Multilingual Archival Studies

As the lingua franca of our time, the English language exerts a strong influence over the framing of the global world. By using English unreflexively in research, education, and professional cross-cultural exchanges, we may unwittingly support unequal power structures, the homogenization of research, and the marginalization of traditions and knowledge systems based on languages other than English.

The purpose of this workshop is to discuss how the dominance of the English language has affected the archival discipline and practice, and how we can increase reflexivity in the use of language and translation in our field. We will review strategies developed by translation scholars aiming to make the multilingual background of our communications more visible. We will also learn about “good” translation practices, that is, “critical translations that recognize the impossibility of meaning equivalence” (Müller, 2007).

Participants will be invited to share their experiences as researchers working across languages and cultures, as authors publishing in international journals (particularly when English is not their native language), and/or as educators relying on English-language literature (particularly in regions where English is not the main language).

Reference
Martin Müller, “What’s in a Word? Problematizing Translation between Languages,” Area 39, 2 (2007): 206-213.

Dr. Fiorella Foscarini
Fiorella Foscarini is a Professor in the Faculty of Information at the University of Toronto. She holds a PhD in archival studies from the School of Information at UBC. Before joining academia, she worked as a records manager and an archivist in Italy and in Germany. She also taught archival subjects in the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. In her teaching and research, Fiorella applies rhetorical genre studies and information culture ideas to the exploration of records creation, management, and use in organizational contexts. Her latest research project investigates issues related to language use and translation in archival studies. She is a Fellow of the Association of Canadian Archivists, and currently serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Archival Science.