Hello! Dia dhuit! ¡Hola! Hallo! Salut! こんにちは! Hej!

So, what's this blog about?
 This blog is a bit of an open experiment, which you're welcome to take part in. I'll be posting about translation studies, the theories that currently exist and my own musings on the need for new theories and developments within the field. Your comments and contributions are welcome!

Throughout my Undergraduate studies in Translation and Interpreting my lecturers would go on about texts, the meaning within them and the craft of translation. For a while I didn't really think too much about all this. When I got more involved in Feminist and Queer activism, I began to realise this could influence and guide my translation practice and style.

Translation is just about changing the words from one language to another. Where does queer-feminism come into the equation?
 Well, we live in a world that is full of agendas (both hidden and not so well hidden) and the language that we use on a day to day basis is still, by and large, patriarchal. It is also based on a constructed gender binary, using the same old exclusively male and exclusively female pronouns. Translators are not just invisible agents turning words from one language to another, but rather translators grapple with ideas, concepts and the agendas that make up our world. I want more translators to reflect on their own practice (personal and professional) and to find ways of ensuring their text serves or empowers those who are traditionally disenfranchised in the text and in society. With all the activism that takes place on the street the world over, we also need to see that texts themselves are battlegrounds for the taking.

So, you want to change the world? 
 The world we live in isn't a pretty place. Changing our language and the texts that surround us could well result in social change, little by little. All of our actions are political, whether we like it or not.