hue-ism

hue-ism

as in racism, but, as I understand it, particularly discrimination within communities of color of people with darker skin. I heard this term used by Beverly Mullings on a bridging -isms panel at the US geographers (AAG) conference in 2009 and I love it, but I'm stumped as to a Spanish version. hue is tinte o tono o matiz o color, maybe colorismo? Any thoughts?

primordial

primordial: fundamental

As in, 'su apoyo ha sido primordial para nosotros'. This is another one of those that sounds really funny if you slip and do the cognate. Kudos to Melissa for getting this and so many other tricky subtitles right in this great little video

in good standing

good standing: cumplimiento y constancia

as in, member in good standing - miembro cumplido y constante
or, for example, "Miembros de pleno derecho y miembros asociados tendrán un plazo indeterminado, siempre y cuando hayan demostrado cumplimiento y constancia respecto a sus obligaciones."

thanks to Veronika for this one!

language can build solidarity

"Language and the human spirit are inextricably intertwined. We interpret the world through language. We express ourselves through language. Language is powerful. Language can bring us together or set us apart. It can be used to include — to bridge barriers between cultures, religions, worldviews — at the same time as it can be used to exclude by inflaming xenophobia and racism. Language can establish community and solidarity at the same time as it can be used to erect boundaries and divide communities. More often than not, when we turn on the TV we see language used to occlude — to hide reality — to deceive, to spin, to distract, to disempower, to reinforce us versus them conceptions of humanity. Language is no longer innocent. We can no longer conceptualize language as some kind of neutral code that can be taught in classrooms in splendid isolation from its intersection with issues of power, identity, and spirituality." – Jim Cummins, Language and the Human Spirit (2003)

palabras que nos cambiaron

es es titulo de una exposición lindisima que ví en Bogotá. Acabo de encontrar el glosario de la exposicion enlinea aca, la recomiendo altamente.

Por ejemplo definen colonialismo como:
A fines del siglo XVIII el término colonialismo comenzó a adquirir una connotación negativa. Las primeras veces que se utilizó desde la perspectiva de la América española fue en las quejas de las elites criollas que cuestionaron los intereses de centralización política y explotación mercantil de los Borbones, en el contexto de una creciente tendencia al libre comercio en el Atlántico. Luego, durante la invasión napoleónica de la península, los mismos criollos denunciaron la desproporción en la representación de América en las cortes, con mayoría de peninsulares. En una época en que se valoraba la participación política, el espacio mínimo que se otorgó a las Américas reflejaba una injusta y desigual relación de poder.

Los territorios americanos, “Las Indias”, se habían integrado a la Monarquía como reinos y no como colonias. Y la relativa calma que perduró durante tres siglos dentro de la misma revela que, políticamente, el mundo hispano era estable. Esto nos obliga a pensar la historia de la Monarquía por fuera de supuestos (contemporáneos) de dominación, que le adjudican a la variedad de súbditos americanos una constante o natural pretensión “anticolonial”. Así pues, si utilizamos el concepto de “colonial” o “historia colonial” para demarcar el periodo durante el cual América y España estuvieron vinculadas dentro de una misma estructura monárquica o imperio, es necesario evadir perspectivas teleológicas que impiden comprender cómo se producían las identidades imperiales hispanas.

Los movimientos independentistas hispanoamericanos reinventaron el pasado negativamente y aprovecharon el potencial revolucionario del anticolonialismo en una época de rápido cambio político y volatilidad simbólica. Paradójicamente, al inventar las estructuras políticas y legales nacionales, las elites vencedoras revelaron ser portadoras del impulso centralista y colonialista (a menor escala) que le habían cuestionado a la Madre España.

Marcela Echeverri
Historiadora
2010

sere un nerd academica total, pero me parece fascinante - y la version virtual tiene arte grafico al estilo "colonial" que me encanta

minga

minga: minga (collective work action)

la minga llega a Bogota

The above are photos I took of the Colombian minga at the end of their long march, as it was coming in to the heart of Bogotá in November of 2008.

I have posted before about the term minga, so forgive me for going off about it again, but I continue to be frustrated that a lot of interps and translators are just leaving minga as minga into English, which I think will not make sense to most readers and loses some of its power. Yes, it is a powerful and complex enough word that we should work on importing it (like we have campesino) and educating English only listeners as to what a minga is, but to do that you have to add a quick simplified definition when you use it. I propose adding collective work action the first few times you use it.

In the Jan/Feb issue of NACLA there is a great article by Deborah Poole about the Colombian minga, in which she explains that:

"Minga is a Quechua word meaning “collective work” with wide currency among popular and poor sectors, both indigenous and mestizo, of the Andean republics. The Cauca-based minga of 2008 was grounded in the territorial and cultural demands of Colombia’s indigenous peoples, yet it is a movement that now extends across the Andes, engaging indigenous and non-indigenous sectors in Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru (see “Against the Law of the Jungle"). Minga, however, is a concept that has traveled not only because of the “natural” cultural solidarities that run through indigenous ideals of community life, but also because Andean authorities long ago found in the minga a useful means to organize corvée labor, first in colonial mines and then later for the roads and public works that would provide evidence for the state’s presence in their nations’ otherwise forgotten indigenous territories. Thus the ACIN’s call to join in minga, as a name for a collective action that is at once local and international, gains force from both its cultural and historical references to a shared experience of subjugation. By calling their movement a minga, the indigenous participants call attention to both the work that must go into politics and the idea that that work must be collective. They also, of course, reclaim it from long histories of state-led attempts to organize and control collective politics and community organization."