Translation and the Construction of Identity

Special Panel: Translation and Ethnography - Modes of Representation

This panel seeks to address the multiple roles that translation plays in ethnographic representation and, conversely, the ways in which new thinking on ethnography can extend and deepen our conception of translation.

In recent years, the problems arising from the conceptualization and textualization of cultures have provoked a crisis of representation in ethnography, translation studies, literary studies, historiography, and other areas. Current approaches in cultural studies in general have tried to transcend binary oppositions like that of the Self and the Other, focusing instead on a view of culture and its representation marked by polyphony or pluralism. Equally, the debates initiated by concepts such as Said's Orientalism, Clifford and Marcus' "writing culture", Greenblatt's "cultural blockages" or Bhabha's "hybridity" challenge essentializing views of cultures and stress the power relations inherent in any process of representation. There are clear overlaps between ethnographic writing on the one hand and translation on the other, concerning notions and methods of conceptualizing other cultures. Both the ethnographer and the translator as subjects have considerable power in the shaping of "translation"; at the same time, they are subject to power relations conditioning the translation process.

We hope that the papers in this Panel will open up the debate on present and future trends in ethnographic writing, also as a translation practice. We envisage a broad understanding of the concept of translation, and welcome contributions from other disciplines. In particular, examples and case studies will be appreciated.

 

We invite contributors to address the following (and other related) issues:

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