ABSTRACT
In this first chapter the figure of the migrant will be discussed in its relation to translation, as a person in translation. Some of the migrant’s most significant features, of being other, and of being in movement, puts her in relation to translation: the migrant and the translation share common characteristics, and share being considered often as secondary and derivative.
The regime of the nation-state, based upon membership and a principle of exclusion-inclusion, continue to impede the migrant’s rights to belong, to translate herself freely in and among places and allegiances. Through a few examples we look at how migrants tend to be translated into fixed categories, depriving them from the possibility to engage actively in the construction of a life in translation.
The figure of the stranger, and that of the transmigrant will be introduced as alternative representations of the migrant, able to transcend the dominating binary scheme of us and them. These figures represent rather ambivalence and uncertainty, of people who do not belong and yet belong, who connect to multiple places simultaneously, and who – through translation – maintain multidirectional social relations.
The (trans)migrant lives in an ambivalent condition of translation, between contradicting regimes and models, negotiating between and among a plurality of allegiances and belongings.
