Activism and translation

TRADUÇÃO E TRANSFORMAÇÃO SOCIAL: UMA ENTREVISTA COM MONA BAKER

Tradução de Junia Zaidan e Patrick Rezende

No segundo semestre de 2018, durante estágio de pós-doutoramento junto ao Centro de Tradução e Estudos Interculturais (CTIS), na Universidade de Manchester, Inglaterra, fui apresentada à Profa. Mona Baker, que, por mais de uma década, já compunha a bibliografia dos cursos que eu ministrava na Universidade Federal do Espírito Santo. Oriunda de um país não hegemônico, o Egito, tem desempenhado na Europa papel fundamental para dar visibilidade a uma gama de questões, conflitos, violências e narrativas da periferia do sistema mundo, que talvez se mantivessem pouco exploradas no campo da tradução, caso Mona Baker prescindisse da inarredável inscrição do tradutor nos problemas sociais de seu tempo. Hoje Professora Emérita da Universidade de Manchester, Baker acumula realizações como a fundação do CTIS, da Associação Internacional de Tradução e Estudos Interculturais, e do periódico internacional The Translator; a formação de inúmeros pesquisadores em todo o mundo; a afirmação do papel necessariamente engajado do intelectual em um mundo estruturado a partir da opressão de quem vive do trabalho, bem como a publicação de obras que têm fortalecido e dado contornos ao campo relativamente jovem dos Estudos da Tradução e Interpretação (cf. lista de publicações ao final da entrevista). Generosamente, ela concordou em dispor de seu concorrido tempo, no início de 2019, para nos conceder a entrevista com a qual abrimos o presente dossiê. A versão original da entrevista, em inglês, encontra-se logo após esta sua tradução para a língua portuguesa.

Vitória - ES, agosto de 2019.

Inspired by studies on minority language in translation and feminist translation studies, this article presents an analysis of a small corpus of Kurdish literature in English translation and examine the process of its constitution, its main actors and practices, and the image of Kurdish literature it depicts. In the absence of state and institutional support, Kurdish translation initiatives are largely individual supply-driven and they entail a form of activism. Presenting a historical overview of Kurdish literary translation into English, we illustrate the diversity of actors in its complex evolution. We examine the opportunities collaborative practices such as co-translation offer Kurdish as a stateless minority language but also the perils of such practices in reinforcing the minority and dominated status of Kurdish. Finally we assess the (re)presentation of Kurdish literature in English translation and demonstrate that it is at odds with the Kurdish canons.

Translation can be considered a "means of exchange and negotiation among people, nations and states" (Gambier & van Doorslaer, 2013, p. 73). Translation studies explore the concept "translation", especially when placed outside the "mainstream institutions of society, with agendas that explicitly challenge the dominant narratives of the time" (Baker, 2006, p. 462). This study examines how "dominant narratives" are contested by "translation" in the context of Charlie Hebdo, a French magazine. This is achieved by analyzing the different levels at which translation and interpretation occurs following the attack mainly discussed under the two main aread of Interlingual Translation and Intersemiotic Translation. Both the above forms of translation enable the "source text" to traverse geographical boundaries and enter diverse ethnic and cultural domains. The sense of "activism" of the "source text" as well as the "target texts" is questioned in the process of analysis as the complexity of the position of the translator emerges when the ideology of the "source text" travels borders. However, this study does not attempt to justify or condemn the ideological stance of Charlie Hebdo but to analyze the concept of "activism" in translation which occurs in the form of a textual translations and the translation of a narrative into a visual text. "ACTIVISM" IN TRANSLATION STUDIES Translation, which was traditionally looked upon as a mere act of inter lingual transfer for communication purposes has developed and widened its scope as Maria Tymoczko (2000, p.34) argues, in her article, Translation and Political Engagement, to be a concept that "rouses, inspires, witnesses, mobilizes incites to rebellion and so forth." Principally, this essay focuses on the aspect of translation which works to achieve "demonstrable social and political change" as an "activist" text. Mona Baker (2013, p. 23) discusses in her article Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action, about various groups of translators and interpreters actively engaged in forms of "collective action" to challenge the "political status quo" and have thereby "broken away from a long tradition of positioning themselves purely as neutral, unengaged professionals who stand in some 'liminal' space between cultures and political divides." Hence, translation that was traditionally looked upon as simply an act of "mediation" is also "potentially a perpetual locus of political engagement (Tymoczko, 2000, p. 43) at present". Activism in translation lies in the ability of translators to capture the context of the source cultures and create "a space of resistance, a means of reversing the symbolic order" by extending its narrative space (Baker, 2013, p.25). Tymoczko (2000, p.34), further discusses

One significant development in translation studies in the last two decades has been the intense interest shown by researchers in issues pertaining to the different, and sometimes multiple, roles which translators or works of translation can play in actual or potential situations of tension and conflict – political, social, cultural and/or ideological. Equally intense has been the interest in studying how acts of mediation, manipulation, intervention, subversion, and/or transgression are manifested in actual translating and interpreting performances. The findings have in turn led to a radical re-interrogation of conventional notions of translation, such as that of translation as communication, as interlingual transfer of meaning, or as cultural exchange, and have opened up new possibilities of understanding and theorizing the nature of the activity of translating/interpreting. This paper explores one facet of the power and dynamics of translation by examining the use and usefulness of translation in serving activist ends and effecting concrete change – total or partial change, change in the individual or in some supra-individual system, or both. Drawing on a model for classifying social movements borrowed from the anthropologist David Aberle, and focusing on a particular period in the past – the late Qing era (1840-1911) in China – the author analyzes the aims and aspirations of political activists of different orientations, and the complex and intricate relation between translation and activism during that period. The analysis is followed by a more reflective section on the relevance of research on this topic to the present generation of translators and translation researchers.

This chapter examines the reliance of asylum as a legal category on a transnational social-scientific vocabulary since its codification into international law in 1951. It makes a case for the use of a vernacular, non-imported lexicon in order to directly speak to the cultural-linguistic register of claimants who are unfamiliar with asylum legal jargon. This chapter draws on my experience as a Spanish-language interpreter and translator for the East Bay Sanctuary Covenant (EBSC), a non-profit organization that advocates for the rights of asylum-seekers and refugees in the San Francisco Bay Area. I situate the EBSC's establishment within the broader context of theSanctuary Movement in the early 1980s which mobilized human rights advocates in California and Arizona in response to US-supported atrocities in El Salvador and Guatemala and in defiance of US asylum practices. I analyze the cases of two Central American asylum-seekers with whom I worked at EBSC to demonstrate the extent to which a transnationally imported legal lexicon fails entirely to connect with their lived trauma. To make a credible and compelling asylum claim is to be made visible within a legal category. In that vein, I argue that the field of translation and interpretation can help bring asylum as a legal category into closer alignment with the cultural-linguistic register of asylum-seekers who come from El Salvador, Guatemala, and many other countries.