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- Convenors:
-
Julia Sauma
(Goldsmiths, University of London)
Tone Walford (University College London)
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Short Abstract:
This panel seeks to interrogate the power dynamics involved in the emphasis placed on English-language production and translation in global anthropology, and to establish a network of researchers interested in exploring whether other forms of translation can offer a restorative path.
Long Abstract:
During the last fifty years, as the emphasis on peer-reviewed journal articles has grown for disciplinary recognition, and a small number of journals and publishers based in the English-speaking Global North have come to dominate publication pathways for researchers, many scholars in the Global South have come under increasing pressure from their colleagues and institutions to translate their work into English. Simultaneously, open access initiatives within mainstream publishing and decolonizing initiatives within institutionalized teaching have paid little attention to language. With this, already entrenched linguistic and academic hierarchies both within Global South universities and between English-speaking and non-English-speaking researchers, not to mention between anthropologists and those they write about, have been heightened, and have also become clearly individualized and monetized as the onus for access, translation and linguistic dexterity ultimately lies with the researcher. In this panel, we want to interrogate this situation; how institutional structures perpetuate this problem; what happens when translated works become de-contextualized and cannibalized in English-speaking countries; and how this has increased exclusion as well as new pathways for academic production away from the English language. The panel will also be a space for exploring the conflicts and tensions that constitute translation as a political act, both emancipatory and appropriative or extractive. As such, and fully aware of the problems associated with having this conversation in English, we want to look at whether there are examples of translations – whether narrative-based, signed or otherwise – which can offer restorative paths for anthropological production and research practice.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Tuesday 11 April, 2023, -Larisa Carranza (Goldsmiths College)
Paper short abstract:
This paper examines the complexity of representing ethnographic storytelling ethically while complying with institutional requirements. Reflecting on familial interviews, I unpack the difficulties of translating stories through written and multi-modal approaches.
Paper long abstract:
This ethnographic research project took place during the Covid pandemic with a focus on the continued influences of wartime Salvadoran Catholic martyrs in the creation of contemporary memory making, social justice work and critiques of the state. This paper unpacks the various interviews with my transnational family and interlocutors who spoke in two languages to discuss wartime memories and current experiences. Crossing between two languages, either in notes or translating interviews became an early obstacle when framing my dissertation.
This paper questions how to properly translate and represent stories when language was not solely a matter of translation but bouncing between two different languages. The nuances of colloquial modes of speaking and realizing interlocutors were shifting between languages due to spatiotemporal experiences made it apparent that I could not simply transcribe interviews either in English or Spanish. This was not how interlocutors spoke; they were traversing time, space and memory through language. A key issue this paper explores is how to mediate translations within the framework of Western, English speaking institutions in order to complete a Ph.D. dissertation and future publications. This paper examines the use of multimodal approaches such as creating audio recordings of interviews alongside video captions and subtitles to ethically represent ethnographic storytelling. This project also included written English and Spanish translations to highlight the fluidity between language, storytelling and memory. Ultimately, this paper reflects on the difficulties of representing ethnographic stories and questioning the current frameworks of Western, academic approaches in relation to Ph.D dissertation writing.
Ioannis Kyriakakis (Hellenic Open University)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, I push the concept of language beyond the standard spoken/written symbols. I see languages as cosmological codes, including practices, hierarchies, and taxonomies that are strictly connected to power relationships. Under this perspective, I explore current anthropological languages.
Paper long abstract:
I am not a linguist. I am exploring the concept of language as a cultural instead of a biological trait of humanity. Language includes a powerful mechanism of cultural selection: What is worth paying attention to and what is not? In this sense, language is not merely a phonetic and symbolic system facilitating communication, but also a mighty device for social discrimination. This is better understood if we consider the specialist "languages" of trades, occupations, and fields of knowledge. No one can enter those fields without commanding their "languages". Under this specific perspective, I examine the languages of current anthropologies, and I put forward the question of whether there are different anthropological languages in the global North and the global South.
Duygu Kasdogan (Izmir Katip Celebi University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper addresses language as a translation, aiming to develop a relational approach to the question of language and focusing on meaning and value creation processes on the basis of selected stories from Bergama/Pergamon (UNESCO world heritage site in Turkey).
Paper long abstract:
English as a lingua franca is a double bind. The use of English to facilitate communication among anthropologists situated in different contexts and using different first languages creates a condition of possibility to learn from each other across/beyond local borders. As anthropologists continue giving consent to the use of English as a communicative medium (as I do here), this medium appears as the only option, rendering alternative pathways invisible, therefore, reproducing its constituted hegemony. Obviously, the question of language addressing hegemonic constitutions and systematic exclusions includes more than a discussion about language as a medium and/or an advocacy for multilingualism. It opens a space to deeply think about why and how it matters to draw attention to the question of language. Multiple answers can emerge in accordance with the way we approach language, e.g., as a culture, ontology, and so on. In this paper, I address language as a translation, aiming to develop a relational approach to the question of language and focusing on meaning and value creation processes. On the basis of selected stories weaved in, around, and through Bergama/Pergamon (UNESCO world heritage site in Izmir, Turkey), I contemplate on multilayered translations with an attention to the concreteness of local places and the deterritorialization/reterritorialization of culture. Such a contemplation is a thought experiment not necessarily aiming to solve the paradox of English as a lingua franca but explores the possibility of different languages to reframe the problem space, and render alternative pathways visible to address it.