Rethinking Translation in Feminist NGOs: Rights and Empowerment Across Borders

Gál, Susan; Kowalski, Julia; Moore, Erin V.

doi:10.1093/sp/jxv041

Cited by 38 publications

(30 citation statements)

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“…However, this example may be more the exception than the rule for the most vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as the Roma, who are highly dependent on NGOs for access to economic and social resources. There is an abundant literature on the ways in which NGOs interpret and translate the experiences of those who are objects of their development programs to fit a narrative of the victimization and weak capabilities of aid recipients that their donors expect to hear (Gal et al, 2015).…”

Section: Authority and Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Recognition and Redistribution and Extending the Borders

Hobson¹

2018

Intersections

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This article revisits the recognition and redistribution debates emerging from Nancy Fraser's 1995 agenda article underscoring the dangers in the rise of identity politics and displacement of economic justice in postsocialist age. Júlia Szalai has been a crucial actor in reshaping the research on recognition struggles, and I will focus on the important contribution of her research on the Roma. Looking beyond dichotomy in recognition and redistribution, Szalai's research has highlighted the interplay and overlapping configurations in recognition struggles: their institutional and historical embeddedness and their emphasis on political agency and voice. Her analysis of the multiple and interacting processes of exclusion of the Roma in Central Europe, including the spatial, educational and employment dimensions and the lack of political representation, reflect a near congruence in misrecognition and malredistribution. Her research highlights shifts in the discourse from the cultural wars to the redistributional wars in neo-liberal market economies between those who have lost status and income in the dominant population and the most vulnerable (minority and migrant populations). Finally, Szalai's research and writings have extended the theoretical and empirical borders on recognition struggles, engaging with the frameworks of intersectionalities and capabilities both of which offer lenses for revealing complex inequalities and the tensions within the paradigms for social justice that have inspired my own research.

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Section: Authority and Voicementioning

confidence: 99%

Revisiting Recognition and Redistribution and Extending the Borders

Hobson¹

2018

Intersections

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“…Gendered approaches facilitated by both local and international NGOs have been criticized for imposing ideas of gender that are not created by and for the communities in which they are working and that undermine cultural constructs of gender in those communities (Wendoh & Wallace 2005). Many scholars point out that the translation and integration of gender under its dominant understanding and its requirement in development projects has been a challenge because it is often culturally irrelevant, insufficient, nonexistent or static (Wendoh & Wallace, 2005;Samarasinghe, 2013;Gal, Kowalski, Moore, 2015). These concepts must be renegotiated through translation (Wendoh & Wallace, 2005;Samarasinghe, 2013;Gal et al, 2015) where translation is not seen as creating semantic equivalents, but a transformative process where some meaning is altered and some remains (Gal et al, 2015).…”

Section: Gender Participation and Empowerment: Buzzwords In Developmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Many scholars point out that the translation and integration of gender under its dominant understanding and its requirement in development projects has been a challenge because it is often culturally irrelevant, insufficient, nonexistent or static (Wendoh & Wallace, 2005;Samarasinghe, 2013;Gal, Kowalski, Moore, 2015). These concepts must be renegotiated through translation (Wendoh & Wallace, 2005;Samarasinghe, 2013;Gal et al, 2015) where translation is not seen as creating semantic equivalents, but a transformative process where some meaning is altered and some remains (Gal et al, 2015). The new meaning acquired from this process of translation allows often globally-defined conceptions of gender and gender equality to fit various local contexts.Local NGOs, being familiar with both the language of international development and the social realities of the places they work, are often charged with this task.…”

Section: Gender Participation and Empowerment: Buzzwords In Developmmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…NGOs play many different roles as they engage with and work alongside a variety of actors ranging from states, international donors, intergovernmental organizations, local communities, and other organizations working on the same issues, using different communication strategies and discourses to carry out their work and achieve their goals (Holzcheiter, 2005;Ole & Sending, 2006;Bernal & Grewal, 2014;Gal, Kowalski, Moore, 2015). Boundaries become fluid as NGOs occupy many roles and communication methods simultaneously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This involvement, extending beyond the local sphere in which they work, becomes an opportunity for the interests of beneficiaries to be made visible and potentially represented in policy (Fisher, 1997;Holzcheiter, 2005). In this sense, NGOs become political actors where it is not the success or failures of their work that is of significance, but their engagement in existing politics at all levels, local and global, and the consequences of that intervention (DeMars, 2005).These organizations are also viewed as intermediaries between the state and the local level or international discourse and local practices where NGOs engage in a process of translation of development concepts stemming from international development discourse and open up spaces for a re-negotiation of the meaning of those concepts (Fisher 1997;Wendoh & Wallace 2005;Sieveking, 2007;Bernal & Grewal, 2014;Mannell, 2014;Gal et al, 2015). This strategy becomes particularly helpful in issues pertaining to gender, women's rights, and reproductive health.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Gender, Networking, and Transnationalism: A Case Study from Dakar, Senegal

Akin¹

2016

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Nongovernmental organizations have become important actors and contributors to global governance as states have been superseded as the primary representatives of constituents. Many of the current studies on NGOs tend to focus on their abilities as institutions without actually studying the processes that occur in the work. The current trend in the literature is moving beyond a generalization of NGO work that provides binary accounts of success and failure, good and bad toward ethnographic approaches that study the processes of NGOs in time and space. It is argued that development NGOs, particularly those that work on issues of gender and women's rights, are part of what Keck and Sikkink call "transnational advocacy networks" where a set of values and meaning are shared among various actors working on a particular issue. However, these networks are clearly defined and do not include sporadic, non-organized actors working with shared values within and beyond borders. Through a participant observation and data collected through semi-structured interviews, I analyze how a local women's organization in Senegal works with globally and transnationally defined values to engage in gender activism and community-based work. I argue that Réseau Siggil Jigeen relies on diverse strategies and networks within and beyond its borders to engage in a process of collaborative communication, or rather translation, of constructs of gender and women's rights into diverse local contexts to enhance the position of women's socially, legally, and economically. As a result, these organizations work alongside a variety of actors committed to shared values of gender equality and women's rights, which I argue are indicative of discursive transnational networks. Gender, development, and NGOs Acknowledgements

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Signs of Difference

Gál

Irvine

2019

247

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Rethinking Translation in Feminist NGOs: Rights and Empowerment Across Borders

Cited by 38 publications

References 35 publications

Revisiting Recognition and Redistribution and Extending the Borders

Revisiting Recognition and Redistribution and Extending the Borders

Gender, Networking, and Transnationalism: A Case Study from Dakar, Senegal

Signs of Difference

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