ABSTRACT
Using the example of the travels of feminist gender debates in France and in Germany, this chapter discusses the double political nature of translation by highlighting both its potential for local and transnational knowledge production and the nationalistic pitfalls associated with this cross-border praxis, especially in regard to feminist knowledge production. It provides a conceptualisation of translation and explains why the theoretical framework of travelling theories was adopted. The chapter presents an analysis of the German and French feminist debates on "gender" by focusing on the French "defence debate" of the 1990s, the German discussions about materiality in the 1990s and finally the ways in which the US-American concept of "gender" was "translated" to French and German feminist studies. It also discusses the ways in which translation created "gender theories" in general: the construction of "French feminism" in the 1980s' US. The chapter concludes by reflecting upon the potential and risks of translation for feminist knowledge production.
