DSA Annual Conference – "Values, Ethics and Morality", 05/11/2010

1. DSA Annual Conference – "Values, Ethics and Morality", 05/11/2010 Panel 6. Development studies: requiem or wake-up call TRANSLATING DEVELOPMENT: e-mails from the (semi)-periphery ChrisGerry Fernando Bessa Ribeiro Departamento de Economia, Sociologia e Gestão UTAD, Vila Real, Portugal

2. 1. Why “translating” development? • Exploration of possible connections between development studies and translation studies. Why? • First. It derived from my own work as a sometime “technical” (then literary) translator and my exposure to translation studies as a persuasive and problematising perspective on the complex significance of the act of translation. • Second, Discovering a possible analogy between development studies and translation studies: • both are multidisciplinary, both have been historically dominated by a single discipline (economics and linguistics, respectively); • both are enriched and empowered by critical social theory and by dissidence, and both have recently embarked on the search for a new ethics.

3. 1. Why “translating” development? • In conversations and collaborations with anthropologists (from David Marsden at Swansea to Fernando Bessa and Humberto Martins in Vila Real, I cam to realise that much of what was observed and experienced “in the field” risked of being “lost in translation”, hence the need for reflexivity. • The shock of finding that what I’d been doing as a translator was as problematic as what I’d been doing as a teacher, researcher and consultant in development . • Locating both the “development specialist” and the translator with the concept of the expert, seen as a social category .

4. 2. The development specialist as expert • What does a development expert do when (s)he does what (s)he does? From a fairly simplistic “labour process” standpoint: • (1) Acting on terms of reference set by the commissioning entity, the consultant uses his/her expertise, training and professional knowledge to collect/interpret data, communi-catingfindings exclusively to the commissioning entity which pays a fee in return for exclusive rights to intellectual capital. • (2) Acting on terms of reference set mainly by the funding agency, the ‘dependent’ researcher uses his/her expertise, training and professional knowledge to collect/interpret data, communicating findings first to the funding agency which provides resources in return for demonstrable contributions to knowledge and preferential acknowledgement of its role. Funding subsequently disseminated to respective epistemological community.

5. 2. The development specialist as expert • (3) Acting on terms of reference set by him/herself, the ‘independent’ researcher (more and more an endangered species) uses his/her expertise, training and professional knowledge to collect/interpret data, communicating findings to his/her epistemological community. Exercises greater autonomy and retains control over intellectual capital in return for more limited access to institutional or commercial resources.

6. 3. The translator as expert • What does a translator do when (s)he does what (s)he does? From a fairly simplistic “labour process” standpoint: • (1) The translator is commissioned by a publisher or an intermediary firm to deploy his/her expertise, training and professional knowledge, and communicates the resultant product to the commissioning entity. The publisher/ intermediary sets the legal/authorial terms of reference, with publisher and translator sharing the management of literary, aesthetic, accuracy and other aspects asymmetrically, with the balance favouring the former. Essentially translation services are performed in return for a fee. • (2) Translator with a track record and/or network of contacts proposes a project to a publisher and may exercise a greater degree of autonomy than in (1) above, but otherwise the scenario presented in (1) applies because the resources (fee) are provided by the publisher.

7. 3. The translator as expert • (3) Acting on terms of reference set by him/herself, the ‘speculative’ translator (a relatively rare species) deploys his/her expertise, training and professional knowledge and then offers the resultant product (in final or incomplete form) to a publisher . Exercises greater autonomy and retains control over intellectual capital in return for more limited access to institutional or commercial resources. Then scenario (1) will apply, with the terms of reference probably even more in favour of the publisher.

8. 3. Development specialists and translators • CONCLUSION? We have a prima facie case for establishing a parallel between development and translation specialists. • Another connection between the two labour processes is that both types of experts deal to some extent with a cultural “other”, and therefore not only the professional translator undertakes translation [see Rubel & Rosman in Rosman & Rubel) (2003) (eds) Translating cultures: perspectives on translation and anthropology, NY, Berg]. • However, an apparent dissimilarity between the development expert and the translator is that the former generally has an authorial role/status, while the latter apparently does not. • Drawing on the work of Lawrence Venuti[The translator’s invisibility: a history of translation (1994) and The scandals of translation: towards an ethics of difference (1998) – both London, Routledge)] we find that the ostensible non-authorial role/status of the translator can be contested.

9. 4. Translations studies: (A) “invisibility” • The invisibility of the translator is mainly due to the hegemonic convention in translation theory and practice (scholars and publishers, critics and many translators) that “equivalence” and “transparency” are fundamental objectives and indicators of quality that focus, above all, on the hegemony of the English language and the dominance of linguistics as a discipline (cf. growth and the market in economics); • Quote from Norman Shapiro (in Kratz 1986: 27): • I see translation as the attempt to produce a text so transparent that it does not seem to be translated. A good translation is like a pane of glass. You only notice that it’s there when there are little imperfections (…) Ideally, there shouldn’t be any. It should never call attention to itself.

10. 4. Translations studies: (B) “domestication” • Translations into the global hegemonic language (English) tend to reflect and respond to the sensibilities, cultural norms and ideological configurations of the target culture. • Thus from the target language’s perspective, many of the rough edges, much of the “otherness” or “foreignness” found in the original will be “smoothed” by the translator (with more or less violence to the original,) rendering the text as understandable and familiar as possible to the reader. • This reinforces the translator’s invisibility and (paradoxically) further de-emphasises the creativity (rather than simply the technical quality) of the act of translation.

11. 4. Translations studies: (C) “foreignisation” • The term foreignisation means consciously reflecting the otherness of the culture from which the source text comes, using various direct and indirect devices (retaining original foreign words, using anachronisms, neologisms, stylistic discontinuities, etc.) to remind the reader of the foreign- ness of the source text, countering the smoothness and domestication found in conventional translations.

12. 4. Translations studies: (D) the” remainder” • “Any language use is (...) a site of power relationships [.. .and] at any historical moment, [consists of ...] a major form holding sway over minor variables”. • Lecercle (1990) calls this the remainder. • The linguistic variations released by the remainder do not merely exceed any communicative act, but frustrate any effort to formulate systematic rules. • Venuti defines the remainder thus: "The collective force of linguistic forms that outstrips any individual's control and complicates intended meanings [allowing …] for the disturbing and stimulating effects of translation. It accounts for the productive nature of translations”. • The remainder subverts the major form by revealing it to be socially and historically situated, by staging [what Lecercle calls ...] “the return within language of the contradictions and struggles that make up the social”.

13. 5. Some concluding thoughts about the analogy between DS and TS • If we attribute some authorial status/authority to the translator (as in Venuti) and some translatorial status/authority to the development specialist, both can be thought of as comparable continuums. • One of the outcomes of this analogy could be shifts in the way we see policy formulation (“the original”) and policy implementation (“the translation”). The illusion could be that the same policy outcome cannot be induced in a culture that is markedly different from that of the original. • Most policy ‘translations’ still involve little adaptation: a “one-size fits all approach” still predominates in situations ranging from IMF structutral adjustment measures in different (including European) countries , EU policies applied both in the heart of Europe and in the semiperiphery, Portuguese government policies on the coast and in the interior, etc.