ABSTRACT
This chapter examines translation and technology from an ecological perspective. We begin by examining the core concepts of the Anthropocene and the posthuman and argue that the development of posthuman thinking as a response to an era of accelerated climate change has clear implications for Translation Studies (TS). After examining the different ways in which ecology has been incorporated into TS, we will explore the potential future need to envisage translation from a low-tech rather than a high-tech perspective. In this context, particular attention will be paid to both supply-side and demand-side factors in the evolution of the technical production and consumption of translation. The chapter will also question the extraction of human resources through unremunerated digital labour in translation as part of an overall approach to translation technology from the standpoint of political ecology. Climate change has characteristics that raises fundamental questions not only for the future of organizations but for traditional subject/object binaries. The ecological challenge to conventional ways of treating material objects will be addressed as part of a discussion on the convergence of technology and translation in the notion of crisis translation.
