Articles

A Reflection on Nationality and Translation

By: Ilhaan Mohamed

During my time as the PTC intern I have been involved in preparing some research questions to form a report for the University of Westminster. Throughout this project my main question has been: How does the idea of a nation state or country affect the decisions made in translation?

With the increasing flow of migration, for one reason or another, the lines between nations can be seen as limiting to human life and identity. It seems that we have to question what defines a country and how that shapes international relations.

This question focuses on the ways that the poets are labelled and categorised. This is due to many poets sharing the same nation but not the same language, culture or ethnicity. Also these poets can be from the same nation but have very different political and social experiences based on their individual ethnicities. Therefore, some labels can be risky because of inaccuracy and even insensitivity. While I continue to research this topic I will be updating the PTC website with more questions and hopefully some answers.