Translating cultures and the legislated mediation of indigenous rights in Peru

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This project will examine issues of cross-cultural communication of the law in negotiations that are currently taking place, on an escalated scale over the last three years, between the state and the indigenous populations of the Andean and Amazonian regions of Peru. These negotiations are framed by a Law on the Right to Prior Consultation, passed in 2011 under a newly elected government, which answers the internationally legislated right of indigenous peoples to be consulted on matters regarding the industrial development of their land, particularly where extraction of natural resources is at stake. The implementation of the principle of prior consultation in a multilingual and multicultural country like Peru, where Amerindian languages belonging to some 16 language families are spoken in addition to the majority language, Spanish, raises problems of communication across language and cultural boundaries, which are being addressed by a number of means. Under the terms of the Law on Prior Consultation adherence must be made to the Law of Language Rights (also passed in 2011), whereby the state must provide translators and interpreters to transmit the message of the Law and to mediate the consultations across cultural boundaries. The text of the Prior Consultation law has been translated into five indigenous languages, and more translations are being prepared. The state, under the aegis of the Viceministry of Interculturality (also created in 2011), is delivering an interpreter training programme from which more than a hundred bilingual speakers of Spanish with some twenty Amerindian languages between them have already graduated and are being contracted to work on the consultation sessions as they arise. This convergence in Peruvian social policy of concern with language rights of indigenous peoples and the right to prior consultation, brings together the spheres of law, health and the environment, in a way that creates new challenges for the state, as well as for the non-governmental organisations working in close contact with the rural populations around issues of equality. With the proposed project the investigators (two from the UK and one from Peru), take an interdisciplinary approach to researching the textual products (translations of the Law) and the social, cultural and linguistic processes (interpreter training and practice) that are emerging in this new conjuncture. To keep the scope manageable, we shall focus on translation of the text of the Law into four languages, two of the highlands (Quechua and Aymara) and two of Amazonia (Asháninka and Achuar); we shall be assisted in the task by bilingual consultants with linguistic training and experience of translation. We shall bring the tools of anthropological linguistics, Translation and Interpreting Studies, and sociolinguistics of Peruvian indigenous languages, to bear in addressing the overarching question: to what extent is translation and interpreting in contexts of mediation between the state and the indigenous communities in Peru achieving its ostensive aim of greater equality of treatment, contributing to more harmonious relations between state and indigenous populations in a hierarchical postcolonial society, while allowing sustainable economic development to take place in conditions satisfactory to all sides? To come close to the contexts in which the processes are taking place, we shall work with two Project Partners (a government ministry and a non-governmental organisation with access to the indigenous communities). We shall apply a mixed-method approach to data collection and analysis, using ELAN software to assist processing. We shall disseminate results through workshops and symposia in Peru and in the UK, as well as via a dedicated Project website and publications in academic journals. We shall ensure impact in Peru through public events in the regions where the consultations are taking place (Cuzco and Iquitos).