TRANSLATING DOCUMENTARIES FROM A TRANSNATIONAL FEMINIST PERSPECTIVE: A CASE STUDY OF SUBTITLED BRAZILIAN DOCUMENTARIES ON WASTE PICKING

TRADUZIR DOCUMENTÁRIOS A PARTIR DE UMA PERSPECTIVA FEMINISTA TRANSNACIONAL: UM ESTUDO DE CASO DE DOCUMENTÁRIOS BRASILEIROS COM LEGENDAS SOBRE CATADORES DE MATERIAIS RECICLÁVEIS

ABSTRACT

Subtitling and audiovisual translation (AVT) in general, as language practices, play a crucial role in shaping social imaginary and contributing to the construction of identities. But far too little attention has been paid to the translation of documentaries, especially those produced in the so-called “global” South and translated into other languages, such as English. Therefore, this paper aims to gain a further understanding of translating documentaries, particularly looking at subtitles from a transnational perspective intertwining translation and feminist studies. We will elaborate on the importance of translators’ careful listening as a critical factor in the translation of documentaries produced based on personal narratives. The object of analysis comprises excerpts of subtitles, audio recordings, and frames extracted from Brazilian documentaries chronicling the lives and work experiences of waste pickers (including poor, Black women) set in contexts of extreme poverty. The research proposes a parallel between the story of Pandora and its many translations and interpretations and the representation of women in the subtitled versions of the documentaries, thus suggesting that such a theoretical perspective can shed light on how women’s words and works can become fertile in their difference, and perhaps their deviance.

Keywords
translation; subtitles; documentary; transnational; Pandora

RESUMO

A tradução para legendas e a tradução audiovisual (TAV) como um todo, enquanto práticas linguísticas, desempenham um papel crucial na formação do imaginário social e na construção de identidades. No entanto, pouca atenção tem sido direcionada para a tradução de documentários, principalmente aqueles produzidos no chamado Sul “global” e traduzidos para outras línguas, como o inglês. Sendo assim, este trabalho tem como objetivo aprofundar a compreensão da tradução de documentários, mais especificamente com foco na tradução para legendas sob uma perspectiva transnacional, explorando a interligação entre tradução e estudos feministas. Abordaremos a importância da escuta atenta do tradutor como fator crítico na tradução de documentários produzidos a partir de narrativas pessoais. O objeto de análise compreende trechos de legendas, áudio e frames extraídos de documentários brasileiros que narram a vida e as experiências de trabalho de catadoras e catadores de materiais recicláveis (incluindo mulheres negras) em contextos de extrema pobreza. A pesquisa propõe um paralelo entre o mito de Pandora e suas diversas traduções e interpretações, bem como as representações da mulher nas versões legendadas dos documentários, sugerindo, assim, que tal perspectiva teórica pode lançar luz sobre como as palavras e obras das mulheres podem se tornar férteis em suas diferenças e possivelmente em seus desvios.

Palavras-chave:
tradução; legendas; documentário; transnacional

INTRODUCTION

“When I am in the city I have the impression that I am in a living room with crystal chandeliers, rugs of velvet, and satin cushions. And when I’m in the favela I have the impression that I’m a useless object, destined to be forever in a garbage dump.” (JESUS, 1962, p. 29)

“I wonder if the poor of other countries suffer like the poor of Brazil.”

(JESUS, 1962, p. 25)

More than 60 years have passed since Brazilian Black woman writer Carolina Maria de Jesus wrote those words in her personal diary.¹ Carolina was a catadora - also known in English as waste picker, recycler, canner, dumpster diver, scrapper, scavenger, and reclaimer -, and so are thousands of people who are hit the hardest by inequality, climate change, political conflicts, corruption, unemployment, and starvation worldwide (LIMA, 2022; UNITED NATIONS, 2023). With limited financial, educational, and/or social resources, in many cases, the world’s poorest and most vulnerable populations have no other alternative but to turn to waste picking as a survival strategy to provide for the basic needs of their families. They usually live in precarious shacks near dump sites² located in territories inhabited almost exclusively by Black people - all the while no dumpsters can be found in upscale neighborhoods. They end up working in those waste disposal areas and on the streets of large cities collecting tin cans, cardboard, packaging, and any other recycling material that can be sold. They live largely on scraps and food that has been wasted by others and is found in these dump sites.

Carolina’s handwritten daily journal describes São Paulo’s favelas in the 1950s, with rotting shacks surrounded by garbage and misery. Courageously taking a stance against the socioeconomic-political conditions that wreak havoc on the lives of her people and speaking up for those who starve and suffer, her narrative is an account of how she struggled against hunger as a waste picker and the single mother of three children:

July 15, 1955 The birthday of my daughter Vera Eunice. I wanted to buy a pair of shoes for her, but the price of food keeps us from realizing our desires. Actually we are slaves to the cost of living. I found a pair of shoes in the garbage, washed them, and patched them for her to wear. I didn’t have one cent to buy bread. So I washed three bottles and traded them to Arnaldo. He kept the bottles and gave me bread. Then I went to sell my paper. I received 65 cruzeiros. I spent 20 cruzeiros for meat. I got one kilo of ham and one kilo of sugar and spent six cruzeiros on cheese. And the money was gone. (JESUS, 1962, p. 3).

And the overall situation has not changed much. The “Workers in Informal Employment in Brazil: A Statistical Snapshot of 2019 and 2020”³ (BOUVIER; VANEK; ROUBAUD, 2022) report states that at least 250,000 people work as catadores in the country, and women account for 86% of them. Further, according to more recent statistics, 70% of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty worldwide are women, and they “are much more vulnerable to the negative impacts of climate change than men, largely as a result of poverty.” (UNITED NATIONS, 2023).

Nevertheless, as the catadores went on to become more critical about their existence and practices in the world and to form associations and cooperatives through which they could fight for their rights, other layers have been added to their subject representation: no longer viewed (by others and by themselves) only as survivors from social exclusion⁴ whose access to resources and respect for rights have been often denied, but also as eco-warriors who propose the world rethink the current model of a consumer society, particularly by focusing on the impacts of solid waste on the environment and labor:

Waste pickers’ experience in handling waste is marked by a dialectical relationship between feelings of shame and pride. They may experience shame due to enduring inhumane conditions and being associated with the waste that provides them income for survival. On the other hand, they feel pride when they realize their role as environmental agents contributing to preservation and conservation efforts. (COSTA; PATO, 2016, p.101, our translation).

