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Article published In: Target
Vol. 34:1 (2022) ► pp.37–66

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Theorising translation as a process of ‘cultural repatriation’

A promising merger of narrative theory and Bourdieu’s theory of cultural transfer

ORCiD logo with link | University of York Europe Campus
Published online: 13 July 2021
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.20056.pas
Abstract
This article scrutinises instances where translation corresponds to what I call ‘cultural repatriation’, through the examination of two Anglophone novels about the Greek civil war and their transfer into Greece. Translation as repatriation concentrates on works which are, effectively, repatriated into their original context and made vulnerable to its aesthetic and socio-ideological encounters. The translation of Gage’s Eleni (Gage, Nicholas. 1983a. Eleni. New York: Random House.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) and de Bernières’s Captain Corelli’s Mandolin (De Bernières, Louis. 1994. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin. London: Secker & Warburg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) into Greek constitutes cultural repatriation as cultural representations in the works are constructed through a ‘foreign gaze’ and rendered problematic upon transfer. Within this context, I examine how specific strategies in the promotion, translation, and consumption of these works challenge or reinforce hegemonic versions and narrative modes of the historical narrative and lead to a renegotiation of the cultural categories constructed in them. Methodologically, the article combines Bourdieu’s sociology and narrative theory creating a robust framework for the study of cultural repatriation.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Claims to the past: Narratives, identity politics, and translation as cultural repatriation
  • 3.Narratives and the struggles of Greek cultural space
    • 3.1The legitimate narrative form of the Greek civil war
    • 3.2The struggle of the genre
    • 3.3Permission to narrate and the logic of the field
  • 4.A promising merger: Bourdieu’s cultural transfer and narrative theory
    • 4.1Data and spaces of symbolic violence
    • 4.2Selection and classification
    • 4.3Translation
    • 4.4Reading
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (79)
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