The UOC researches the political interests that determine the global circulation of literature

A group of four researchers with collaborations in Argentina, Belgium, Colombia and Spain is studying how translation policies work and what kind of cultural and literary diversity is being promoted in different parts of Ibero-America. With this research project, the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) aims to examine the mechanisms used by national and regional governments to exercise their agency in the fields of literature and publishing, and to reconstruct the translation policies financed by these governments at different scales: local, regional, national and global. The aim is to gain a better understanding of the role played by public institutions in literature and publishing worldwide.

The research, titled Translating diversity: institutional agents and literary translation policies in Ibero-America (2001-2022), responds to the significant increase in translation programmes and translation grants that have been given in recent years, not only in Ibero-America, but throughout the world. "We want to study the mechanisms at work in the consecration of literature and establish which agents – ­publishers, translators, literary agents, book fairs and national culture institutes – play a role in this process," said Diana Roig Sanz, ICREA research professor and coordinator of this project with Laura Virginia Fólica, who is also a Spanish National Research Council researcher. Roig Sanz and Fólica are members of the UOC's Global Literary Studies Research Lab (GlobaLS), which is affiliated with the UOC's Faculty of Arts and Humanities and the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3).

Translations contribute to the creation of literary value and symbolic capital, and are an excellent tool for the dissemination and projection of domestic authors in the international literary market. In this respect, the project is based on the hypothesis that the translation policies of national culture institutes have two purposes. For one, they are a tool to create a country's brand and exercise soft power, as they help to export literary texts related to a language and literature. And secondly, translation policies are usually aligned with trends in the publishing market, reinforcing a certain canon. In this regard, the project will examine whether public institutions favour an alternative canon that is not necessarily aligned with the trends in the publishing market or whether, on the contrary, they favour authors who have already been consecrated by the publishing industry. The project will also examine the extent to which changes of government impact the Latin American publishing industry, which tends to be considered economically vulnerable and needs greater help and protection.

Roig Sanz and Fólica work in partnership with Lucía Campanella, Marie Curie researcher at the UOC, as well as with Elizabete Manterola, from the University of the Basque Country. Ventsislav Ikoff, a specialist in data mining and digital humanities, will join the team later on.

Translating diversity (Trad-Divers), with a special focus on women

The research project, whose acronym is Trad-Drivers, focuses on the diversity of publications that are translated, in relation to gender, language or what is known as bibliodiversity, and pays special attention to the study of translated women – authors, but also translators and directors of national culture institutes or translation programmes. "We've been working a lot with the notion of cultural diversity, in a broad sense – linguistic diversity, bibliodiversity, in terms of gender, etc. – and this interest in fostering knowledge that is more plural, democratic and inclusive made us see that it was necessary to empirically and systematically examine the degree of real diversity that the different actors involved in the circulation of literature are promoting," said Roig Sanz.

The study, which is funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, will analyse the extent to which literary and cultural diversity has been fostered by taking a representative sample of the translation programmes of national culture institutes in Ibero-America (Spain and Latin America) in the first two decades of the 21st century. The year 2001 is significant because it is the year of the UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, while 2022 is the year in which Spain was invited to attend the Frankfurt Book Fair as a guest of honour.

The methodology chosen for the project combines quantitative approaches (through digital humanities and data mining) and qualitative approaches (interviews and textual analysis). For the first time, a comparative analysis will be carried out of the publication of content from Ibero-America translated into languages other than Spanish or Portuguese through publicly funded programmes. The project performs its analysis across five stages, exploring translation flows and the authors and genres translated, based on extensive datasets that will be cross-referenced and compared. Trad-Divers pools resources to identify sustainable and unsustainable cultural practices and propose translation policies that can be more diverse and inclusive, improving dominant cultural models.

Comparing Ibero-American translation policies

The project has three objectives. First, to establish a theoretical framework that applies the notion of soft power to translation studies and to translation history and policies. "This entails associating critical perspectives in the field of international relations and political science with translation studies and global literary studies," the lead researchers explained.

The second objective is to propose a cross-regional comparative analysis of translation policies in Ibero-America, providing empirical evidence through new and reliable data. This analysis will make it possible to compile the different translation programmes that have been implemented from the perspective of their foundation, evolution and typology. In addition, new data will be generated to analyse the institutional canon that is being favoured in translations and whether it is aligned with the type of literature promoted by the publishing market. In this vein, the research will examine how translation policies are contributing to what is known as nation-branding.

Finally, the third objective is to offer innovative and robust research that can help improve translation policies and cultural policies in general.

PID2023-147380NB-I00 project funded by MCIU/ AEI / 10.13039/501100011033 / FEDER, EU.

This research supports UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 5 and 10, corresponding to Gender Equality and Reduced Inequalities, respectively. 

UOC R&I

The UOC's research and innovation (R&I) is helping overcome pressing challenges faced by global societies in the 21st century by studying interactions between technology and human & social sciences with a specific focus on the network society, e-learning and e-health.

Over 500 researchers and more than 50 research groups work in the UOC's seven faculties, its eLearning Research programme and its two research centres: the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute (IN3) and the eHealth Center (eHC).

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Open knowledge and the goals of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development serve as strategic pillars for the UOC's teaching, research and innovation. More information: research.uoc.edu.