Translations, translocations, and pluralism: A transnational and multilingual analysis of the circulation of radical geographical knowledge

Overview & Synopsis

Based on recently opened multilingual archives, this paper addresses relationally three transnational cases of early networking for critical and radical geography that took place in different countries and languages between the 1970s and the 1980s. Addressing materials from the Union of Socialist Geographers (USG, North America and around, 1974–1982), the Unión de Geógrafos Progresistas de México (UGPM, Mexico [involving Latin America], 1978–1990), and Geografia Democratica (GD, Italy [involving France], 1976–1981), it extends scholarship on translation, translocation, and pluralistic bids to decolonise geography. It argues for considering transnational and multilingual analyses of the circulation of geographical knowledge as key to understanding translation as translocation, based on transcultural empathy. Far from being a mere linguistic matter, translation/translocation allows understanding elements of translatability and distinctiveness of concepts travelling from one place to another through complex and rarely linear trajectories. While these three cases show how problematic it is to translate adjectives such as ‘radical’ and ‘critical’ across national, linguistic, and cultural barriers, they also expose how there is no standard or unique application of these definitions to geography, which does not impede putting distinct experiences in mutual and productive dialogues, including for today scholarly and activist agendas.