Institutional translation: infrastructural and material legacies

This article argues for the centrality of infrastructural and material factors in understanding institutional translation, highlighting how translation practices are shaped by historically embedded systems that often remain invisible. Bringing together hard infrastructures (such as buildings, technologies and spatial arrangements) with soft infrastructures (including norms, regulations, routines and organisational cultures), the study demonstrates how these elements interact to structure institutional dynamics, enable capacities and condition translational activity over time. Using examples drawn from the institutional translation practices of the Catholic Church, the article argues that infrastructural and material conditions have historically impacted translation and continue to influence multilingual communication. By foregrounding infrastructural continuities and adaptations, the article proposes an expanded analytical framework for institutional translation history. It concludes that infrastructural thinking offers valuable insights into the long-term dynamics, constraints and affordances that underpin translational practices within multilingual organizations.