Such an interplay is also a core part of Carolina’s book and the documentaries analyzed for this paper. Importantly, Carolina’s is one of the first internationally recognized documentations of what it is like to live off garbage. After Carolina’s text, a number of other narratives chronicling the lives of people relying on waste picking to survive and experiencing socioeconomic vulnerability, extreme hardship, and resistance, were produced over the years in Brazil - and they continue to appear. Brazilian film documentaries, in particular, have dealt with such sensitive issues: Restos (1975), Ilha das Flores (1989), Boca de Lixo (1993), Estamira (2004), Lixo Extraordinário (2010), O Lixo Nosso de Cada Dia (2020), to name just a few, with some of them translated and subtitled into other languages, such as English, Spanish, and French.

Particularly in those documentaries, the majority of waste pickers shown and interviewed are women. Female presence in the dump sites and in the previously mentioned documentary films is strong and significant, which explains our choice to focus on women figures and their representation in the translated (subtitled) versions of those documentaries.

Further, despite the number of documentaries that have been produced to describe a phenomenon found worldwide, with varying scopes depending on the regions, little is known about how the lives and work experiences of women waste pickers are translated and subtitled - thus represented - into other languages. In fact, only a limited number of studies have been conducted to investigate the translation of documentaries in general (ESPASA, 2004; BOSSEAUX, 2020).

It is also important to add that the way in which poverty and gender issues are represented in discourse “fundamentally shape how these phenomena are comprehended” (BOSSEAUX, 2020, p.88). Moreover, as Nichols (2017, p.29) puts it, “documentary adds a new dimension to popular memory and social history”, and subtitling and audiovisual translation (AVT) in general, as language practices, play a crucial role in shaping social imaginary and contributing to the construction of identities (FLOTOW, 2018), all of which also justifies our choice of looking deeper into the translation of these productions.

Thus, this paper aims to gain a further understanding of translating documentaries, particularly looking at subtitles from a transnational perspective (CASTRO; ERGUN, 2017; FLOTOW, 2018; FLOTOW, 2022). The object of analysis comprises excerpts of subtitles, audio recordings, and frames of women waste pickers. The excerpts were extracted from four of the six Brazilian documentaries previously mentioned, Ilha das Flores (1989), Boca de Lixo (1993), Estamira (2004), Lixo Extraordinário (2010), all of which were produced in Brazilian Portuguese and then translated and subtitled⁵ into English. The analysis is carried out from a multimodal approach since the narratives presented in documentaries are told both orally and visually. As highlighted by Bosseaux (2020), not only the words will be considered, but also people’s voices and their body language.

The main reason for choosing to study the subtitled version of the films is that we believe in the social value of subtitles added to documentaries. Viewing and understanding translation as a never-neutral and a nevertransparent act, we look at AVT (including subtitles, of course) as a political performance capable of contributing to shaping social imaginary, constructing identities, and producing cross-boundary dialogues.

In line with this perspective, the present work⁶ has primarily developed out of a personal interest in trying to shed some light on the connection between translation and media representations of the poor, particularly of women from the so-called third world. It is also motivated by the increasing interest in feminist transnational translation studies observed in Brazil, and the drive to further elaborate on challenging ethical questions that arise when intertwining audiovisual translation (AVT) with its sociopolitical role. In order to frame our discussion, this paper mostly draws on feminist scholars as well as feminist translation scholars.

THE DOCUMENTARIES AND THEIR WOMEN

For this paper, we are focusing on the excerpts of subtitles from four documentaries: Ilha das Flores (1989), Boca de Lixo (1993), Estamira (2004), and Lixo Extraordinário (2010), all of which were produced in Brazilian Portuguese and then translated and subtitled into English. Among Brazilian documentaries, these are the most internationally recognized productions that would exemplify what we can name an aesthetics of waste, that is, a specific approach towards documentary production. To put it another way, “waste” serves as the signifier that links this set of documentary films chronicling groups of waste pickers who salvage recyclable material and depend on waste picking to support their families.

In the Brazilian context, these people live in favelas and go to dump sites daily to do precarious, albeit necessary, work. In that atmosphere, they are exposed to hazardous materials and face serious health risks. On this topic, Medina (2000, p. 2) states that “due to their daily contact with garbage, scavengers are usually associated with dirt, disease, squalor, and perceived as a nuisance, a symbol of backwardness, and even as criminals. They survive in a hostile physical and social environment.” Nevertheless, catadores have also increasingly assumed a role within the environmental domain as individuals responsible for collecting/recycling waste and helping the environment.

In this respect, according to Miura (2004), catadores’ subjectivities are crisscrossed by a dialectical interplay between feelings of shame and pride. Shame would arise when they survive in inhumane conditions and are compared to the material (waste) they collect for their livelihood, as if they feel they themselves are the waste product of society. On the other hand, pride would emerge when they realize their significance as eco-warriors contributing to preservation and conservation efforts.

In what follows, this paper moves on to provide a brief account of each documentary and a description of how they share the overall characteristics previously mentioned. The approach taken in Ilha das Flores (1989) is deemed innovative by film critics, as it adopts a cinematographic language reminiscent of hypertext, with a web of relations in which one thing refers to another, creating an interconnected narrative that appears to have no end. The film traces the trajectory of a tomato - from the farms to the supermarkets and then to family homes where it is thrown in the trash, ending up in a place known as Ilha das Flores: a dumpster area in the city of Porto Alegre. At Ilha das Flores, women and children search for food, but they are only allowed to take whatever has not been fed to pigs.

