Expansions

Abstract

“Translation” has emerged in the previous decades as a key word in disciplines such as history, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS). Moreover, from around 2000 it has become institutionalized in medicine, leading to the development of so-called knowledge translation (KT). While the turn to translation in the humanities could be seen as an index of contemporary epistemological predicaments and the almost obligatory requirement to cross disciplinary and cultural boundaries in a ‘global age’, medical translation is of a different nature. KT denotes a scientific and purportedly non-cultural practice that defines cultural difference as a “barrier” to the transmission of medical science. In contrast, STS have celebrated the productivity of translation as the condition of possibility for science and society. In the following we will map some salient traits of the current expansions of translation beyond the linguistic. This chapter has been accepted and published in A History of Modern Translation Knowledge. © 2018 John Benjamins Publishing Company