Translating Documentaries From a Transnational Feminist Perspective: A Case Study of Subtitled Brazilian Documentaries on Waste Picking

Abstract

Subtitling and audiovisual translation (AVT) in general, as language practices, play a crucial role in shaping social imaginary and contributing to the construction of identities. But far too little attention has been paid to the translation of documentaries, especially those produced in the so-called “global” South and translated into other languages, such as English. Therefore, this paper aims to gain a further understanding of translating documentaries, particularly looking at subtitles from a transnational perspective intertwining translation and feminist studies. We will elaborate on the importance of translators’ careful listening as a critical factor in the translation of documentaries produced based on personal narratives. The object of analysis comprises excerpts of subtitles, audio recordings, and frames extracted from Brazilian documentaries chronicling the lives and work experiences of waste pickers (including poor, Black women) set in contexts of extreme poverty. The research proposes a parallel between the story of Pandora and its many translations and interpretations and the representation of women in the subtitled versions of the documentaries, thus suggesting that such a theoretical perspective can shed light on how women’s words and works can become fertile in their difference, and perhaps their deviance.

Transnational Feminist Translation and the Skirmishes of Anglo-American Gender Identity Politics: No need to translate

“…The feminist approach studies translations of feminist texts, translations of texts authored by women, and translations completed by women translators; it examines so-called key texts that underlie our cultures -Bible translations or translations of Nordic mythologies or of the Qur'an, for exampleto see to what extent these works undermine or support women's rights and needs. More recently, the research focus has turned to audiovisual productsfilms, TV series, advertising, video games and their translationto study how women's lives and opportunities are presented in these media (Boito, 2023;Bosseaux, 2023). One recently published feminist translation studies project that turned out to be strikingly transnational is the Routledge Handbook of Translation, Feminism and Gender (2020) in which academics from around the world addressed a variety of questions related to the intersection of contemporary (and past) feminisms and translation: it included a study of the celebrity factor that comes with consecutive interpreting by women in China (Du, 2020); a study of how the translated instructions on cleaning products in the Arab world designate these products only for women (Dawood, 2020); an article on Volga, the Telugu translator, who worked from English, French and Russian, to single-handedly bring feminist ideas into Telugu society in India in the 1970s (Eligedi, 2020); a comparative analysis of the Spanish translations in Spain and in Latin Americaof the same Chicana/American author, Gloria Anzaldúa, that points to the sociocultural differences between these two closely related spheres and the different translatorial intentions (Spoturno, 2020); an analysis of the work of "naïve" Russian translators of Anglo-American feminist texts in the 1990s as new concepts and terms entered the post-Soviet Russian vocabulary (Barchunova, 2020).…”