Translation Dilemmas in Narrative Research

1. Translation Dilemmas in Narrative Research Mastoureh FathiTo Think is to Experiment18th May 2011, University of East London

2. Mastoureh: (laugh), how do you evaluate your social class? In your family? • Maryam: middle class • Mastoureh: Your family? • (Maryam nods) • Mastoureh: and when you got married? • Maryam: it was terrible. A doctor is a beggar. • Mastoureh: what do you mean? • Maryam: You know, let me put it in this way. At the beginning, before the revolution, we were from the… well, I don’t want to say some things. Because some things are very top-secret.

3. Mastoureh: Say whatever you are comfortable with. • Maryam: We were aristocrats. • Mastoureh: Do you mean army families were well-off? • Maryam: Yes, very well-off. • (Long silence) • Mastoureh: Say whatever you feel happy with. • Maryam: Yes, some of it is very secret. • Mastoureh: Tell me for example about the activities you did before you got married and you did not do after marriage. • Maryam: Not before and after the marriage but [say instead] before and after the revolution. Because revolution and marriage happened at the same time, so they overlap. [there was] no tennis, no swimming. When you wanted to go swimming, there were women-only swimming pools and [women were] dressing like beggars. It was very painful for us at that time to go swimming like that, everything [was painful]. We did not do anything. Even cinema was all [films from] Islamic republic. That was it. We did not have any entertainments. As simple as that.

4. Solmaz: with all these issues about Iran and the publicity that Iran has, you do not feel proud to say that you are Iranian. But I do [say] when it is required. I say that I am Iranian but people’s reaction is, erm, … everyone says : ‘Oh’. I mean there was nobody who…. Their first reaction was ‘Oh, really?’ (laughs). Has it ever happened to you? • Mastoureh: (nodding) Yes, many times. • Solmaz: ‘Oh really?’ (laughs)

5. Mastoureh: and then, their next question is definitely about Ahmadinejad. No? • Solmaz: I mean it is not a good feeling to say that you are Iranian.

6. where experiential learning about self and others gets done, where meanings are tried out, where experience slowly becomes understanding and where encounters and field notes, in the best cases, constellated with minor epiphanies of the type, ‘so, this is what it/he/she/they mean(s)! (Jordan 2002: 96) • The word in language is half someone else’s. It becomes ‘one’s own’ only when the speaker populates it with his own intention, his own accent and when he appropriates the word, adapting it to his own semantic and expressive intention. (Bakhtin 1981: 293-94)

7. Solmaz: In England, there is a complete system of socialism. If you work or not, if you be a doctor or an engineer, if you are a teacher, or a plumber,[…], if you are on benefit, your life is more or less the same. It does not make any difference. So the level of life for everyone is the same unless you are a millionaire or a royalty that your level of life is different. Otherwise, it is a socialist system that everyone is like each other. Mastoureh: You mean your life style is the same as someone who lives on benefits? Solmaz: I think it is the same. Mastoureh: Why do you think it is the same? Solmaz: What do you think of life level? The level of life, erm, do you think of it as a house that you live in? or a car? or the television that you have? or the furniture that you have? The amount of toys your child has? for example… what do you think of life level? the amount of free time that you have? and you can spend it in a bar or a restaurant? Or you can go shopping? What is a life level? Is it what I said now, then, or is it the abroad holiday? Then everyone can afford it.