In this paper, the author begins by exploring the fundamentally oral nature of interpreting and the neglect by interpretation scholars of precious insights from literacy/orality studies. He argues that interpretation studies is characterized by a signal bias toward prestigious forms of interpreting practice in developed countries and that this geopolitical partiality has to be challenged by a new ‘cultural turn’ in interpretation studies. Similar to what has already occurred in Translation Studies, this turn would encourage scholars to address explicitly questions of power and issues such as class, gender, and race in interpreting situations. Examples are taken from colonial history and the development of tourism to illustrate areas that could be usefully investigated by a more explicitly material history of interpreting, guided by the ‘cultural turn’ paradigm. Particular attention is paid to ambivalent perceptions of the interpreter, the particular role of the interpreter as returned native and other items.