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Part of
Translating Asymmetry – Rewriting Power
Edited by Ovidi Carbonell i Cortés and Esther Monzó-Nebot
[Benjamins Translation Library 157] 2021
► pp. 313–333

Chapter 14
Citizens as agents of translation versions

The polyphonic translation

ORCID logo | University of Cyprus

The prospects of a solution to the Cyprus issue have led to a revived interest in the fate of Famagusta, which, after more than 40 years of abandonment due to the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, has turned into a ghost city and a strong symbol both of the island’s division and the prospect of reunification. Hands-on-Famagusta, an architectural project (2015a) by a bi-communal team (Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots) aiming to explore prospects of reunifying the city, also becomes important through its trilingual website (English-Greek-Turkish). More specifically, the involvement of various translation agents co-shaped the translation product and led to the creation of what will be termed a polyphonic translation (following Bakhtin 1986), as this trilingual output allowed not merely for a simple coexistence of conflicting discourses, but for a quasi-interaction, aiming at highlighting them as constituting elements of a potential cohabitation of Famagusta. All parties involved negotiated their memory and bypassed officially established language and translation policies and challenged dominant discourses of both sides. Their action prompts new ways of thinking about translation politics in terms of (a) citizens emerging as active agents of translation because, through or despite their memories and in contrast to official power centers, and (b) the reevaluation of “accuracy” and “sameness” in particularly polyphonic translation situations, where opposing discourses converge to necessary “amnesia.”

Keywords: citizenship, memory, polyphonic (translation), translation politics, power, agency
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The story of Famagusta and the emergence of the project
  • 3.The translation project: Process and product
    • 3.1Initiation and phases of the translation project
    • 3.2Inconsistencies in the translation product
  • 4.Memory, citizenship, and the polyphonic translation
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Note
  • References
Published online: 16 August 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.157.14flo
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