Lost in Epistemic Translation

Abstract

This commentary examines how research unfolds across diverse knowledge systems that depend on epistemic translation: the work of carrying meaning between different ways of knowing. Grounded in fieldwork at the interfaces between Indigenous and non-Indigenous firms in the Arctic, it traces the challenges of translation that run through the research process, from study design to analysis and coding. Translating between knowledge systems is never neutral: when concepts are forced into analytic categories that do not quite fit, taking epistemic shortcuts may leave hidden consequences behind. The commentary instead calls for epistemic translation to be made visible, relational, and built into research timelines. In doing so, it reframes methodological rigour as ethical and accountable translation, particularly for non-Indigenous scholars working with Indigenous and place-based knowledge.

Introduction

Researchers working across different ways of knowing, or epistemic boundaries, decide what is meaningful and translatable into research. Epistemic translation has methodological and ethical consequences that remain hidden from peer review, ethics, and funding evaluation, with implications for rigour and accountability.

When the Concept Won’t Cross the Boundary

Birgejupmi. Árbediehtu. I returned from fieldwork with these words, shared by Northern Sámi research partners. They described Birgejupmi as a sacred respect for nature, a consideration of natural resources, and reducing waste. Árbediehtu, I was told, was their ancestral knowledge and lived experiences. In management, we have terms that seem to fit: Birgejupmi as “sustainability,” and Árbediehtu as “knowledge.” But are these equivalents? Can this move be just a harmless linguistic translation or a recoding with significant epistemic consequences?

As a management researcher, I spent days after fieldwork wondering how to report these meanings responsibly and haven’t stopped since. How do I even code a phenomenon that is so different that I cannot find a translation that crosses into management research? Sámi scholars have theorised these meanings within their own epistemological traditions (Porsanger, 2004). Carrying that scholarship into management research, I realised that linguistic translation alone was insufficient and that epistemic translation was necessary.

At first, I went to the Arctic to study innovation. I was drawn to businesses operating at the boundaries of Indigenous and non-Indigenous knowledge: a digital platform that brands reindeer electronically, and outdoor gear that blends Indigenous design with Western materials. These innovations were shaped by place-based knowledge and co-creation practices that actively crossed epistemic boundaries. As the research progressed, I grew increasingly concerned about my position and whether I had done the context justice. I returned to the participants over 3 years, not to seek validation of my interpretations, but to deepen my understanding of theirs. They invited me to stay a little longer to experience it myself, through the seasons, through the ways business is part of nature, part of Árbediehtu and Birgejupmi, and part of being Sámi in the Arctic.

Epistemic Translation in Business and Society

Cross-epistemic research engaging with Indigenous and place-based knowledge has gained increased attention in Business & Society and the wider field, alongside calls for inclusive scholarship (Salmon et al., 2023). At the same time, much management research that crosses epistemic boundaries presents empirical findings without showing the epistemic tensions that shaped the research process. Often, research partners do not share the same assumptions about meaning or what counts as evidence, relying heavily on epistemic translation – the process that goes beyond linguistic equivalence to encompass the negotiation of authority, the identification of what can and cannot cross the boundary, and the relational work of establishing whose knowledge counts (Bennett, 2026; Carlile, 2004). Epistemic translation enables researchers to make meaning with Indigenous knowledge holders and local partners, identifying enough common ground to support dialogue and co-creation. Yet many researchers working across knowledge boundaries do not recognise their role in this process, and, in doing so, cannot identify when translation is possible, when it is not, or when it should stop. These invisible decisions carry real consequences for both ethics and rigour in cross-epistemic research.

The Hidden Consequences of Epistemic Shortcuts

In qualitative research, epistemic translation often remains hidden from the publication process, including ethics managers, participants, peer review, and review boards. In many cases, this is where some of the most consequential research decisions are made, and those decisions should be communicated transparently. Epistemic translation differs from standard qualitative practices because most qualitative methodologies assume a common interpretive ground for meaning and evidence, within a single knowledge system. When epistemic ground is fragile or absent, making translation decisions explicit, documented, and open to review ensures accountability. A position strongly rooted in calls for stronger relational ethics and methodological rigour in cross-epistemic research (Bull et al., 2020; Porsanger, 2004).

