Revista Estudos Feministas (Sep 2009)
Journals and Translation Policies of Contemporary Mexican Feminism
Abstract
This essay focuses on the analysis of three important journals and editorial circuits which constitute, from this perspective, a significant part of feminist policy and visibility in contemporary Mexico: Debate Feminista, 1990, Fem, 1976 and La Correa Feminista, 1991. My purpose is to analyze these publications emphasizing their “translations policies”, mentioning the concepts of feminism and/or gender they promote through the authors and the criticism they choose to translate. “Translation”, in this context, means the translation of certain authors and theories and the way such translations fit into the local political context. I will read these translations according to the way they are incorporated into, and participate in, a broader political scenario; the way they present themselves in a certain editorial picture and the historical moment they are published, understanding them as ways of intervening in the local political arena. Understanding the translations as intervention policies, we assume that this is one of the ways through which feminist groups set up connections, alliances and platforms to establish a relationship with both the social movements and national political actors. I will refer to the dialogical space between women as a problematic arena of feminist groups and their agendas, and women from several social movements and their agendas. Rebecca E. Biron’s text “Feminist Periodicals in Mexico” (1996) was the core inspiration for this work, as well as the argument proposed by Claudia de Lima Costa (2003; 2006) on transnationalization-translation as concepts that need to be clarified from their local and global perspectives.
