Carrying across the Line

Engaging in academic research and writing about core/centre1-periphery relations in management and organisation studies (MOS) is, almost by definition, an exercise in multilayered and multidirectional translation. At one level, there is the literal translation conducted by researchers and writers working in and between different source languages. Texts and interviews collected in the field are often written and spoken in languages other than English, the lingua franca of academic publishing in MOS (Thomas et al., 2009). Researchers, for whom English is not the native tongue, attempt to translate interview excerpts, sentiments and concepts conveyed to them in a multiplicity of different languages into ‘Global’ English. At the same time, as management experts themselves, they are often required to translate mainstream managerial texts into their own languages and cultural contexts, rendering them accessible to their students and clients in local idiom. But literal translation is just the tip of the iceberg.