Translation between cultures can be considered a central practice and aim of cultural anthropology. But are the meanings of cultural translation confined to 'cultural understanding'? A hermeneutic position seems to imply a commitment to a traditional 'single-sited' anthropology and does not correspond to the challenges of globalization. A 'multi-sited,' transnational anthropology is developing an alternative type of translation. Following a brief account of the different meanings of translation in the history of cultural anthropology, this essay locates the emergence of a postcolonial challenge to this new anthropological translation concept in an epistemological break: the crisis of representation and the questioning of a unilateral Western translation authority. Translation of and between cultures is no longer the central concept, but culture itself is now being conceptualized as a process of translation. As a result, translation can be defined as a dynamic term of cultural encounter, as a negotiation of differences as well as a difficult process of transformation.