In search of the miracle women: Returning the gaze

In this essay, I elaborate the profile of the language mediator as a specific subject in a given communicative context and present the act of language mediation as a function of that subject. I enter the discussion using an event telecast live by Radiotelevisione Italiana’s (RAI) Vatican channel simultaneously from St. Peter’s and Mother Teresa’s home in Calcutta on the occasion of the Beatification of Mother Teresa by Pope John Paul. In particular, I focus on RAI’s search for the miracolata, a woman who attributed her medical recovery to the miraculous intercession of Mother Teresa. The making of the media event was marked by cultural transactions that in retrospect seem extraordinary. I emphasise how globalization and market forces mediate and reconfigure post-colonial identities and subject positions, and how the comprehension of alterity is central to cross-cultural transactions. I present the narrative of this event and search as a case study, raising issues related to the pragmatics of language and proposing possible resolutions in the form of interventions by the language mediator.