Committee for Translinguistic Exchange and Translation


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Committee for Translinguistic Exchange and Translation (CTET)

(formerly the Translingual Working Group or TWG)/Comité de Traducción e Intercambio translingüístico CTET

The TWG, now CTET, was founded by a group of CSA members committed to addressing the challenges that result from the linguistic diversity of our region and its representation in the Caribbean Studies Association. Such challenges include the limited integration of scholars from non-Anglophone areas in the conferences and the uneven representation of our regional diversity in the CSA membership and governance, among other forms of fragmentation anchored in linguistic barriers.

Lack of communication and mutual recognition are obstacles not only to the CSA’s representativeness and sustainability, but also to the scholarly work of our members and the CSA’s overall mission. Determined to overcome such obstacles, in 2011 the President and the Executive Council supported the creation of the TWG. The greatest aim of this group has been to promote the consolidation of an association that would not only be more inclusive and collegial, but also academically more robust and truly representative of the diversity of Caribbean people, societies and cultures.

Building on previous initiatives by individual members and past presidents, the TWG has worked on identifying and gathering resources, as well as members’ support to promote a culture of multilingual exchange. Our tasks range from coordinating translation for the conference and year-long communications with our members, to advocating for actions that enrich exchange, as a means to enhance the transnational and interdisciplinary scholarship that the CSA is proud to foster. You can find a summary of our work below, including the policies and best practices approved by the Presidents and Executive Councils regarding translation and translingual exchange since the creation of this group. Considering the central role of this work for the organization of the annual conference and the Association as a whole, the 2014-2015 CSA President supported the transformation of the working group (the TWG) to a permanent committee (the CTET).

Continuous assessment of our initiatives, including a survey answered by about 200 members in 2013, tells us that a significant number of our members are multilingual, and that our members are more than willing to engage in multilingual practices as a permanent feature of the CSA. As we continue to grow into a culture of fluid multilingual exchange, we celebrate the engagement of more and more of our members, and hope for even more of them to enjoy the benefits of a broader projection of our scholarship and collegiality. The CTET will continue to work with the EC and the President to provide as many resources and support as possible, while fostering more collaboration of members themselves in making of the CSA an inclusive home beyond linguistic “fences”.

Committee Members

Sally K. StainierSally K. Stainier, Chair

Sally K. Stainier is finishing her PhD in Political Science at the Université des Antilles in Guadeloupe, where she also got her BA in Applied Foreign Languages after majoring in International Relations at Saint-Joseph’s University (Philadelphia). She went on to pursue a multidisciplinary, fieldwork-oriented Master’s degree in Social Sciences at the Sorbonne (Paris); her dissertations explored post-genocide language policy and sense of belonging among diaspora returnees, in Rwanda. Her research interests include language planning, education in post-colonial or non-sovereign territories, emancipatory teaching practices, decolonial thought and social representations. She has been working across the region as a professional translator and conference interpreter in French, English and Spanish since 2013, and launched her own firm (URURIMI) in 2016 in view of providing custom language services to the Caribbean and beyond.

SPANISH TRANSLATION TEAM

Susana BarradasSusana C. Barradas

SUSANA C. BARRADAS is currently studying for her BA in Latin American Literature at the Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán. She has worked on the translation of a book of poems by Jonathan Harrington (Rastro de papeles, 2016), as well as in the translation of a short story published in Río Grande Review, 2015; Today, she is part of the Editorial Committee of the journal La otra voz (https://www.antropologia.uady.mx/revista/index.php) and is working on her undergraduate dissertation on literary translation theory. Susana has been translating for CTET since 2015.

Molly Hamm-RodríguezMolly Hamm-Rodríguez

Molly Hamm-Rodríguez is a doctoral student in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder. Her research interests are interdisciplinary, bridging linguistics, anthropology, education, and ethnic studies (especially Dominican, Puerto Rican, and Caribbean Studies). Her work explores the intersections between language, im/migration, culture, social identity, and schooling, with a particular focus on transnationalism, diaspora, citizenship, and relational racialization. Her current work focuses on Puerto Rican youth displaced by Hurricane María and enrolled in public schools in Florida. She is also beginning to conduct narrative research by exploring the migration histories of (1) Haitian and Venezuelan youth in the Dominican Republic, (2) Dominican youth with family living in other countries, and (3) Dominican youth in Puerto Rico. She was a founding board member of Caribbean Evaluators International, an evaluation association serving the region. Prior to moving to Colorado, Molly was the Associate Director of a nonprofit organization in the Dominican Republic where she lived and worked for five years. She received an M.A. in International Educational Development from Teachers College, Columbia University.

Rosana Herrero-MartinRosana Herrero

Rosana Herrero-Martin was born in Burgos, Spain, and studied at University College Dublin (MA in Literature & Theatre Studies) and the University of Salamanca, from where she obtained her European Doctorate Degree in Theatre and Performative Studies. She has lectured at University of Salamanca (Spain), Colby College (ME, USA), Instituto Cervantes Bremen, University of Oldenburg (Germany), Antigua State College, American University of Antigua (Antigua & Barbuda) and Universidad Isabel I (Burgos, Spain). Currently she is Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at The University of the West Indies in Barbados.

Her two areas of research and publication interest at the moment revolve around the performativity of consciousness on the one hand, and the elaboration of Spanish-as-second-language teaching & learning material, on the other.

