations 11 (4): 481–490. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bassnett, Susan. 2005. Global News Translation. Special Issue of Language and Intercultural Communication 5 (2): 105–187.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bielsa, Esperança. 2005. “Globalisation and Translation: A Theoretical Approach.” Language and Intercultural Communication 5 (2): 131–144. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. “Translation in Global News Agencies.” Target 19 (1): 135–155. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
, ed. 2021. The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
British Museum. 2023. “Press Release: Statement on Translation by Yilin Wang.” 4 August 2023. [URL]
Büchler, Alexandra, and Giulia Trentacosti. 2015. Publishing Translated Literature in the United Kingdom and Ireland 1990–2012. Statistical Report. London: Literature Across Frontiers. Accessed on 20 March 2025. [URL]
Buzelin, Hélène. 2011. “Agents of Translation.” In Handbook of Translation Studies, edited by Yves Gambier, and Luc van Doorslaer, 6–12. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cabrera-Caneda, Teresa. 2021. “Literature and Translation: Global Confluences and Meaningful Asymmetries.” In Routledge Handbook of Translation and Globalization, edited by Esperança Bielsa, and Dionysios Kapsaskis, 265–277. Londo: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caine, Danny. 2023. How to Protect Bookstores and Why: The Present and Future of Bookselling. Portland: Microcosm Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carbó-Catalan, Elisabet, and Diana Roig-Sanz. 2022. Culture as Soft Power: Bridging Cultural Relations, Intellectual Cooperation, and Cultural Diplomacy. Berlin: De Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Casanova, Pascale. 1999. La République mondiale des lettres. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. The World Republic of Letters. Translated by M. B. DeBevoise. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castoriadis, Cornelius. 1987. The Imaginary Institution of Society. Cambridge (MA): MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Castro, Olga, and Laura Linares. 2021. “Translating the Literatures of Stateless Cultures in Spain: Translation Grants and Institutional Supports at the Frankfurt Book Fair.” Perspectives 30 (5): 792–810. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chitnis, Rajendra, Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen, Rhian Atkin, and Zoran Milutinović. 2017. Translating the Literatures of Smaller European Nations: A Picture from the UK, 2014–2016. London: Literature Across Frontiers. Accessed on 20 March 2025. [URL]
, eds. 2020. Translating the Literatures of Small European Nations. Liverpool: Liverpool University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cohn, Jenae. 2016. The Books that Bind Us: Remediation of the Printed Book as Social Practice in the 21st Century. PhD diss. University of California Davis.
Cronin, Michael. 2003. Translation and Globalization. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dera, Jeroen. 2024. “BookTok. A Narrative Review of Current Literature and Directions for Future Research.” Literature Compass 21 (10–12): 1–8. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duchêne, Alexandre, and Monica Heller. 2012. Language in Late Capitalism. Pride and Profit. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Duffy, Brooke Erin. 2020. “Algorithmic Precarity in Cultural Work.” Communication and the Public 5 (3–4): 103–107. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Even-Zohar, Itamar. 1990. “The Position of Translated Literature within the Literary Polysystem.” Poetics Today 11 (1): 45–51. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “Polysystem Theory (Revised).” In Papers in Culture Research, edited by Itamar Even-Zohar, 1–11. Tel Aviv: Porter Chair of Semiotics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fernández Rodríguez, Áurea, Iolanda Galanes Santos, Ana Luna Alonso, and Silvia Montero Küpper. 2012. Traducción de una cultura emergente. La literatura gallega contemporánea en el exterior. Bern: Peter Lang. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fowler, Bridget. 2021. “Writers and Politics: Gisèle Sapiro’s Advances within the Bourdieusian Sociology of the Literary Field.” Theory and Society, 501: 867–889. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2024. “Yes: I translated it!”: Visibility and the Performance of Translatorship in the Digital Paratextual Space.” In Beyond the Translator’s Invisibility: Critical Reflections and New Perspectives, edited by Peter Freeth, and Rafael Treviño, 147–172. Leuven: Leuven University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ganguly, Debjani. 2008. “Global Literary Refractions: Reading Pascale Casanova’s The World Republic of Letters in the Post-Cold War Era.” English Academy Review. A Journal of English Studies 29 (1): 249–264. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
