What is ‘translation’?

Abstract

What is 'translation', and how might it help us think differently about knowledge transfer and exchange? The purpose of this paper is to set out, for policy makers and practitioners, the theoretical and conceptual resources translation holds and seems to represent; it begins by recasting research, policy and practice themselves as instances of translation. It explores understandings of translation in literature and linguistics and in the sociology of science and technology, developing them in respect of a brief case study of the seminal women's health text, Our Bodies, Ourselves. In concluding, it picks up key themes of uncertainty, practice and complexity.

When policy makers consult professional groups in public policy formation: Transversal consultation in the Belgian Mental Health Sector

“…(Crozier & Friedberg, 1992: 86, free translation). As such, the intermediary actor has a margin of freedom to translate the mandate of transversal coordinator, and therefore his organizational concerns (as well as methodological preferences) may interfere with this translation (Freeman, 2009).…”

“…What difficulties are inherent in bringing together professionals from different backgrounds, and what organizational innovations might they co-create? The therapeutic project stories highlight a number of questions such as these, and almost as many different answers according to which project is analysed, the context in which projects unfolded, and how the coordinators translated (Freeman, 2009) the administrative rules to succeed in making the project sustainable.…”

Analysing ‘Migrant’ Membership Frames through Education Policy Discourse: An Example of Restrictive ‘Integration’ Policy within Europe

“…This includes people working in federal ministry departments and cross-cantonal governmental education officials, as well as persons responsible for delivering data for policy-informing purposes. The term 'policy brokers', according to Grek et al (2009, p. 6), could be applied to these actors, who are located in some sense at an interface level and who 'translate' (Freeman, 2009) national data into policy terms (Cooren, 2004) or interpret European developments into the national and cantonal space.…”

“…This article works with the idea of 'integration' in its translation (Freeman, 2009) into education policy. The concept lends itself to discursive analysis because it contains the transfer or strategic attribution of meaning to socio-political ideas such as 'culture', 'national identity' or ideas of access to 'equal opportunities', according to the representations of policy actors.…”

Knowledge, local actors and public action

“…Ours is focused on the transfer of knowledge between communities of actors and the processes of transformation, conversion or translation (Freeman, 2009) unavoidably associated with any transfer or any incorporation of a representation originally held by one category of actors into the corpus of representations of another category of actors. Transfers and transformations depend especially on differences between the representations of the 'issuer' community and those of the 'receiving' community, and therefore on the public policy reference system (référentiel) (Jobert & Muller, 1987), paradigms (Hall, 1993) or core features of the representations (Abric, 2001) that structure, stabilize and provide the parameters for the actors' knowledge and representations.…”