DiscourseRefraction names the change of direction and operative meaning that occurs when a concept crosses into another language, discipline, medium or institution. The term may remain recognisable while acquiring new neighbours, evidentiary demands and practical consequences. Refraction is neither simple error nor faithful translation. It includes productive distortion, strategic simplification, technical adaptation and institutional capture. The operator asks what a discourse had to become in order to travel, which relations survived the crossing and which powers gained control over its later use. Meaning is therefore treated not as a fixed content transported between neutral containers, but as a trajectory altered by every environment through which it passes.
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Socioplastics · Anto Lloveras · LAPIEZA-LAB · 2026