Resistance and non resistance to boundary crossing in translation research
Ideas, concepts, theories and methods spread within and across disciplines, communities, countries and traditions. Richard Dawkins (1976: 214) has suggested that memes (units of cultural transmission) are in competition for survival, and that in some situations of stability it is difficult for a new meme to invade. My interest is in concepts, theories and methods in academia, and the fact that these memes have more or less difficulty in spreading. They encounter more or less resistance in jumping boundaries, whether those boundaries are disciplinary or boundaries constituted by national research traditions. The aim of my paper is to discuss the spread of ideas, and situations of resistance and non resistance to the spread of ideas, taking as examples three cases of boundary crossing research projects in Translation Research. I shall suggest through those examples how resistance may be overcome.