Translation, Treaties and Testimonies

This special issue of Sites is devoted to the twin themes of 'cultural translation' and the politics of interpretation. The term 'translation' generally sums up the problem of how something said or written in one language can be faithfully reproduced or expressed in another. The assumption here is that the seeming incommensurability of different languages and modes of thought can somehow be bridged by finding the right idiom through which the concepts, meanings and sentiments of one culture can be accurately transposed across linguistic and cultural barriers. What the contributors to this volume illustrate, both individually and collectively, is that translation is a process fraught with difficulties. Those difficulties are linguistic and practical as well as epistemological and political. Perhaps nowhere are the dilemmas of translation more apparent than in debates over the meaning of treaties, constitutions and other legal documents. Let me begin, therefore, with a brief illustration of a legal dispute that I observed while living in the United States, which set me thinking about anthropology and the politics of interpreting constitutional texts

Biology · Linguistics · Political science · Translation (biology) · African history and culture analysis · Computer Science · Genetics · Philosophy · Religious Education and Schools · Study and Philosophy of Religion

• Introduction

  Gísli Pálsson•Beyond Boundaries•2020

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• Genealogies of Religion

  Yongshun Cai, Lin Zhu•The China Journal•2013

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