The Role of Translation in the Remediation and Reconstruction of Palestinian Collective Memory

Abstract

Research at the intersection of Translation Studies (TS) and Memory Studies investigates the remediation of memory across lingual, cultural, medial, and spatiotemporal boundaries through processes of translation. While recent studies focus on the transmission of memory through interlingual translation, this thesis recognizes that verbal signs are only but one form of communication through which memory work takes place. Thus, it adopts a broader conceptualization of translation and investigates the role intersemiotic translation plays in the remediation and reconstruction of memory in the Palestinian context. Palestinian collective memory is primarily built around the Nakba, an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the establishment of the Israeli settler colonial project in 1948. In the absence of a state with official institutions and archives to document their narrative, Palestinians have resorted to oral history and multimodal forms of cultural production for the articulation, preservation, and transmission of their collective memory. This thesis argues that translation processes lie at the heart of these remediations and are central to our understanding of the decolonial function of Palestinian memory and its intergenerational and transcultural circulation.

The thesis problematizes key concepts in TS including the translator, the source-target binary, and the translation process, illustrating the need to reconceptualize them in relation to contemporary multimodal forms of communication. It analyzes three case studies: a biographical graphic novel in which the artist translates her intergenerationally inherited memory into a visual-verbal text, an audiovisual oral history archive by Nakba survivors and its translations into written publications, exhibitions, and theater and oral storytelling performances, and a project of documenting and translating Palestinian folktales into written and illustrated publications. Overall, the thesis illustrates the multifaceted ways in which translation and memory intersect, introduces a new methodology in Palestinian Studies, and offers a theoretical framework that can be applied to other contexts.