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4 - Santa Brigida Revisited

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 February 2018

Nicole Doerr
Affiliation:
University of Copenhagen
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Summary

This chapter presents an alternative to the failed political translation process discussed in Chapter 3. In reaction to the failure of the City Hall meetings, community organizers who had worked as voluntary linguistic interpreters at City Hall mobilized different groups of outraged citizens and residents to establish a Santa Brigida Community Forum that would be chaired and facilitated by the immigrant residents directly affected by the planning project, which threatened resident evictions. The activist organizers reduced their role to that of bilingually translating the deliberations in Spanish and English and at the same time intervening if one of the city council members tried to ignore residents’ proposals. This conscious political translation method dramatically changed the tenor of the deliberations, since no facilitator or official interrupted residents’ speeches. The city council members changed their positions during the meeting following interventions by the residents, leading to a change in the final vote at City Hall. While one would expect local democracy to be most inclusive if residents have elected their own representatives, this chapter reveals the advantage of having grassroots political translators who are able to build a third, communicative space for radical democracy that interrupts the asymmetric roles between decision makers and the less privileged.
Type
Chapter
Information
Political Translation
How Social Movement Democracies Survive
, pp. 98 - 119
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2018

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  • Santa Brigida Revisited
  • Nicole Doerr, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: Political Translation
  • Online publication: 15 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108355087.005
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  • Santa Brigida Revisited
  • Nicole Doerr, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: Political Translation
  • Online publication: 15 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108355087.005
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Santa Brigida Revisited
  • Nicole Doerr, University of Copenhagen
  • Book: Political Translation
  • Online publication: 15 February 2018
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108355087.005
Available formats
×