Doing Geography Without Losing the World
Taking Interpretation and Translation Seriously, and Other Ways to More Skilfully Make Geography Multilingual
DOI :
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.g7x93b-2751Mots-clés :
multilingual, cross-cultural, translation, interpretation, anglophone hegemony, worldingRésumé
Colonial patterns continue to shape knowledge production in Geography. The way the discipline is globalizing is asymmetric and shaped by linguistic privilege, which is often invisible to those who have it. It includes being haphazard about using language support, if it is used at all. Improving our use of both interpretation (oral) and translation (written) works against these dynamics and can help world and decolonize Geography. This has become more accessible with tech jumps in equipment and software. These should be used carefully and require new skills, which are reviewed here along with general best practices for using language support. Too rarely are we teaching how to do cross-language communication well or discussing the ethics of it. Anglophone hegemony can ironically be eroded with more translations into English, and more and savvier two-way interpretation. English is the master’s tool, but if used critically, and worlded, it can be used to dismantle the master’s house. We need stronger disciplinary norms for translation in journals and for interpretation in conferences, fieldwork, and field courses. This is part of a broader shift needed towards worlding our reading and citation practices. Other ways journals and conferences can foster multilingualism are proposed. These, and practices for increasing and improving our use of both interpretation and translation, particularly into English, are ways of not only of improving our conceptual analysis, but also deepening and widening our connections in Geography, so that we can more powerfully work for change together.
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