LOST – AND GAINED – IN TRANSLATION: Kulturel oversættelse som transformativt rum

Abstract

In the article we approach the topic of cultural encounter through the concept of
 cultural translation and argue – in line with postcolonial theorists like Homi
 Bhabha – that this concept is far more open to minority positions than the Danish
 concept of ‘kulturmøde’ (literally: the meeting of cultures), and that it brings into
 focus creativity, negotiation and transformation, rather than the usual debate about
 integration or assimilation. All societies undergo a constant process of cultural
 translation and any translation involves an aspect of violence, but it also opens
 up transgressing and transformative spaces, where ‘newness enters the world’.
 The aim of the article is to introduce the panorama of possibilities in which cultural
 translation may be understood and illustrate the breadth of application of the
 available analytical concepts. The empirical examples are taken from China and
 Greenland; structurally two very different situations, but sharing the fact that
 Western culture was seen as superior and therefore introduced by local intellectuals
 as a means to achieve equality and progress. However, as Orhan Pamuk
 has tried to illustrate in the novel Snow, a narrative of loss can be constructed as
 a result of resentment or fear at the sense of having been (culturally) translated
 into something alien. Pamuk’s novel points to the serious conflicts involved in the
 process of cultural translation. Transformation and manipulation, deduction from,
 and addition to, cultural heritage and identity are something quite more than merely
 an innocent ‘meeting’ of different cultures.