For a translatability of African women: Feminist translation practices and the legacy of Florence Jabavu
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2025.e109278Keywords:
Florence Jabavu, South Africa, colonialism, African women, feminist translation studiesAbstract
Florence Jabavu (1895–1951) was an intellectual and activist from the Eastern Cape, in present-day South Africa, who worked for the education and well-being of African women during the early decades of the twentieth century. Coming from an intellectual and missionary family, she founded the African Women’s Self-Improvement Association, which instructed and supported Black women living in rural areas. In this article, we present and discuss our translation into Brazilian Portuguese of her text “Life in the Kraals”, in which Jabavu examines the influence of Western culture on the communal lifestyle of Bantu peoples in the region. With a focus on gender dynamics and the condition of women, Jabavu draws attention to the effects of colonialism in shaping a new social model in the Eastern Cape. Our commentary on the translation highlights a reflection on untranslatability, understood here as the scarcity of translations of African women writers—reflecting the disregard for African cultural artifacts as part of world heritage (Cassin, 2022; Wozny & Cassin, 2014)—as well as the challenge of translating non-Western and non-contemporary cultures into the present-day language-culture of the West (Oyèrónkẹ, 2021). Thus, we reflect on the possibilities of a translation project engaged both with Feminist Translation Studies (Flotow, 1997) and with the translation of Black and African textualities (Carneiro, 2023; Carrascosa, 2016; Lima, Filice & Harden, 2022; Salgueiro, 2014). Finally, we present the translated text along with an appendix containing images of Florence Jabavu.
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