Abstract

This essay considers the possibility of what I would call conjunctural translation. While literal translation has accelerated cultural ethnocentrism as well as settler colonial violence, conjunctural translation seeks to glimpse the possibility of solidarity buried beneath the collaborative rule among the empires. This essay first retraces colonial modernity in the British Caribbean and Britain. Reading the selected chapters from Familiar Stranger, I propose that this memoir registers the three phases of colonial modernity: transatlantic slavery, migration to metropolis, and the prison-house of identity politics. In contrast to this, literal translation was at the core of cultural ethnocentrism that underpinned colonial modernity in Korea and Japan. The second part of this essay explicates the relationship between colonialism and modernity in East Asia that is punctuated by the following three phases: settler colonialism, migration to metropolises, and the curtailment of identity and citizenship. In this case, each phase appeared as deprivation of land, migration to Japan and the crises of security, and the loss of nationality during the Cold War era. The last part of the essay concerns unpredictable connections between colonial modernities. Though separately formed in the transatlantic and transpacific regions, these modernities create crosscurrents of thought, struggles, defeats and victories: conjunctures. Published in the early 1950s, the writings of Martin Carter and C. L. R. James differently refer to the Korean War. By comparing their work, this essay concludes that the future of solidarity comes from ‘the ability to be exposed’. As Hall unexpectedly encountered the Caribbean migrants in London in the key moments of his memoir, such conjunctural translation was undertaken by the Caribbean intellectuals of the 1950s. To expose oneself to these unexpected encounters is the very momentum that urges us to be vigilant to the dangers of literal translation.

Read the article in full on the Taylor & Francis website.

About the author

Yutaka Yoshida is an associate professor at Tokyo University of Science. His interests include Caribbean literature and comparative literature in the Cold War era. His monograph Literary History of the Destitute: Empire and the Crowds in Modernity was published in Japan (Getsuyo-sha, 2021) and South Korea (Bogosabooks, 2024). He has translated George Lamming’s In the Castle of My Skin, Stuart Hall’s memoir Familiar Stranger, and Uncut Funk by bell hooks and Stuart Hall. His articles on Caribbean literature have been published in Journal of Commonwealth Literature and Inter-Asia Cultural Studies.

Stuart Hall in Translation

The ‘Stuart Hall in Translation’ series observes Stuart Hall’s ideas in motion by tracing their resonances and transformations as they oscillate between languages, historical moments, and varying socio-political contexts.  The series, produced in partnership with Cultural Studies journal, invites translators of Stuart Hall’s work from across the world to reflect on the following questions:

• What can be lost and gained when texts are translated into different languages?
• Can ideas form linkages across difference?
• How can ideas transcend spatial and temporal boundaries?
• What are the political implications associated with ideas moving across and between temporal and spatial boundaries?

To initiate the project, in August 2022 the Stuart Hall Foundation invited Bill Schwarz, co-author of Stuart Hall’s memoir Familiar Stranger, and Liv Sovik, professor of Communication at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, to discuss the nuances of translating Familiar Stranger and Hall’s ideas into Portuguese for a Brazilian audience.

In 2024, the Foundation extended the invitation to other translators of Hall’s work, asking them to write about their own experiences, and addressing the disparities, challenges, and synergies of translating Hall’s ideas into a different language and national context. These new texts are now published in Cultural Studies and shared on the Stuart Hall Foundation website, featuring contributions from Victor Rego Diaz, Natascha Khakpour, Jan Niggemann, Ingo Pohn-Lauggas, Nora Räthzel, Yutaka Yoshida, Eduardo Restrepo and K Biswas.

Part of our ‘Catastrophe and Emergence‘ programme.

Supported by Taylor & Francis, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust.

For this year’s Autumn Keynote, the Stuart Hall Foundation invited internationally renowned historian and writer Professor Robin D. G. Kelley to respond to the theme of our Catastrophe and Emergence programme. The event took place on Thursday 5th September at Conway Hall, London, as well as online.

Professor Kelley’s keynote was organised around reflections on anniversaries marking key moments of Catastrophe and Emergence. Tracing the colonial dialectic and the many different chapters and phases of resistance to it, his keynote framed resistance – ever in motion, ever in a state of emergence – within the current conjuncture. “Abolition and revolution are not the same thing,” he noted. “The meanings of abolition and revolution are both contested. But I would argue today’s abolitionists are revolutionaries.”

