Introduction: translation and performance cultures

ABSTRACT This introduction to the special issue opens up a dialogue between Theatre and Performance Studies and translation sociology, focusing simultaneously on the importance of developing performance-sensitive forms of knowledge and highlighting performance cultures as fruitful contexts for studying translation as a social practice and the multiple forms of agency shaping it. In particular, it challenges the “ideology of print” as the prevalent epistemological starting point of Western translation theory. The introduction also raises questions about the ways in which processes of translation are constitutive of performance cultures by mobilising translation sociology to reveal the agents, networks, and technologies which are responsible for these negotiations. The ambition is for Translation Studies to see performance cultures as a complement; an alternative; a way of critiquing the text-centric paradigm of Western translation theory, and inspiring new ways of thinking about what aspects of performance cultures are silenced, replaced, or negotiated when they are textualized through translation.