José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez: Resistance and Engagement by a Translator in the Global Periphery

Abstract

During the 18th century, theories popularized by Georges-Louis Leclerc and Cornelius de Pauw claimed that humans in America, like its flora and fauna, were degenerated. Therefore, the continent was deemed inferior in natural, cultural, and moral terms. This prevailing idea was contested by illustrated American Creoles through criticism and translation. This article analyzes the case of one of them: José Antonio Alzate y Ramírez (1737–1799), a polymath from New Spain and the founder
of the erudite press in the Americas. He published four periodicals through which he conveyed the enlightened ideals of public utility and progress by means of knowledge and technology. This article explores Alzate’s use of translation in his periodicals from the global periphery as a tool to challenge hegemonic anti-American ideas and to showcase local contributions, wealth, and potential. Through a methodological approach that combines textual analysis of Alzate’s translations, paratexts, and writings along with a contextual study of New Spain’s social and cultural dynamics, as well as intellectual strategies for confronting hegemonic discourses, we seek to understand the mechanisms of cultural resistance and recognize the role of translation as a practice of political and cultural agency. This approach opens the possibility of rethinking translation in colonial contexts as a site of political and cultural agency. In this sense, the study contributes to the historiography of translation by advancing the notion of “translational proto-activism” as an analytical category for periods prior to the independence movements.