Museums as Translation Zones

Translation zones have been characterized as sites of ‘intense interaction across languages, spaces defined by an acute consciousness of cultural negotiations’. This chapter examines the museum milieu as one such type of space. Translation here may be understood as operating on two levels: at the textual level, interlingual translation is used within the museum exhibition space to facilitate understanding, while at the broader cultural level, museums may be seen as translations or representations of cultures. The chapter first looks at such translation from an ‘off-stage’ perspective, focusing on issues such as museum interaction with source communities and contact work with indigenous peoples in settler societies. It then moves to consider the ‘on-stage’ context of the museum exhibition, examining how the museum’s translation of cultures through multilingual practices shapes intercultural contact within the exhibition space. The chapter concludes by situating these observations within the broader context of globalization and ideas of the museum as a cosmopolitan space.