Abstract
ABSTRACT This article focuses on a challenge faced by a collaborative research team working on autobiographical accounts in South Asian languages. Although several documents stated they were translations, both source and target texts were not preserved in each case. How could could we engage constructively with the implied presence of the source texts in the face of their material absence? This meant developing a new set of questions on translation and its relationship with the archive. Drawing on Foucault’s critique of ‘the archive’ and his argument for an ‘archaeological’ engagement with archives, we examine how to study what we term ‘translation traces’ in the documents: bilingual texts, translated extracts, fragments, and evidence of repeated relay translations. We ask further, what role translation, invisibilized as it is, plays in the documentation of lives. The archive can be conceptualised as a ‘contact zone’ where languages, texts, and collective memory intersect through translation. We suggest that archives from the past inevitably shape our study and understanding of material presence and function of translation in specific historical periods. Finally, we argue that highlighting the role of translation opens up new ways of conceptualising and working with historical archives.
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