Rooted in Indigenous and decolonial epistemologies, settler colonial theories and postcolonial translation theory, the Canada Research Chair in Translation and Colonialism aims to explore how colonialism has shaped translation training, theory, and practice in Canada. To this end, its research program focuses on the translation of Indigenous literatures in Canada, understood as a set of practices that can shed light on the modalities, opportunities and constraints of mediated, intercultural exchange in a colonial context. The Chair seeks to explore and examine how the act of translating, particularly when it comes to the works of Indigenous writers, perpetuates and/or undermines settler colonialism. Additionally, it seeks to establish a framework for the ethics of translation in settler colonial contexts, thinking more globally about the possibilities for interactions, exchanges and discussions among diverse cultural and linguistic communities inhabiting this land.

Translation, on the one hand, provides exemplary sites to study power relations, perspectives on alterity, frameworks shaping personal and cultural interactions, as well as the ethical and political constraints and potentialities of dialogue between distinct groups in a settler colonial setting. On the other hand, it is a fundamentally social phenomenon that presents various problematic colonial aspects, but also holds the potential to serve as a tool for decolonization: two sides of the same coin that the Chair seeks to explore in depth.