Bridging theory and praxis

Abstract The persistent epistemic divide between translation research and professional practice privileges theoretical knowledge over practitioners’ lived expertise. This study advocates for translation Communities of Practice (CoPs) as a potentially decolonial framework to bridge this gap. Through an Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis of interviews with eight scholar-practitioners from Canada, Sweden, Japan, Nigeria, Indonesia, and Brazil, we identify three systemic barriers that perpetuate this hierarchy: neoliberal valuation paradoxes, academic elitism, and temporal asymmetries. Findings reveal how dual scholar-practitioner identities challenge colonial notions of “rigor,” while institutional metrics dismiss applied outputs. To counter these dynamics, the study proposes an ethics-first practice-based research cycle embedded in CoPs — for instance, the co-design of crisis translation protocols with Haitian NGOs — prioritizing iterative collaboration, bidirectional knowledge exchange, and hybrid dissemination. By framing collaboration as a conditional decolonial praxis, this work redefines translational rigor through cultural resonance and communal flourishing, urging institutions to align metrics with global equity imperatives.