Category: Cluster statement

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CLUSTER STATEMENT: Cultural Translation in History, Heritage and Archives

Each of the six research clusters at BCMCR have produced a statement on what cultural translation means for researchers in their area. The statement for the History, Heritage and Archives cluster is as follows:

“Cultural translation informs two interrelated strands in the work of scholars in the Histories, Heritages and Archive cluster. First, researchers frequently use and explore how processes of cultural translation interact with the development and circulation of national identities. This can range from videogame history, where scholars explore how Britishness is formed and transmitted by internationally-developed products, to histories of internationalism, where researchers examine how ideas like non-violence are promulgated globally through international conferences. Secondly, the cluster’s work is attentive to the way culture is or is not translated through time. This might mean viewing the archive as a translator, or as facilitating the process of translation, or indeed exploring how the archive might be in some ways an obstacle to the ‘temporal’ transmission of culture. Finally, when the archives in question are those not traditionally supported via state institutions, particularly local music archives, questions of cultural translation – what is preserved, what is lost, by who, for who – take on a pressing political exigency.”

You can find specific examples of research from History, Heritage and Archives scholars at BCU  here.

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CLUSTER STATEMENT: Cultural Translation in Journalism, Activism and Community

Each of the six research clusters at BCMCR have produced a statement on what cultural translation means for researchers in their area. The statement for the Journalism, Activism and Community cluster is as follows:

“Researchers in the Journalism, Activism and Communities cluster often operate at the intersection of media and politics, and so tend to highlight the dimension of politics and representation when questions of cultural translation are raised. Scholars in this cluster might look at the role of journalists acting as (good or bad) cultural translators, individuals or organisations who select and reframe local issues as part of hyperlocal journalism. Research also explores how activist and cultural critique is transformed by and through different media – whether that means examining critiques of Neo-imperialist hegemony in the Iraq War emergent in video games, or anti-austerity activism within contemporary artistic practice. In this way, the cluster’s work is testament to cultural translation’s concern with the implicit and explicit power relations that run between the translator and the translated, between the source and the target.”

You can find specific examples of research from Journalism, Activism and Community cluster scholars at BCU  here.

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CLUSTER STATEMENT: Cultural Translation in Jazz Studies

Each of the six research clusters at BCMCR have produced a statement on what cultural translation means for researchers in their area. The statement for the Jazz Studies cluster is as follows:

“Jazz is a global music whose complex and contested history is inseparable from many of the most important social and political movements of the twentieth-century. It speaks to diverse communities throughout the world on themes of freedom, spontaneity, virtuosity, improvisation, individuality and collectivity, as well as mediating major transformations in the relationship between high art and popular culture. Questions of cultural translation are central to Jazz Studies at BCMCR, and our research frequently looks at the connections between local contexts and the global processes and practices that frame them.  This can include, for example, understanding jazz in specific social and historical contexts, but also how different media such as television and film shapes our experience of jazz. Our work examines how processes of cultural translation take place in and through time, and what is lost in translation, while touching on issues from cultural memory to the politics of improvisation.”

You can find specific examples of research from Jazz Studies scholars at BCU  here.

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CLUSTER STATEMENT: Cultural Translation in the Creative Industries

Each of the six research clusters at BCMCR have produced a statement on what cultural translation means for researchers in their area. The statement for the Creative Industries cluster is as follows:

“Scholars of the Creative Industries might explore cultural translation via the process of cultural intermediation, in the worlds of art, commerce, policy and practice. This could mean researching a group that helps translate arts policies into practicable, comprehensive terms for creative practitioners, specifically to address a lack of diversity in the cultural sector. It could also refer to creative and entrepreneurial practices, such as notions of expertise, online activities and entrepreneurial identities.”

 

You can find specific examples of research from creative industries scholars at BCU  here.