This chapter considers translation as a social experience which is ordinarily lived but often left unexamined. The omni-presence of translation practices often makes it difficult to tell where translation ends, and some other communicative practice begins. In this paper, the author delineates four spheres where translation is pervasive yet often left unremarked: in the sphere of the personal; the sphere of the imperial; the sphere of the subaltern; and in the re-emergence and spread of the sphere of the authoritarian. Through it all, the chapter asks: how can we think of translation as a social power that, as Foucault might say, enables us to act upon the actions of others?