Beyond this, research partners engaging in epistemic translation should jointly decide how interpretation occurs and which knowledge will be deemed legitimate for publication. If decisions are made primarily from the researcher’s non-Indigenous standpoint and remain hidden, it becomes easier to recode Indigenous concepts into familiar managerial language that can be accommodated within existing Western-centric frames. Academia remains a largely Western episteme, and despite a growing body of work on decolonising business and management research (Salmon et al., 2023), this understanding does not extend to translation decisions, which continue to be made invisibly. Therefore, research may create the appearance of inclusion while sidestepping the richness and legitimacy of relational, ecological, tacit, or place-based knowledge that may otherwise be lost in translation. When critical translation decisions are not properly accounted for, the result is research that may misrepresent the communities it claims to include, reproduce the epistemic hierarchies it claims to challenge, and pass peer review without ever having been held accountable for the choices that shaped its knowledge.

Crossing Boundaries Is Never Neutral

This commentary does not argue against interpretive freedom in qualitative research. Instead, it focuses on that exact moment when interpretation crosses epistemic boundaries. The decisions made in that crossing should be visible, documented, and open to scrutiny. Consider what happens when Árbediehtu, ancestral knowledge, and lived experience passed down through generations, are coded simply as “knowledge” in a grounded theory analysis. Finding the Western equivalent is familiar and convenient. It is also a decision that erases the relational, intergenerational, and place-based dimensions of the concept, replacing something irreducible with something manageable. That moment, quiet, unreported, and consequential, is where epistemic translation either happens or it doesn’t.

In many ways, epistemic translation is relevant to all researchers working across knowledge boundaries, knowingly or unknowingly, not only when Indigenous knowledge is translated into academic language, but also when Western concepts and frameworks are introduced into Indigenous contexts. The Indigenous research context is where epistemic differences are most notable, and the ethical stakes are highest, but the implications extend to any research setting where knowledge systems with fundamentally different assumptions about evidence and meaning come into contact. As a relational process, epistemic translation can support research collaboration and knowledge co-creation when meanings are negotiated and discussed among partners, but when done hastily, one-sidedly, or unethically, it may also facilitate knowledge extraction. It requires community involvement and ethics approval that accounts for ongoing epistemic negotiations, as well as sufficient time for follow-up, trust-building, and documentation. Work that often remains uncredited when not properly reported. Consciously engaging in epistemic translation is both an ethical obligation to the communities researchers collaborate with and a methodological one, influencing the validity, legitimacy, and impact of the knowledge created.

Epistemic Translation: Visible, Relational, and Worth the Time

Making epistemic translation visible requires institutional change in how research is designed, reviewed, and funded, a change that goes beyond individual commitment, however sincere. Three interconnected shifts are needed:

Methodologically, researchers should document and share translation decisions and translation logs as part of methods reporting and peer review, moving beyond positionality statements to include disciplined boundary work that tracks how translation choices are made and maintained throughout the study (Bennett, 2026). This means treating the methods section as a transparent record of the interpretive decisions made at every point where meaning crossed a boundary. In practice, this includes sharing extended translation logs with editors and reviewers, as well as in open science repositories.

Relationally, Indigenous partners should be involved not only in data validation but also in the active negotiation of interpretive authority, deciding whose understanding governs when meanings diverge and what cannot or should not be translated. Making this process visible in peer review holds the researcher accountable for the translation decisions they made and ensures that the communities who shared that knowledge can recognise themselves in what is published. Research that communities can trust is also research they can use, making epistemic translation not only a condition of rigour but a precondition for impact beyond academia. Reviewers, in turn, should be able to evaluate these decisions when assessing methodological rigour.

Institutionally, research design and funding should expressly include time and resources for epistemic translation, including ongoing consent that adapts to the evolving research relationship. Funding bodies should view relationship-building, iterative validation, and translation documentation as core outputs rather than peripheral activities. These changes do not require any new infrastructure but demand a shift in how we define rigorous and ethical research worthy of institutional support. This may mean slower research timelines, which should be seen as a sign of care rather than a limitation.

Epistemic translation is at the heart of responsible and impactful research across knowledge boundaries. It requires negotiating whose understanding governs when meanings diverge, identifying what can and cannot cross the boundary, and doing the slow relational work of establishing whose knowledge counts and on whose terms (Bennett, 2026; Carlile, 2004). The participants who invited me to stay longer were waiting for research that earns the right to represent them, relationally, on their terms. Business and Society scholarship aspires to exactly that. The question is whether we, as a field, are willing to do the work it requires.