Abolition continued to be a focus of the discussion between Professor Kelley and interdisciplinary writer, artist, editor and curator Imani Mason Jordan as the pair sat in conversation following the keynote. An audience Q&A also took place, and Newham Bookshop held a stall with literature on sale.

In partnership with Conway Hall Ethical Society supported by Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust, Cockayne Grants for the Arts, a donor-advised fund held at the London Community Foundation, and Words of Colour.

Abstract

Translation is an intellectual endeavour that requires engagement with authors and conceptual frameworks from different times and worlds. It is not a neutral or simple task of converting linguistic codes but a situated, partial, and interested process that goes beyond mere intellectual activity. In translating Stuart Hall into Spanish for a Latin American audience, specific challenges and interests arise, as detailed in this article. Three main challenges are discussed: preserving the contextuality and complexity of Hall’s writings, resisting the temptation to simplify or academicize his work, and ensuring that translations facilitate meaningful cross-cultural exchanges. The article underscores the importance of understanding Hall’s work as an intellectual and political project, deeply rooted in specific historical and cultural contexts, and argues for an approach to translation that remains faithful to these dimensions while making his ideas accessible and relevant to contemporary Latin American readers. Finally, the paper reflects on the political significance of translation, highlighting how ideas can transcend boundaries and enrich local debates. Hall’s concepts, such as articulation, context, and conjuncture, are presented as valuable tools for understanding and intervening in the social and political realities of Latin America today. The article concludes by emphasizing the ongoing relevance of Hall’s intellectual and political contributions and the need for translations that honour his legacy while engaging with the specific challenges and opportunities of our present moment.

Read the article in full on the Taylor & Francis website.

About the author

Eduardo Restrepo. Anthropologist graduated from the University of Antioquia (Medellín, 1996), with a Master’s and Ph.D. in Anthropology with a focus on Cultural Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He served as President of the Latin American Anthropology Association from 2015 to 2020. A founding member of the Network of World Anthropologies, he designed and directed the Master’s programs in Cultural Studies, in Latin American Cultural Studies (online), and Afro-Colombian Studies at Javeriana University, where he worked for 16 years. He is currently affiliated as an Associate Researcher at the Center for Research, Innovation, and Creation and as a visiting professor in the Ph.D. program in Anthropology at the Department of Anthropology, Catholic University of Temuco, Chile.

His research lines highlight studies related to Afro-Colombian populations, with a particular interest in the Colombian Pacific region. The processes of ethnization and racialization, as well as the politics of representation and Black political subjectivities, are some of the issues addressed in his publications. He has also taken an interest in the geopolitics of knowledge and the processes of placemaking that shape disciplinary fields such as anthropology or transdisciplinary fields such as cultural studies. His courses, talks, and publications can be found on his website.

Stuart Hall in Translation

The ‘Stuart Hall in Translation’ series observes Stuart Hall’s ideas in motion by tracing their resonances and transformations as they oscillate between languages, historical moments, and varying socio-political contexts.  The series, produced in partnership with Cultural Studies journal, invites translators of Stuart Hall’s work from across the world to reflect on the following questions:

• What can be lost and gained when texts are translated into different languages?
• Can ideas form linkages across difference?
• How can ideas transcend spatial and temporal boundaries?
• What are the political implications associated with ideas moving across and between temporal and spatial boundaries?

To initiate the project, in August 2022 the Stuart Hall Foundation invited Bill Schwarz, co-author of Stuart Hall’s memoir Familiar Stranger, and Liv Sovik, professor of Communication at Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, to discuss the nuances of translating Familiar Stranger and Hall’s ideas into Portuguese for a Brazilian audience.

In 2024, the Foundation extended the invitation to other translators of Hall’s work, asking them to write about their own experiences, and addressing the disparities, challenges, and synergies of translating Hall’s ideas into a different language and national context. These new texts are now published in Cultural Studies and shared on the Stuart Hall Foundation website, featuring contributions from Victor Rego Diaz, Natascha Khakpour, Jan Niggemann, Ingo Pohn-Lauggas, Nora Räthzel, Yutaka Yoshida, Eduardo Restrepo and K Biswas.

Part of our ‘Catastrophe and Emergence‘ programme.

Supported by Taylor & Francis, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and the Barry Amiel and Norman Melburn Trust.