Thinking solidarity and translation together: Towards a new definition of solidarity

Gołuch, Dorota ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4737-0095 Thinking solidarity and translation together: Towards a new definition of solidarity. Translation & Interpreting

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Abstract

David Hollinger (2006, p. 26) writes that ‘among the greatest issues of the twenty-first century is the problem of solidarity, the problem of willed affiliation’, while Judith Butler (Nagar et al., 2017, p. 113) aptly notes that ‘there can be no solidarity without translation, and certainly no global solidarity’. This article offers the first attempt to bring together scholarship on solidarity – a complex and ‘nebulous’ (Stjernø, 2005, p. 2) concept – from philosophy, political science and sociology, on the one hand, and from translation studies, on the other. I show that insights from translation studies supplement scholarship on solidarity in the other disciplines, where translation is largely overlooked; I also apply analytical categories from those disciplines to discussions of solidarity in translation studies and demonstrate the de facto different understandings of solidarity behind translation scholars’ use of the term, thus initiating a discipline-wide theoretical conversation on the concept. Moreover, upon noticing that the role of translation in generating solidarity is not captured in any existing definition, I redefine solidarity and foreground translation as its catalyst. Namely, I consider solidarity a sense of interconnection and commonality in difference, which is developed through caring, careful and inherently incomplete translation, promotes inclusion and impels action towards common good. Translation is used here in a broad sense of a hermeneutic, interpersonal and semiotic practice. I also argue that the definition can inform our understanding of the interlingual translator as an active agent capable of forging and facilitating solidarity.

Item Type:	Article
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Modern Languages
Subjects:	P Language and Literature > P Philology. Linguistics
Publisher:	Journal hosted by Western Sydney University
ISSN:	1836-9324
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	8 March 2024
Date of Acceptance:	16 December 2023
Last Modified:	08 Mar 2024 23:41
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/166909

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