Since the cultural and social turn, translation studies has been interested in the role translation practices play in the construction of the socio-cultural world. In particular, it has been concerned with the effects translation practices have on the formation of all kinds of groups, communities or identities: national cultures, genders, social/political movements, and linguistic minorities, for example, have been examined in different ways as to their translational constructedness. In this introductory article, the authors propose to bring these various research endeavours together under one conceptual umbrella by adopting the notion of ‘collectivities.’ The notion serves as a cover term encompassing different shapes, durations, and sizes of collectivities and as a heuristic device within a coherent framework. The analytical value of such a framework, it is argued, consists in integrating existing and future research by relating individual approaches to each other and comparing them.