Autoethnographic Means to the End of a Decolonizing Translation

Abstract

Engaging faithfully with practices that originate in foreign cultures carries the risk of colonizing local contexts if the impossibility of a perfect match between cultures is not addressed. The author alludes to her autoethnographic doctoral dissertation in which she addressed the decolonization of narrative practice when "imported" into Latin America. She presents autoethnography as the means by which she researched her experience attempting to decolonize narrative practices by translating them into her native Colombian Spanish. She presents a distinction between a genre of translation with aspirations of literality, potentially colonizing, and one based on postmodern translation studies. She addressed this latter genre as a decolonizing practice that offers translation resistance (Tymockzo, 2010). She depends from this postmodern translation genre to re-inventing narrative practice's renewed meaning and alternative vocabularies as it crosses the borders between cultures/languages. A possible line of translation inquiry is introduced by taking the translation of the term "re-authoring" (White, 2007) as an illustration.

The Creation and Recreation of Borderlands Among Indigenous Peoples

“…Research initiatives should be based in decolonizing methodologies (Glidden, 2011;Kovach, 2010;Tuhiwai Smith, 2012) that claim, reclaim, and name a relational sense of self inclusive of land and all other living beings, testimonials to bring in the memories of their pathways to resilience throughout history, storytelling, and narrative (Denborough, 2014;Jupp, Berumen, & O'Donald, 2018;Polanco, 2011). These projects are key to addressing resilience from the ways in which people narrate their lives, making sense of their own predicaments and mapping possibilities and visions for being.…”