Bridging disjunctures: Appadurai’s cultural anthropology of globalisation and literary translation studies

The concept of globalisation emerged in Translation Studies (TS) in the early 2000s, driven by works such as Cronin’s Translation and Globalization (2003) and Esperança Bielsa’s contributions (2005, 2007). 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.