Translating Communities

Issue 4 of Spark is on the topic of translating communities. This theme concerns the way in which one community, be it linguistic, cultural, or academic, communicates with others. Translation, then, does not just concern the transformation of one language into another, but also how bodies of knowledge, learning strategies, cultures, and identities are shared with the world. To this end, the articles in this issue address these techniques. Sue Rawcliffe, in ‘Imagining the Past, Imagining the Future: Communities and Social Welfare in the West of Scotland’, looks at how imagination and memory, crossed with archival records and stories about events within two communities situated in the West of Scotland, might help to develop perceptions of these communities’ futures. Charlotte McPherson, Samantha Punch, and Elizabeth Graham, in ‘Postgraduate Transitions from Masters to Doctoral Study: Managing Independence, Emotions, and Support’, explore the significantly overlooked area of student transition in Higher Education from Masters to Doctoral study. They find the process a complex, demanding, and emotional one for students, who must engage in a translation of their academic selves, research, and critical thinking to meet the needs of their doctoral research communities. Aileen Lobban, in ‘Louise Bennett: On Writing the Creole Community, Poetically’, analyses how Bennett engages in a gendered Jamaican identity through the dub poet’s poems, identifying her community through Jamaican Creole and Jamaican proverbs to help push it beyond colonialism and patriarchal hegemony – a translation that is linguistic, socio-cultural, and national. Kelly Gardner reviews Contemporary Spanish Gothic (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2016), by Ann Davies.