Translation and the contact zones of International Development

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article investigates the conceptual link between Translation Studies and International Development with, as its starting-point, the observation that development is a hermeneutic meaning-creating process which brings together Northern donors, and Southern partners and their communities in ‘contact zones’ of encounter. Using a case-study of Southern NGOs in Peru, the research explores the role of interlingual translation in creating development realities on the ground. It argues firstly that the absence of translation in donor/partner relations produces a development reality which is a technical decontextualised process, establishing relationships of inequity between anglophone donors and Spanish-speaking NGOs. Secondly, the article notes that, despite the officially recognised multilingualism of Peru, encounters of Southern partners and their communities can replicate attenuated forms of these donor/partner relations. Whilst there is an awareness of locally situated dialogic exchanges, the tendency is to support uni-directional translation in which the sharing of visions and the possibility of bi-directional learning are not generally prioritised. The article calls for a recognition of the key role of interlingual translation in producing the development realities in which the Global Goals for Sustainable Development are now operating.