Apart from the plenary address, 13 papers were read on various aspects of translation in the African context. Papers addresses the following topics:
The plenary by Paul Bandia focussed on the problem of postcolonialism itself, arguing that whilst the postcolony remains a historical given and an influence in Africa, African thinkers and writers are now turning their minds to the current problems of Africa. Thirty years ago, writers may have written about the influences of colonisation, but they are now focussing their attention on matters such as class differences in African society, urbanisation and corruption. Bandia's argument was that translation studies scholars in Africa should take their lead from this – thinking about the post-postcolony.
All presentations were followed by questions and debate, which spilled over into lunch and tea times. In particular, the closing session by Bandia in which he reflected on the papers and the state of the discipline in Africa was extremely fruitful. He commented on the rich data (wealth of languages) in Africa, the fact that translation matters in Africa, the wide variety of topics discussed, the role of language labourers in Africa, the collegiality at the meeting and the need for translation studies scholars to focus on the current real-life issues in Africa.
The meeting closed with a decision to found an association for translation and interpreting studies in Africa. The organisers of the SSTSA and the IATIS Regional Workshop will attend to this matter shortly.
Despite the fact that Africa is home to at least 1300 languages, that most if not allAfrican countries are linguistically diverse and that translation should thus be an everyday phenomenon, the field of translation studies in Africa is small, relative to other continents. At tertiary level, most of the energy is put into training translators/interpreters, and relatively little is done at the level of research into processes and products of translation. When one pages through discipline-related encyclopedias, bibliographies and readers, this trend becomes increasingly evident.
IATIS, in collaboration with the Summer School for Translation Studies in Africa, is hosting a two-day regional workshop at the University of Zambia in August 2014 to focus on translation in the postcolony – and beyond the postcolony. With this focus, the intention is to question the effectiveness of postcolonial translation studies in Africa to address issues of the postcolony. Deliberations will also include a candid look into the failures of postcolonial approaches to translation studies and the question: Should we move beyond postcolonial studies, and if so, how?
One of the questions one could ask of postcolonial studies is whether or not it is embroiled in power analyses and the building of utopias without due consideration to the material reality of life. In translation studies, this relates to the question why, for example, in a continent where up to 60% of economic activity takes place in the informal economy, most of translation studies still focuses on the formal economy, eschewing the particular material conditions under which translation happens.
The organisers invite proposals for papers on any of the following sub-themes:
Keynote speaker: Paul Bandia, Concordia University, author of Translation as Reparation: Writing and Translating in Postcolonial Africa (2008)
Participants will be allocated 20 minutes per paper and 10 minutes for questions/discussion. Proposals of 300 words should be sent to John Simwinga at j.simwinga@unza.zm by 28 February 2014. Participants will be notified by 21 March whether their proposals have been accepted.
Registration for the workshop will open in March 2014 and close at the end of April 2014.
For enquiries, please contact John Simwinga at j.simwinga@unza.zm