Ileana Sanz CabreraIleana Sanz Cabrera

ILEANA SANZ CABRERA holds a PhD in Philological Sciences from the University of Havana, Cuba. She has taught and carried out research work in the fields of Caribbean culture and literature focusing on the study of the Greater Caribbean from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective. She was Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Havana, Cuba where she worked for forty years. In 2006 she joined the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus until 2010. Has offered courses, lectures and workshops at several universities and institutions in the Caribbean, the US, Mexico, Canada, Spain. She is a founding member of Catedra de Estudios del Caribe, an interdisciplinary research group from the University of Havana, and c-autor of the first bilingual anthology of Anglo Caribbean writers published by Casa de las America in 1977. She was a judge of the Casa de las Américas Award in 1992 and 2002. Since the creation of Centro de Estudios del Caribe at that institution, she has worked with them in fostering links within the Greater Caribbean. Member of the Caribbean Studies Association since 1991, she was elected for the Executive Council in 1994 and has been reelected in several occasions. She is a founding member of the Translingual Working Group, currently CTET.

Maggie ShrimptonMaggie Shrimpton

Margaret (MAGGIE) Shrimpton Masson was born in Great Britain and since 1989 lives in Mérida, Yucatan (Mexico). She gained her PhD from the University of Havana, Cuba, in 2002 and is a member of the National Research System (Mexico) since 2002. She is titular professor of Latin American Literature in the Faculty of Anthropological Sciences, at the Autonomous University of Yucatan (Mexico), where she also teaches courses on the Caribbean (both obligatory and elective). Since 2017, she leads the Permanent Seminar “Caribbean Studies: transdisciplinary perspectives”. Maggie is a member of the Caribbean Studies Association since 1999 and has attended 17 conferences to date (2018). From 2007 she has participated in several committees for CSA (Travel grant, Gordon K Lewis), as well as Program Chair (Grenada, 2013) and Local Organizing Committee Chair (Mérida, 2014). She is a member of CTET from its beginnings, and was co-chair from 2015-2017. She is a member of the Mexican Association for Caribbean Studies. Her research centres on literature, culture and identity in the mainland Caribbean.

FRENCH TRANSLATION TEAM

Samuel JouaultSamuel Jouault

Bachelor degree in project development engineering by the University of Bordeaux (France), Bachelor and Master degree in Geography by the University of Rennes (France), Doctor in Geography by the University of Angers (France). Research Associate Professor of the Anthropological Science Faculty of the Autonomous University of Yucatan (UADY) and Research associate of the Spaces and Societies Laboratory in France UMR-ESO6590 and for the Center for Mexican and Central American Studies of France (CEMCA) UMIFRE 16 MAEDI CNRS-USR 3337 Latin America). Visiting professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) and the University of Angers, France. Candidate for the Mexican National System of Researchers (SNI). Member of the Tourism processes, mobility and territory research group of UADY. He has developed a line of research on the inter-relationships between tourism and local societies in rural areas of Latin America and the Continental Caribbean, is part of the Mexican Academic Committee for Rural Tourism. He has coordinated the Alternative Tourism Atlas in the Yucatan Peninsula.

ENGLISH TRANSLATION TEAM

Shaun Biggart-HutchinsonShaun Biggart-Hutchinson

Journalist Shaun Biggart-Hutchinson combined community and political activity with a career in the [UK] public sector over several years. Writing on political, social and cultural issues his articles, commentaries, features and reviews have been published in newsday and newsday Tobago, CatchaVibe.co.uk, Soca News, and Caribbeannetnews, New Nation, Workers Weekly and The New Black Magazine.com, for which he has been Arts and Deputy Editor. He is also Assistant Editor of I Am magazine and active in the Tobago Writers Guild. A London Metropolitan University graduate in Caribbean Studies under Professors Jean Stubbs and Clem Seecharan, he resides in Tobago and from this base aspires to explore Central and South America whilst perfecting his Spanish [a challenging but rewarding goal]. This father of three is convinced that another world is possible and sometimes writes about this too.

Summary of tasks, best practices and policies about translation and multilingual exchange:

  1. The CTET, formerly TWG, assists the President and the Program Committee (PC) with identifying volunteer translators for the CFP and all official communications sent to our members or posted in the CSA’s website.
  2. In coordination with the President and the local committee (LOC), the CTET is in charge of identifying translation needs, communicating with potential translators, and coordinating their services at the conference. The CTET assesses such needs depending on the location and in consideration of the languages of the communities hosting the conference every given year.
  3. A basic fund ($6000) was approved by the EC in 2011 for translation purposes. It is the president’s prerogative to assign additional funding as needed. The CTET works with the Presidents, LOC and the EC in identifying and pursuing the more affordable options for interpreting service, as well as alternative resources to pay for it.
  4. In order to facilitate articulation and implementation of the best practices for inclusiveness of members of all linguistic backgrounds, it was agreed by the EC that one member of the CTET should also be a member of the Program Committee. The tasks of the CTET/PC member include:
    • Assisting in the translation of the CFP and letters to members;
    • Helping with the implementation of previously approved practices such as submitting titles and abstracts in more than one language, sharing panel ideas, etc;
    • Partaking in the organization of panels in ways that reflect the common interests of our members regardless of their linguistic skills
    • Supporting the distribution of panels in rooms where translators are available.
  5. Looking forward to a more comprehensive approach to exchange among colleagues from different linguistic, regional and disciplinary backgrounds, the TWG/CTET continues to advise the EC, the President and the PC on initiatives that may enhance such exchange (i.e. recommending potential speakers and organizing plenaries or panels that address the diversity of our members from different disciplines and perspectives; creating a section in our website to share ideas for panels)
  6. Another priority of the TWG/CTET has been to not only attract and keep members from different backgrounds, but also to foster more participation and leadership among members of all of our linguistic areas. Some of the “best practices” so far implemented are: providing translation during the members’ meeting at the annual conference; and nominating EC members and/or targeting potential candidates that will represent our diversity.

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