The author's aim is to examine the relationship between translation and the social practices resulting from colonialism and 'postcolonialism,' as they are expressed in symbolic goods. This is done not by analysing the colonialist discourses present in translation carried out between the languages and cultures of former colonizers and colonized peoples, but rather by presenting hypotheses based on relationships of political dominations as well as dominance, as they are inscribed in cultural productions, whether such productions have been translated or not. In this article these relationships are situated in terms of Pierre Bourdieu's theory of culture.