Cultural Transplantation and Problems of Transferability
Cultural Transplantation and Problems of Transferability

Summary/Abstract: The article addresses the concept of ‘cultural transfer’ in terms of ‘cultural transplantation’ – a procedure to challenge the adaptability of practices, objects, and, more broadly, narratives of culture, as they become grafted from one ‘cultural body’ to another and function in different social and political contexts. Cultural transplantation is not a fixed term, although it is occasionally used in translation studies and is introduced here as a synonym for ‘cultural transfer’ to extend the meaning of the latter as well as to highlight the physicality of the processes discussed in the context of cultural transfer. The article exposes transferability as the main factor of transfer to analyse problems of cultural adoption and adaptation, showing deformations of globally practiced theories, concepts, discourses, and ideas (which I will call ‘texts of culture’) as they clash with (and crash against) local systems of meaning and local interpretative communities.

• Details
• Contents