Translating Gender

Abstract

Despite the fact that both gender and translation are basic to our collective human existence, our attempts to understand and theorize the processes that shape them are quite recent. Gender studies and translation studies are both fairly new fields with international and interdisciplinary thrusts and implications. In both instances they have oriented themselves toward traveling across traditional academic disciplines to create transnational communities and cross-cultural communication. Given these general affinities, this article uses theoretical tools from the field of translation studies in order to understand some of the challenges that face us in translating terms and concepts involved in gender studies as a discipline that links an international body of scholars and activists, focusing specifically on the developing field of gender studies in Egypt, whose primary responsibility in the local context is to elaborate, develop, and disseminate translations of gender that enable agency. The article also explores some of the sites of resistance to the field in Egypt and in the Arab world, including various Islamist discourses.