While this concept has only a limited internation circulation, it has attained prominence in Norwegian anthropology, in particular in connection with several debates on anthropological ethics, during the second half of the 1970's. (See Larsen 1979). In international anthropology, some of this discussion is reflected in what is often referred to as the "rationality debate" (Wilson 1973), and the Norwegian debate may be seen as a local branch of this debate. The "problem of translation" is concerned with the preconditions for translation of meaning from one culture to another. Larsen relates this debate to a series of other central debates (in economic anthropology, kinship studies etc.), and thus shows that the "problem" is in fact dual: how we think about solving it, and how we solve it in practice.