Similarly, Boca de Lixo (1993) was filmed in a dump site in Rio de Janeiro where documentarian Eduardo Coutinho conducts a series of interviews with waste pickers. According to Lins (2004), during such encounters, people are encouraged to talk about their lives as waste pickers while responding to questions such as: How did you end up here? Do you enjoy working here? What kind of material do you collect? Some of them resist showing their face and choose to stay away from the camera while others confront the team of producers who are making their inquiries and demands. At some points, Coutinho also visits the waste pickers’ homes: decayed shacks surrounded by open sewage.

A more recent documentary, Estamira (2004), narrates the life of the woman after whom the production is named. She is in her 60s and has been working at a dump site in Rio de Janeiro while struggling with mental issues for over 20 years. The leader of a small community of elderly individuals who rely on waste picking for a living, she tells her life story while providing viewers with a deeply poetic outlook on life.

Last, but equally important, Lixo Extraordinário (2010) is an account of a group of waste pickers also working at a dump site in Rio de Janeiro who meet with Vik Muniz, a Brazilian artist. Muniz is mainly interested in producing art with unusual materials such as sugar, chocolate, toys, and, in this case, waste. In this documentary, he counts on the help of the waste pickers to create their portraits while also gaining insights into their experiences at the dump site.

In this paper, our focus is on four female characters from the documentaries previously described: Dona Anete from Ilha das Flores (1989), Cícera from Boca de Lixo (1993), Estamira from Estamira (2004), and Ísis from Lixo Extraordinário (2010). In order to elaborate on the translation of those women from a transnational feminist perspective, we will draw on the myth of Pandora, which will develop further in this text. The major goal is to establish a parallel between this (many times rewritten) narrative as a translation myth (FLOTOW, 1997) and the representation of those women in the translated-subtitled version of the documentaries. By bringing in this network of perspectives, we shed light on how the translation of documentaries can align with women’s will to knowledge as being fertile in its deviancy - a precept of feminist translation studies, more generally.

DONA ANETE

Dona Anete appears in Ilha das Flores after a detailed narrative of the tomato’s journey from the farm to its exchange for money by the farmer and the supermarket owner. As the story goes on in a rather witty mood, short descriptions of “human being” (in reference to the farmer), “vegetable” (in reference to the tomato), “money”, and “supermarket” are given in an interconnected manner until Dona Anete is mentioned.

Figure 1
Dona Anete in Ilha das Flores.

Transcription from Portuguese audio3:47 to 5:36 English subtitles1 Dona Anete é um bípede, mamífero, católico, apostólico, romano. Possui o telencéfalo altamente desenvolvido e o polegar opositor. É, portanto, um ser humano. Ela veio a este supermercado para, entre outras coisas, trocar seu dinheiro por tomates. [...] Os alimentos que Dona Anete trocou pelo dinheiro que trocou por perfumes extraídos das flores serão totalmente consumidos por sua família num período de um dia. Um dia é o intervalo de tempo que o planeta terra leva para girar completamente sobre o seu próprio eixo. Meio-dia é a hora do almoço. A família é a comunidade formada por um homem e uma mulher, unidos por laço matrimonial, e pelos filhos nascidos deste casamento. Anete is a Roman Catholic biped mammal. / She has a developed telencephalon and opposable thumb. / She is, therefore, a human. She is in the supermarket to, among other things,/...exchange her money for tomatoes. [...]The food Anete exchanged for the money,/...that was exchanged for perfumes,/...will be consumed by her family in the course of one day. One day is the time the Earth takes.../ ...to rotate once around its own axis./ Midday is time for lunch. A family is a community formed by two humans,/ ...joined by matrimony, and the children born of his marriage

Transcription from Portuguese audio 3:47 to 5:36

English subtitles1

Dona Anete é um bípede, mamífero, católico, apostólico, romano. Possui o telencéfalo altamente desenvolvido e o polegar opositor. É, portanto, um ser humano. Ela veio a este supermercado para, entre outras coisas, trocar seu dinheiro por tomates. [...] Os alimentos que Dona Anete trocou pelo dinheiro que trocou por perfumes extraídos das flores serão totalmente consumidos por sua família num período de um dia. Um dia é o intervalo de tempo que o planeta terra leva para girar completamente sobre o seu próprio eixo. Meio-dia é a hora do almoço. A família é a comunidade formada por um homem e uma mulher, unidos por laço matrimonial, e pelos filhos nascidos deste casamento.

Anete is a Roman Catholic biped mammal. / She has a developed telencephalon and opposable thumb. / She is, therefore, a human. She is in the supermarket to, among other things,/ ...exchange her money for tomatoes. [...] The food Anete exchanged for the money,/...that was exchanged for perfumes,/...will be consumed by her family in the course of one day. One day is the time the Earth takes.../ ...to rotate once around its own axis./ Midday is time for lunch. A family is a community formed by two humans,/ ...joined by matrimony, and the children born of his marriage

Dona Anete is a middle-class, white, cis woman who goes to the supermarket, nicely dressed and with her hair done, to buy food. In Brazilian Portuguese, she is addressed by her first name preceded by the pronoun “dona”, which is typically used to express respect and formality and to refer to older and important women. Based on her image and how she is addressed, as a “dona”, it is clear how differently she is treated in comparison to the women shown later in the documentary. These are mostly Black and poor women who do not go to supermarkets but instead need to go through whatever has not been fed to pigs in search of food. We do not know their names or anything about their families; they are certainly not treated as “donas”. ⁷

In the context of Ilha das Flores, we could argue that poor Black women are represented as the Other(ness). In her critical analysis of timeless everyday racism, Kilomba (2008) argues that whatever is considered as the “Other” connotes difference, that against which the “self” is measured, while “Otherness” would be the personification of the repressed aspects of the “self.” In other words, she explains that “we [Black women] become the mental representation of what the white subject does not want to be like. [...] That is, Blackness serves as the primary form of Otherness by which whiteness is constructed.” (KILOMBA, 2008, p. 19).

