On translation and its history in the social sciences and humanities

This article explores the role of translation within the social sciences and humanities (SSH), as well as some theoretical and methodological challenges of historicizing SSH translation. Moving beyond traditional literary-focused translation studies, we argue that disciplinary fields and their categories are not essentialist but culturally and temporally contingent epistemic constructs. Consequently, providing a rigid definition of SSH translation is both problematic and, perhaps, unnecessary. Through a series of what we call micro case studies, we posit that the study of translation within the SSH can be understood at least in three distinct ways: as a heuristic lens, as a documented practice, and as an internal (trans)disciplinary issue. We conclude that translation within the SSH is better approached as a flexible, unstable and open-ended historical phenomenon, and we advocate for an entangled perspective to historicize it.