Translating Transcultural and Decolonising of Knowledge

Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodriguez

A wide range of research indicates that domestic and care work in private households is now the largest employment sector for migrant women entering the European Union. These studies have considered the work conditions of domestic workers as an expression of global inequalities. However, they have not engaged in a transcultural analysis of the interpersonal relationship between employers and employees. This is a perspective that engages with the Cuban theorist Fernando Ortiz’s concept of transculturation. I will apply this concept in my analysis of the relationship between employers and employees, mostly Latin American women, in domestic and care work. Their encounters will be analyzed in term of ‘translation’ (Benjamin, Pratt, Spivak). The discussion of questions regarding power relations around differential positionalities in terms of interlocking systems of power and domination, establishes an analytical perspective that is discussed through the concepts of “cultural translation”.

Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez

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