In the English subtitles, Dona Anete is referred to as Anete only, and the pronoun “dona” is omitted. Such omission could lead us to a number of different interpretations. First, the effect produced on the basis of the translation could be that of intimacy and greater proximity. The fact that she is addressed by her first name alone can indicate that a woman like Anete - a middle-class, white, cis woman - is more familiar to the English language-cultures viewer, that is, seen as more ordinary and everyday. In this sense, Anete, rather than Dona Anete or M(r)s. Anete, would more strongly and closely represent the type of woman that English language-culture is familiar with. To put it another way, she could be seen as the “universal woman subject” who would speak on behalf of all women during the first waves of feminisms and which transnational feminisms have problematized. Here, Anete ends up being perceived as a plain middle-class housewife as a result of the English subtitles omitting the pronoun “dona”, and such omission erases important socio-cultural differences between white, middle-class women and the Black poor women working in the dump sites.

Something else worth highlighting in this excerpt is the different definitions of “family” in Brazilian Portuguese (“A família é a comunidade formada por um homem e uma mulher” or “A family is a community formed by a man and a woman”) and in the English subtitles (“A family is a community formed by two humans”). In the first case, the utterance suggests the need for two people of two different genders (in this case, a man and a woman) to form a family and this is the case of Dona Anete. Differently, the English subtitles do not mark gender differences in the formation of a family, thus implying that people, human beings of all genders, form families. This could be illustrated by the women working in the dump sites, many of whom are single mothers, alone with their children. One could, thus, argue that the English subtitles let us infer that the poor Black women, shown in the documentary with their children and no partners represent families, which is not the case for how the Brazilian Portuguese audio and images represent a family.

The dissimilitude between audio and translation in Brazilian Portuguese and English, respectively, seems to end up reasserting that Brazilian Portuguese language-culture is more strongly attached to traditional values and, thus, to traditional families (in the 1980s but even so in present times) than, in this case, the English languageculture. In the Brazilian Portuguese (translated) version of her book Plantation Memories, Kilomba (2008) addressed the difference between Brazilian Portuguese and other languages-cultures, such as English and German, exploring how Brazilian Portuguese carries the weight of its colonial and patriarchal history and heritage. Notably, the Brazilian Portuguese version of her book includes an entire section absent in the English version, which deals with the examination of terms such as negra/o, metiça/o, mulata/o, cabrita/o, escrava/o, still in use today, to reveal insights about the perpetuation of power relations and violence in Brazilian Portuguese language, culture and society:

Language, however poetic it may be, also has a political dimension of creating, fixing and perpetuating relations of power and violence, as each word we use defines the place of an identity. Deep down, through its terminologies, language constantly informs us of who is normal and who can represent the true human condition. (KILOMBA, 2008, p.14).

Similarly, such perpetuation of power relations and violence, as well as of colonial and patriarchal heritages, can be seen in the audio in Brazilian Portuguese and the linguistic choices made in the English translation to define “family”, as previously discussed.

Something that is also worth mentioning is how Dona Anete is described in Brazilian Portuguese, with the use of the male pronoun as a general pronoun for referring to a person (“Dona Anete é um bípede, mamífero, católico, apostólico, romano” and “É, portanto, um ser humano.” translated into English as “Anete is a Roman Catholic biped mammal. She has a developed telencephalon and opposable thumb. She is, therefore, a human.”). Although the main character of this excerpt is Anete, “generic malespeak” (FLOTOW, 1997) is used to refer to her, a woman, therefore producing misogynist effects. Whether it was the translator’s intentional choice or a result of English not being as gender marked as Brazilian Portuguese, the English version smooths out/removes this confusion of gender markings.

Importantly, it should be pointed out that those readings are only made possible because of a contemporary sociocultural context that has increasingly allowed the production of multiple interpretations through feminist lenses (MULVEY, 1996) and a “feminists’ refusal to opt for one sole meaning, [..] therefore emphasiz[ing] multiplicity and the fact that it is sometimes impossible, even destructive, to decide one way or the other” (FLOTOW, 1997, p. 45). This is also very much the case in the Pandora myth.

Hesiod’s Pandora myth (c.700 BC), as found in classic Greek literature, goes like this: Zeus punishes humankind for accepting fire stolen from the gods. As a punishment, humankind is given Pandora, a female being whose name may be read as “the giver of all gifts,” “the one who was given all gifts,” or “the gift of all the gods.” (LITTAU, 2000). As the narrative develops, Pandora receives a variety of goods initially kept in a sealed container - interpreted and translated differently as a jar, a cornucopia, a box, or a vessel (LITTAU, 2000) - that she possesses at all times. However, the container’s lid is ultimately violated⁸, and its inner content released, leading to the consequent downfall of humankind. The only thing that remains is hope.

In drawing a parallel between Pandora and translation, it could be argued that in much the same way that classic Pandora is viewed as artificial, as an object that is made not born, so could translation be viewed by nonfeminist perspectives: something derivative and reproductive. From such a perspective, similar to classic Pandora who should not have the agency to open the lid out of her curiosity to find out what is inside the box, translation too should remain on the surface and not dig into different, multiple interpretations. Nevertheless, this classic version of the Pandora myth has undergone numerous rewritings and reinterpretations over time, serving as a reminder that there are as many interpretations as there are potential readers from varying social-historic backgrounds.

Figure 2
Pandora by Elizabeth Colomba.

Notably, those transformations align well with feminist transnational translation which

defined as “politically and theoretically indispensable to forging feminist, prosocial justice and antiracist, postcolonial and antiimperial political alliances and epistemologies” (Alvarez et al. 2014, p. 558), [transnational feminist translation practices and ethics] promote the emergence of multiple and diverse intersubjectivities in translation, questioning and denaturalizing categories and practices of colonial modernity such as gender and gender patterns (FLOTOW, 2020, p. 5).

Pandora has, indeed, been various: in different tales and speaking different tongues. According to Littau (2000), Pandora is also known as Gaia or Mother Earth, the first woman created with water and earth and brought to life through the element of fire. In this version, her container takes the form of a cornucopia, symbolizing abundance and providing all that is necessary to nourish humanity. This representation is, thus, strongly associated with fertility: Pandora gestates and nurtures all the while affording abundant possibilities for growth. Looking at it this way, Pandora is at least double. She is fragmented, split, divided; constituted by differences that, as counterintuitive as they may be to the western logocentric perspective, are not secured in two distant and unrelated poles, but interwoven within a framework of significance that allows for their (co)existence. In the context of the documentary Ilha das Flores and its translation, we also see a connection with Pandora, particularly regarding multiplicity among women.

