ABSTRACT
In this chapter I discuss the nature of borders, and their indispensable role in all practice and theory of both translation and migration. Borders are much more than linear territorial divisions, they are constructions able to configure and even shape the world, and are not simply crossed in translation and migration, while they rather epitomize the space of conflictuality, ambivalence, and uncertainty of any relationship with otherness, thus a space of and in translation. It is precisely at the border – or in the border zones – that differences encounter, interact, negotiate, and are “put to the test”. Borders are intrinsically dual, they both separate and relate, they create division and at the same time they construct connections, overlappings, and blurred boundaries. In turn, this duality represents the border’s ambivalence: no border only excludes or includes.
We look at how both migration as well as translation not only are conditioned by borders, but can be active in the very practice of bordering, of inscribing, erasing and distorting borders.
The border zone appears as the space that best represents the condition of living in translation, a social space shaped by translative transitions and negotiations.
