Identity in Transit: Interpreting Med Voices

Med Voices, the EU project organised within the framework of EuroMed Heritage II and designed to valorise intangible heritage and safeguard community identity is analysed here from the perspective of the difficulties posed for the translator/interpreter. The project was designed to mine the data offered by oral history archives registered in the 13 different partner sites involved (under the coordination of London Metropolitan University). The Mediterranean was defined in Braudelian terms of cultural routes and roots and the interviews were analysed from the perspective of rehabilitating community identity in places where the same was at risk for varying reasons: due to war or conflict (Palestine, North/South Cyprus, the Lebanon and Turkey, for example), on account of permanent and traditional religious tensions (Granada, Spain) or as a result of the cutural standardisation produced by mass tourism (the Balearic islands and the Canary Islands, Spain). The interviews and the corresponding analyses were uploaded onto a database in both the language of the partner site and English (the lingua franca) designed to offer resources for further anthropological research, tourism applications and product design together with educational packs for use in schools. The problems of capturing and transmitting cultural idiosyncrasy (dialect, embedded cultural markers, lexicon, humour) concisely and coherently are briefly analysed, together with the complexity of producing texts designed for various different endusers.