Here, women are seen as at least double while interwoven. The differences highlighted in the representations of the poor Black unnamed women and (Dona) Anete in Brazilian Portuguese and English languages-cultures are materialized in this production through various aspects: who is chosen as the representative of a middle-class housewife and who is not, how they are differently treated, whether they are referred to by a pronoun or not, if they are totally unnamed or not. All of this underscores women’s diverse subjectivities in discourse in much the same way as Pandora, who is not constrained by the classic Greek view of her, but constituted within a kaleidoscope of meanings. Therefore, women’s subjectivities in the context of the translated documentary are constructed through a web of connections that ultimately emphasize the impossibility of conceiving women as one. A similar view is made possible when looking and listening closely to the other documentaries discussed as follows.

CÍCERA

Cícera appears in Boca de Lixo in a heavily smoggy atmosphere, covered in black dirt and accompanied by her colleague Teresa and her children who also work in the dump site. When the documentarian and his camera approach all of them for an interview, Teresa hides her face, expressing she is shameful and does not want to be on TV. Cícera, on the other hand, agrees to the filming, invites the documentary team to come near her, and boasts about how proud she is of having been found working in the dump site. Her justification for such pride is, as she repeatedly says, the fact that “she is working, not stealing”.

In this sequence of frames, one woman is very ashamed, while the other demonstrates feeling quite proud of picking waste material. Thus, it is worth mentioning that the scene depicting the hide-and-seek interplay between Cícera, her colleague Teresa and the camera could certainly serve as an example of the representation of waste pickers as discussed in the introduction of this paper: waste pickers’ subjectivity represented through the dialectical relationship between feelings of shame and pride.

Figure 3
Cícera in Boca de Lixo.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 18:12 to 19:03 English subtitles Meu marido é pescador tem dia que vai pescar, arranja, e tem dia que vai e não arranja. A gente tem que se virar aqui mesmo não tá robano nem matano né? Tá trabalhando… É isso aí… A gente trabalha pra vender. [...] Não tô nem aí eu nem ligo que sai em televisão que saí em jornal eu? Nem ligo minha filha, eu num tô nem aí num tô robando… Num tô certa? Num tô certa? Num tô robando deixa essa cara bonita sair na televisãominha filh... [risos] Deus me dá saúde… que é pra mim trabalhar né? My husband is a fisherman. Some days he catches.../somedays not. We gotta make do here. We ain’t stealing. / We’re working./ We work to sell stuff. [...] I don’t care if I”m on TV, in the paper. / Don’t bother me none. I ain’t stealing. / Right? I ain’t stealing. Put this pretty face on TV! If God gave me health, it’s so I can work.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 18:12 to 19:03

English subtitles

Meu marido é pescador tem dia que vai pescar, arranja, e tem dia que vai e não arranja. A gente tem que se virar aqui mesmo não tá robano nem matano né? Tá trabalhando… É isso aí… A gente trabalha pra vender. [...] Não tô nem aí eu nem ligo que sai em televisão que saí em jornal eu? Nem ligo minha filha, eu num tô nem aí num tô robando… Num tô certa? Num tô certa? Num tô robando deixa essa cara bonita sair na televisão minha filh... [risos] Deus me dá saúde… que é pra mim trabalhar né?

My husband is a fisherman. Some days he catches.../some days not. We gotta make do here. We ain’t stealing. / We’re working. / We work to sell stuff. [...] I don’t care if I”m on TV, in the paper. / Don’t bother me none. I ain’t stealing. / Right? I ain’t stealing. Put this pretty face on TV! If God gave me health, it’s so I can work.

In regard to translation, as noted by Bosseaux (2020), AVT scholars have typically focused, with some exceptions, on the written aspect of subtitles and not on the auditory characteristics of voices that are actually heard in a documentary. In this sense, Bosseaux (2020) points out the importance of researching documentaries “because we are confronted not only with the words or linguistics but also with the emotions attached to them as they are conveyed through a voice.” (BOSSEAUX, 2020, p.91). We would also add that much less is known about the discursive and social aspects of subtitles.

Along those lines, it can be contended that in subtitled documentaries, the sound of a person’s voice plays a key role in building a subject’s representation and contributing to the construction of identity (FLOTOW, 2018). The intertwining of multiple languages-cultures with verbal and nonverbal elements - including the subtitles, the images disclosing body language and facial expressions, as well as places and contexts seen through a variety of angles, the sounds of voices, soundtracks, and silence, all of which are simultaneously shown and listened to on the screen - cannot be confined to the constraints of written language and, as a consequence, subtitling guidelines only.

What a character says in a documentary film is undoubtedly of paramount importance, but equally crucial is how they say it. The manner in which something is spoken functions as a resonating chamber for diverse interpretations, giving rise to other meanings that elude us within the fluidity and nuances of languages-cultures in translation. As Bosseaux (2020) puts it:

Translators, as first readers, interpret specific situations and words; and in the context of translating or transmitting the life of a real human being sharing a (past) traumatic experience, the role of translators is ethically complex. [...] When subtitling audiovisual texts, even more attention should thus be paid to the emotional and traumatic nature of the story so that it is not reduced or diminished when removing hesitations or what could be considered as redundant information. (BOSSEAUX, 2020, p.91).

As we listen to Cícera’s voice sharing her life experiences in Brazilian Portuguese, we also listen to her pauses (expressed in the transcription with the use of suspension points), for instance, after saying “tá trabalhando” (we are working), “é isso aí” (that’s it), “eu num tô nem aí num tô roubando” (I don’t care, I’m not stealing), “Deus me dá saúde” (God gives me health), and repetitions (“não tô nem aí”, “num tô nem aí” / “num tô certa?, num tô certa?” “num tô roubando, num tô roubando”). Additionally, she often adds question tags addressed directly to the documentary team, as if seeking validation, approval, and support from the camera group (“não tá robano nem matano né?” / “num tô certa? num tô certa?” / “Deus me dá saúde… que é pra mim trabalhar né?” which could translated into English respectively as “we aren’t stealing nor killing, aren’t we?” / “Ain’t I right? Ain’t I right?” / “God gives me health, so I can work, right/doesn’t he?”). All of this has been subject to reductionism and/ or omission in the English subtitles.

Right at the beginning of her utterance, she explains why they have to work at the dump site (in order to make ends meet) and offers arguments to support the idea of waste picking being a valid form of work (they are not stealing nor killing other people, they are working to sell the material they collect). As we listen to Cícera saying those things, we notice her pauses and her body language: she has got a constant furtive look while moving her shoulders and eyebrows up and down. All of this could suggest that she feels compelled to defend her occupation, emphasizing that she is not engaged in illegal activities, as she perceives that the documentarian or common sense might hold negative views about waste pickers. It could also imply her own uncertainty about waste picking being an honest valid type of work and could also explain why she seeks validation from the documentary team (“né?” - right?), as if she had been anticipating their representation of her.

Also, in Brazilian Portuguese, “é isso aí” is commonly used with meanings similar to the expression “that’s it” in English: to say that something is finished or completed (in this case, to express she has said everything there is to say about her work) or used in an angry or annoyed way to say that one will not accept any more of something (in this case, to suggest she wants the conversation to finish). This is one example of something that is omitted in the English subtitles, along with the pause that comes after it, and which might point out how Cícera feels during the interaction. The question tags she adds at the end of her sentences are also subject to omission. The English translation of her utterance, therefore, seems more straightforward, as there are no markers that suggest her pauses, her questions, or other significant expressions that could render her emotions.

Repetitions are also reduced. Cícera repeats many times she does not care if she appears in the media (“Não tô nem aí eu nem ligo / Nem ligo / eu num tô nem aí”) and also repeats the question tags (né? / né? / Num tô certa? Num tô certa?). In the English subtitles, they are non-existent or appear only once. If we consider that, for some AVT scholars and guidelines, reduction should be made on the basis of removing irrelevant content, we could come up with the conclusion that the emphasis Cícera gives to the fact that she feels fine about being filmed - which could be interpreted as her trying to forestall any assumption that she should not be or feel positive at the dump site - and her need for the documentarians’ validation have been considered irrelevant. Conversely, as we have claimed before, both can be considered meaningful as she is expressing her emotions.

Notably, we highlight that what is at stake here is the type of content that is considered (ir)relevant. In this case, deeper layers of a waste picker’s emotions and attitude are not considered important enough to be expressed in the English translation. Further, due to the fact that she is a poor third-world Black female waste picker, it could be argued that the technical challenges related to translation strategies for subtitling, such as omission, which shape the decisions made by the translator, who inevitably leaves their socio-historical and cultural imprint on the translated text, can lead to the production of discursive effects that reinforce colonial and patriarchal overtones. In this sense, “these translations construct a third world [...] that correspond to western tastes. They provide a facile way of being ‘democratic with minorities’” (FLOTOW, 1997, p. 47) and go against the grain of feminist transnational translation which

wants to disrupt acceptable, mainstream reading and writing and understanding; it wants difference. [...] It is logical then for feminist translation to stress difference, deterritorialization (the fact that the text has been taken out of its territory), displacement (the exile of the text into another culture) and contamination (the confluence of source and translating languages). (FLOTOW, 1997, p. 44).

ESTAMIRA

In this excerpt, Estamira wears a yellow raincoat to protect herself from a heavy storm hitting the dump site: she cannot stop working, and the picking must go on. The storm does not seem to bother her; immediately before she starts talking, she is shown interacting with the gloomy weather, as if there were a connection between her and the cosmos. Throughout the film, and especially in this scene, Estamira yells and makes expansive gestures as if she could challenge, and/or control not only the weather but also what happens in the “beyond of the beyond.” Her discourse is often crisscrossed with ideas about a greater power that transcends ordinary human experience and, of which, she says, she is a representative.

Estamira, rejected by the society she lives in and labeled as schizophrenic by the healthcare system, communicates throughout the documentary using her peculiar form of engagement. Estamira’s unique idiom, her crackled chaotic language, does not conform with any standard language whatsoever. At first listen, this could be perceived as totally bewildering; nevertheless, if we indeed listen to her voice, we can hear subtle reminders of the human condition. In his prominent article on Estamira (the film), Brazilian scholar Souza (2015) highlights:

If Estamira sometimes speaks a language of her own, if she desperately seeks to oppose, with a scream, everything that is taken for granted in her social context, it is due not only to her illness but also to her inherent rebellious nature and genuine refusal to conform. These would comprise a plausible response to the world that led her to a state of social vulnerability [...] The disorder of her speech mirrors the chaos within her world, both filled with waste and vestiges of people - in her own words: remnants and carelessness. (SOUZA, 2015, p. 74, 77, our translation).

Her unique manner of expression makes something happen to language in the very moment of her utterance. Such transformation goes beyond inflicting violence upon it, disrupting grammar and syntax, or as Crépon, Keohane and Keohane (2015, p. 190) put it - when discussing the notion of idiom from a Derridean standpoint - “a mere break with what language makes law.” Her singular idiom keeps traces of all she has gone through in life (sexual gender-based violence, vulnerability, deprivation, injustice, invisibility), discursively forming her reality and marking her subjectivity, and remains strongly tangled with her nonconformity to social injustice. Furthermore, it could also be argued that her (dis)ordered speech seems to unravel the necessary rearrangements of a world that accumulates, concentrates, excludes, destroys, and discards (SOUZA, 2015) and has inflicted so much damage on people like her.

