Imagining otherness: on translation, harm and border logic

• Sarah Maitland ^[1]
  1. [1] University of London

     University of London

     Reino Unido

     
• Localización: The Translator: studies in intercultural communication, ISSN 1355-6509, Vol. 25, Nº. 3, 2019, págs. 204-217
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Using theoretical frameworks drawn from thefields of cultural anthropology and political philosophy, this article pursues connec- tions between disparate discussions of representation and identity politics to consider the determining role that translation plays in constructing relations of power between the translating‘self’and the translated‘other’. With reference to a theatre translation case study, it argues that the act of translation subordinates the posi- tion of the other to the biographical journey of the translator. By transforming the status of a living author from one of writing subjectto representationalobject, translation is conceptualised as a form of so-called‘status misrecognition’that threatens to dis- place the author’s agency in translation, preventing them from participating as a peer in the passage from imagination to realisa- tion in the target language. By emphasising greater author engagement in the translation process, this article calls for the first steps in a translational‘politics of recognition’by which the shape of translations would be informed by an increased valorisa- tion of the status of authors as active participants in, rather than objects of, the imaginative acts that lead to translations.