Unexpected Allies

AbstractWhereas Bourdieu assumes that society can only be explained by analyzing practices and relating them to their authors’ position in society as well as to their own trajectory in their field, Latour claims that to understand a society one must, above all, analyze the way humans and non-humans interact, i.e., how the artefacts that circulate in this society (starting with scientific and technological ones) are produced. As such, Latour favours the study of science in the making, which can be done, primarily, through ethnographic analysis of research labs. This article explores how Bruno Latour’s actor-network’s theory could complement Bourdieusian analyses in translation studies, allowing us to move further in the development of a more agent- and processoriented type of research. The paper presents the key concepts, goals and achievements of Latour’s approach and analyzes the way his framework relates to – or confronts – Bourdieu’s sociology. It also discusses three major limits to the polysystemic framework addressed in Hermans (1999): the lack of consideration for agents involved in the translation process; the somewhat deterministic character of this theory; and its bias towards contextual rather than cognitive aspects of translation. In each case, the paper considers the extent to which Bourdieu and Latour’s concepts and research methods have helped, or might help, to overcome these limits. Additional informationNotes on contributorsHélène BuzelinHélène Buzelin, Département de linguistique et de traduction, Université de Montréal, C.P. 6128, succursale Centre-ville, Montréal (Québec), Canada H3C 3J7. helene.buzelin@umontreal.ca