Figure 4
Estamira in Estamira.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 27:16 to 28:47 English subtitles O além dos além é um transbordo… você sabe que que é um transbordo? Bem é… toda coisa que… enche…transborda… então o… poder superior real a natureza superior contorna tudo pra lá pra’quele lugar… assim como as reservas… Tem as reserva nas beirada… entendeu como é que é? Nas beirada ninguém pode homem pode ir lá… E aqueles… astros… horroroso irrecuperável vai tudo pra lá não sai lá mais nunca… pra esse lugar que eu tô falando além dos além [trovão] The “beyond of the beyond”is an overflow./ Do you know what an overflow is? Well, everything that fills up.../ overflows, so then.../the superior power, the superior nature.../deflects everything to that place,to the reserves on the brink./ The reserves are on the brink, you got it?/No one can go to the brink, no man can go there./ And those terrible astro-bodies.../ irredeemable, they all go there and never come out./Go to this place I’m talking about,“beyond of the beyond”. Lá pras beirada muito longe muito longe muito longe… sanguino nenhum pode ir lá… Vocês não vai entendendo de uma só vez… que eu sei… por isso que ainda estou aqui visível… formato homem… par… homem par não tô formato homem ímpar… Formato homem ímpar é vocês… formato par é os… mãe as mãe é formato par e os… ímpar é o pai. To the brink, far, far away, very far away./No sanguine being can go there./ You won’t understand all at once./ That’s why I’m still visible here, in the form of “even man”./ “Even man”. I’m notin the form of “odd man”./ You’re in the form of “odd man”. “Even man” are the mothers.Mothers are “even form”.Fathers, “odd”.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 27:16 to 28:47	English subtitles
O além dos além é um transbordo… você sabe que que é um transbordo? Bem é… toda coisa que… enche…transborda… então o… poder superior real a natureza superior contorna tudo pra lá pra’quele lugar… assim como as reservas… Tem as reserva nas beirada… entendeu como é que é? Nas beirada ninguém pode homem pode ir lá… E aqueles… astros… horroroso irrecuperável vai tudo pra lá não sai lá mais nunca… pra esse lugar que eu tô falando além dos além [trovão]	The “beyond of the beyond” is an overflow./ Do you know what an overflow is? Well, everything that fills up.../ overflows, so then.../ the superior power, the superior nature.../ deflects everything to that place, to the reserves on the brink./ The reserves are on the brink, you got it?/ No one can go to the brink, no man can go there./ And those terrible astro-bodies.../ irredeemable, they all go there and never come out./ Go to this place I’m talking about, “beyond of the beyond”.
Lá pras beirada muito longe muito longe muito longe… sanguino nenhum pode ir lá… Vocês não vai entendendo de uma só vez… que eu sei… por isso que ainda estou aqui visível… formato homem… par… homem par não tô formato homem ímpar… Formato homem ímpar é vocês… formato par é os… mãe as mãe é formato par e os… ímpar é o pai.	To the brink, far, far away, very far away./ No sanguine being can go there./ You won’t understand all at once./ That’s why I’m still visible here, in the form of “even man”./ “Even man”. I’m not in the form of “odd man”./ You’re in the form of “odd man”. “Even man” are the mothers. Mothers are “even form”. Fathers, “odd”.

The English translation seems to have listened to her voice and to what she had to say. In this excerpt, Estamira uses some of the expressions that are very particular to her way of speaking, namely: “o além dos além”, “homem par”, and “homem ímpar”. These have been respectively translated as “beyond of the beyond”, “even man”, and “odd man”.

Estamira uses the “beyond of the beyond” many times to refer to some sort of mystical, spiritual dimension, a faraway place on the brink of the Earth where only the counterparts to the physical human body, the astro bodies, can go. The images seem to reaffirm this view: Estamira wears a coat that, seen from afar, looks like a witch’s cloak, and her interaction with the storm might suggest that she is indeed connected to the unknown. Interestingly, whenever talking about her spirituality, Estamira resorts to terms related to a superior power, different dimensions, nature, and the universe. Her discourse is not permeated with Christian or other religious languages: there is no heaven or hell whatsoever; in fact, she aggressively denies the existence of God and expresses a strong aversion to religious institutions. According to Souza (2015), such incredulity, materialized in her peculiar language, serves as an indication of her outrage towards a society that has never bestowed any benevolence on her; rather, her existence has been marked by a succession of adversities.

Furthermore, Estamira uses “even man” and “odd man” to mark gender differences. “Even man” would be a woman, more specifically, mothers. In Brazilian Portuguese, “par” might refer to: a number divisible by two, something that forms a set with something else, a set of two beings connected by emotional bonds. Thus, in this context, it could be interpreted that “even man” refers to a body that is multiple (at least two): as it carries another life in during pregnancy, as it is bound to another human being by family ties (SOUZA, 2015). But we can extrapolate this view further by listening to Estamira as a woman who talks from a feminist perspective, in the sense that she is referring to the female body and female language “as a multiplicity from the outset” (FLOTOW, 1997).

In the English subtitles, as we see it, the choice of the term “even” - in “even man” - to translate “homem par” cracks the surface and opens it up, just like Pandora, producing even more fertile ground for different interpretations. Considering that “even” could mean, for instance, being without break or irregularity, something equal and fair, and/or leaving nothing due on either side, the English subtitles add more layers to “even man”: women/mothers as being whole and not broken, being fairer to others and not owing anything to anyone.

Notably, the terms highlighted above have been punctuated with quotation marks in the subtitles. In the context of the documentary, this could indicate that those expressions were marked as belonging to (an)other(‘s) discourse, thus keeping a trace of what indeed should be distinguished as other and different (AUTHIER REVUZ, 1998) and as a point in discourse that deserves further attention because it leaps to the eye. To put it in another way, in the subtitles, quotation marks end up producing effects of Otherness, a characteristic that is so fertile in Estamira’s speech - as if saying, at the same time, “I speak with Estamira’s words while being aware that this is unfamiliar to viewers’ familiar, so-to-speak everyday language” and “I speak with familiar words knowing they are not Estamira’s language.”

Moreover, quotation marks seem to be used to enclose the combinations of words that are considered uncanny. In a Freudian sense, something that is, at the same time, familiar and unfamiliar:

It undoubtedly belongs to all that is terrible - to all that arouses dread and creeping horror; it is equally certain, too, that the word is not always used in a clearly definable sense, so that it tends to coincide with whatever excites dread. Yet we may expect that it implies some intrinsic quality. (FREUD, 1955 [1919], p. 219).