García de Vinuesa, Maya. 2018. “Narradoras africanas en versión española: políticas editoriales y traducción.” In Trans-afrohispanismos. Puentes culturales críticos entre África, Latinoamérica y España, edited by Dorothy Odartey-Wellington, 260–283. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Oisin, and Giulia Maggiori. 2021. “Book Covers: To #NameTheTranslator or Not?” The Publishing Post. Accessed on 20 March 2025. [URL]
Heilbron, Johan. 1999. “Towards a Sociology of Translation: Book Translations as a Cultural World System.” European Journal of Social Theory 21: 429–444. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “Translation as a Cultural World System.” Perspectives. Studies in Translation Theory and Practice 8 (1): 9–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hermans, Theo. 1999. Translation in Systems. Descriptive and System-Oriented Approaches Explained. Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Heyman, Josiah McC., and Howard Campbell. 2009. “The Anthropology of Global Flows: A Critical Reading of Appadurai’s ‘Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy’.” Anthropological Theory 9 (2): 131–148. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ho, Karen. 2023. “British Museum Reaches Settlement with Poet Yilin Wang after Using Translations without Permission.” ARTNews. 7 August 2023. [URL]
Hur, Anton. [@AntonHur]. 2022. “X publication.” X. 27 December 2022. [URL]
Inghilleri, Moira. 2017. Translation and Migration. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kershaw, Angela. 2020. “Publishing Landscapes.” In Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, edited by Mona Baker, and Gabriela Saldanha, 445–449. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kershaw, Angela, and Gabriela Saldanha. 2013. “Introduction: Global Landscapes of Translation.” Translation Studies 6 (2): 135–149. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lewandowsky, Stephan, Ronald E. Robertson, and Renee DiResta. 2023. “Challenges in Understanding Human-Algorithm Entanglement during Online Information Consumption.” Perspectives on Psychological Science 19 (5): 758–766. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Linares, Laura. 2025. Landscapes of Translation: Contemporary Galician Literature in English. Oxford: Legenda.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Polezzi, Loredana. 2012. “Translation and Migration.” Translation Studies, 5 (3): 345–356. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “Translation, Travel, Migration.” The Translator, 12 (2): 169–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rothwell, Andrew, Andy Way, and Roy Youdale. 2024. Computer-Assisted Literary Translation. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sapiro, Gisèle. 2008. “Translation and the Field of Publishing: A Commentary on Pierre Bourdieu’s ‘A Conservative Revolution in Publishing’.” Translation Studies, 1 (2): 154–166. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2011. “Comparativism, Transfers, Entangled History: Sociological Perspectives on Literature.” In A Companion to Comparative Literature, edited by Ali Behdad, and Dominic Thomas, 225–236. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2014. “The Sociology of Translation: A New Research Domain.” In A Companion to Translation Studies, edited by Sandra Bermann, and Catherine Porter, 82–94. Hoboken: Wiley and Sons. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “What Factors Determine the International Circulation of Scholarly Books? The Example of Translations between English and French in the Era of Globalization.” In The Social and Human Sciences in Global Power Relations, edited by Johan Heilbron, Gustavo Sorá, and Thibaud Boncourt, 59–93. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “The Transnational Literary Field between (Inter)-Nationalism and Cosmopolitanism.” Journal of World Literature, 5 (4): 481–504. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2023. “The Metamorphoses of Cultural Capital in a Neoliberal and Multicultural Era: Towards a Comparative Approach.” Journal of Sociology 59 (2): 310–317. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stewart, Sophia. 2021. “Translators Fight for Credit on Their Own Book Covers.” Publishers Weekly, 15 October 2021. [URL]
Thompson, John. B. 2010. Merchants of Culture: The Publishing Business in the Twenty-First Century. Cambridge: Polity Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Venturini, Santiago. 2017. “La invención de un catálogo. Políticas de traducción en editoriales literarias recientes de Argentina.” Literatura: Teoría, Historia, Crítica 19 (2): 183–201.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wang, Yilin. 2023. “Hold the British Museum Accountable for Copyright Infringement.” CrowdJustice. [URL]
Wiederhold, Brenda K. 2022. “BookTok Made Me Do It: The Evolution of Reading.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 25 (3). Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yeung, Jessie. 2023. “British Museum Agrees to Pay Translator Whose Work It Used Without Permission.” CNN. 9 August 2023. [URL]
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue