Translations of the Self: Moving between Objects, Memories, and Words: A Dialogue with Ruth Behar

Abstract

With a central interest in translation as an inherent condition of subjects in contexts of migration, this article encourages a dialogue between ethnographic forms of expression and studies on translation. My exploration of the links between anthropology and translation, as well as their visual and poetic contours, comes through a conversation with Ruth Behar, a writer-anthropologist whose work is deeply rooted in several modes of translation, both through and beyond words, as she reflects upon diasporic identities. Through the critical reading of her observations, I hope to offer fresh insights into textual and visual possibilities of translation in anthropological writing, as well as provide an understanding of the complex relationship between translation, language, and the self-other nexus. More broadly, these reflections will contribute to a wider multimodal and multidisciplinary engagement of anthropology with social studies of identity, literary studies, comparative literature, poetic anthropology, visual semiotics, multisemiotic literacy, paratranslation, and other sciences of language. [translation, ethnographic writing, language, multimodality, Ruth Behar].