Mexico

This overview focuses on translation from a dual perspective: the history of ideas and the history of texts and their agents, including missionaries, printers, booksellers, editors, writers, poets, and diplomats. These translations and their producers intervened in political and cultural movements that were decisive for Mexican cultural identity. In the 16^th-18^th centuries, translation played a fundamental role in the religious and administrative colonial order. It later went hand in hand with the independence movement and was widely used by the Republican elites in 19^th-century Mexico. In the first half of the 20^th century, translation was key for political and cultural reconstruction following the Mexican Revolution. Finally, toward the middle of the 20^th century, for some intellectuals, translation was a tool in projects aimed at revitalizing indigenous languages and consolidating higher education. Throughout Mexican history, translations have helped represent and mediate between alterities, construct social discourses, disseminate or censor ideologies, and strengthen a national literature. Translators, as social actors inevitably committed to these functions, have increasingly gained visibility through institutional recognition, which has contributed to raising awareness about the importance of translation and fostering academic research on the topic.