“The Wrath of the Goddess” and Other Acts of Doktori: Exorcising Colonial Possession in Translation
If the testimonial genre is appropriated from colonial-era academic traditions, how may its translation into English intervene in the complex domestic politics of caste and gender inequities in India? I attempt a provisional answer by attending to the issues raised when translating the life story of...
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| Izdano u: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/temoigner, |
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| Glavni autor: | |
| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jezik: | Anglais |
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Témoigner. Entre histoire et mémoire
2021
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| Online pristup: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Sažetak: | If the testimonial genre is appropriated from colonial-era academic traditions, how may its translation into English intervene in the complex domestic politics of caste and gender inequities in India? I attempt a provisional answer by attending to the issues raised when translating the life story of Dalit feminist Kausalya Baisantry’s Dohra Abhishaap [Doubly Cursed] from Hindi, focusing particularly on a short ethnographic passage that describes different ways untouchable members of her community dealt with smallpox outbreaks, from exorcism to Western medicine (as “doktori”). I argue that Baisantry’s rhetoric up-ends the binaries of postcolonial studies and in the process complicates genealogies of “cultural translation” Talal Asad has critiqued, including his insight that anthropological rhetoric is predicated on fixed disparity between languages. |
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