Legal Transfers as Processes of Cultural Translation: On the Consequences of a Metaphor

Abstract

During the last decade, cultural studies faced a so-called “translational turn”. The concept of translation was taken up and reinterpreted in a figurative sense. The concept of translation is no longer confined to the process of putting a text from one language into another, but describes also processes in which foreign knowledge, values or practices are adapted. The article deals with the question whether this expanded concept of translation proves to be fruitful in order to gain a better understanding of legal transfers. By discussing ideas of Walter Benjamin, Homi K. Bhabha and Dipesh Chakrabarty on translation it shows how the concept of translation opens our view for the complex positioning of the actors, which is characteristic for transfer processes and which enables reflecting the transformations that take place beyond the idea of a linear give-and-take.

Keywords: Legal transfers, cultural translation, entangled legal history, comparative law