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Article published In:
Translation Spaces
Vol. 6:2 (2017) ► pp.230–250
Sociocultural spaces

Intercultural translation and indigenous articulation in higher education

| University of California Berkeley, U.S.

Intercultural translation is a salient feature of communicative interactions in multilingual institutional spaces. This article draws on a concept of intercultural translation that functions as a linguistically radical strategy through which other ways of knowing and being are introduced, with particular emphasis on institutions, multilingualism, and less-translated languages. It describes the modes in which indigenous actors used intercultural translation to modify Mexico’s institutional tutoring program in higher education. It focuses on the selective appropriation of words and meanings, the standardization of concepts, and the configuring of an intercultural frame of reference, whereby members of an intercultural Mexican university introduced the Yucatec Maya word iknal as a hybrid educational system. In sum, the article posits intercultural translation as a critical communicative practice ubiquitous to the dynamics of language in socio-cultural spaces.

Keywords: intercultural translation, higher education, indigenous articulation, translation and multilingualism, less-translated languages, iknal
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • 1.Intercultural translation
  • 2.Intercultural education in Mexico
  • 3. Iknal/Tutoría as a product of intercultural translation
    • 3.1From common usage to intellectualization
      • 3.1.1 Tutoría and acompañamiento
      • 3.1.2Iknal
    • 3.2From equivocation to commensuration
    • 3.3 Iknal as a corporeal field to facilitate learning
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 4 December 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ts.6.2.03bor
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