Therefore, it could be argued that similarly to Pandora, Estamira is also considered fertile in her deviance, and so is Estamira’s voice in translation. An example of the latter is the use of quotation marks that cause specific terms to stand out, thus, unleashing, with even stronger power, views that are usually meant to be concealed from society, including those of multiplicity and heterogeneity. This has perpetually been the case with the many-times rewritten Pandora myth: narratives on the female being that have become the epitome of this gender which is not one (FLOTOW, 1997).

ÍSIS

“Eu sou nojenta”. This is how Ísis begins her conversation with Vik Muniz. The artist has set up a photography studio at the dump site to take pictures of some waste pickers he had previously chosen and Ísis is one of them. The pictures will be used as the basis for Muniz and the group of waste pickers to make portraits out of wasted material.

Figure 5
Ísis as the Ironing Woman in Pictures of Garbage.

She stands there, against a white background, having pictures taken while talking to Muniz. The documentary camera shows her from bottom to top and we can see she is wearing different pieces of colorful clothing (one on top of the other), earrings, and a hat, which leads us to infer that she is concerned about her looks and how she is going to appear in front of a camera. Nevertheless, the words, her voice, and her facial expressions tell another story. She appears uneasy and has got a furtive look while frowning and speaking with a falling intonation, which could indicate feelings of shame and displeasure. Despite her attention to clothing and accessories, there seems to be an inner struggle or self-doubt that is subtly conveyed through nonverbal cues.

Figure 6
Ísis in Lixo Extraordinário.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 28:28 to 28:54 English subtitles Eu sou nojenta... quer me mostrar meu toda suja é impressionante. Vik Muniz: Ísis me conta aí quanto tempo você trabalha aqui? Cinco anos. Vik Muniz: Cinco anos? Aham.Vik Muniz: E aí como é que é trabalhar aqui? Péssimo... horrível.Vik Muniz: Péssimo? Não gosta? Mas olha só Vik. Vik né? Vik.Vik Muniz: É. É... Isso não é futuro. I feel disgusting./I can’t believe you want to show me all dirty. So tell me Ísis, how long have you worked here? -Five years. -Five years? And what’s it like working here? -Really bad. Awful. -Really bad? You don’t like it? Look Vik, it’s Vik, right? This isn’t a future.

Transcription from Portuguese audio 28:28 to 28:54	English subtitles
Eu sou nojenta... quer me mostrar meu toda suja é impressionante. Vik Muniz: Ísis me conta aí quanto tempo você trabalha aqui? Cinco anos. Vik Muniz: Cinco anos? Aham. Vik Muniz: E aí como é que é trabalhar aqui? Péssimo... horrível. Vik Muniz: Péssimo? Não gosta? Mas olha só Vik. Vik né? Vik. Vik Muniz: É. É... Isso não é futuro.	I feel disgusting./ I can’t believe you want to show me all dirty. So tell me Ísis, how long have you worked here? -Five years. -Five years? And what’s it like working here? -Really bad. Awful. -Really bad? You don’t like it? Look Vik, it’s Vik, right? This isn’t a future.

In this excerpt, Ísis conveys the representation she has of herself: “Eu sou nojenta” which could be translated into English as “I am disgusting”. By using the verb “ser” (to be in Brazilian Portuguese) in the present tense to voice her self-perception, the effect produced is one of conviction and a sense of this aspect being an enduring part of her identity rather than a temporary feeling. That is who she is, and this is not going to change; after all, “this isn’t a future”.

In the English subtitles, her self-image is softened: she feels disgusting rather than being disgusting. Disgust is no longer part of who she is, it is rather a feeling, an emotional state. This choice of translation ends up describing Ísis’ representation for her instead of having Ísis as the narrator of her own reality, “the author of and the authority on [her] own history.” (KILOMBA, 2010, p.12). In the English subtitles, someone’s view of her - potentially incorporating some cultural uneasiness about the idea of someone considering themselves as disgusting - seems to prevail over the right someone, in this case, a poor Black woman, has to express her self-image (whatever it is). Thus, in this “benevolent” translation, Ísis would be more closely related to the idea of being an object than a subject. Kilomba (2010) extrapolates the discussion on subjecthood and objecthood by arguing that

subjects are those who alone “have the right to define their own reality, establish their own identities, name their history” (hooks, 1989, p.42). As objects, however, our reality is defined by others, our identities created by others, and our “history named only in ways that define (our) relationship to those who are subjects” (hooks, 1989, p.42). (KILOMBA, 2010, p.12).

In this sense, the English subtitles seem to perform what Flotow (1997) would name as a facile way of being “democratic with minorities.” As she puts it:

when convenient or benevolent translations are made [...] then a “neo-colonialist construction of the non-western scene is afoot.” [...] This creates a situation in which “democratic” western consciences may be salved, but where, in fact, western laws of force apply. In effect, these translations construct a third world [...] that corresponds to western tastes. They provide a facile way of being “democratic with minorities.” (FLOTOW, 1997, p. 47).

The “benevolence” of softening Ísis’ statement of her self-perception affects the way female waste pickers represent their own identities in the documentary, violating their right to be subjects in their own speech.

CONCLUSION

The major aim of this discussion was to gain a further understanding of translating documentaries, particularly looking at subtitles from a transnational perspective. The analysis carried out throughout this paper considered not only the words spoken but also people’s voices and their body language as shown by the images of Dona Anete, Cícera, Estamira and Ísis who appear in the four documentaries: Ilha das Flores (1989), Boca de Lixo (1993), Estamira (2004), Lixo Extraordinário (2010). The research proposes a parallel between the story of Pandora and its many translations and interpretations and the representation of women in the subtitled versions of the documentaries, thus suggesting that such a theoretical perspective can shed light on how women’s words and works can become fertile in their difference, and perhaps deviance.

The representation of Dona Anete and the differences between Brazilian Portuguese and the English translation have pointed out not only the multiple and differential (co) existences of women, but also how feminist transnational modes of reading through/in translation can contribute to problematizing racist, patriarchal, colonial and misogynist social practices in AVT, therefore emphasizing critical AVT as a political performance. Cícera’s representation has demonstrated how female, particularly poor Black women, have been neglected in their emotions and feelings, even in translation. In this case, listening to her physical and metaphorical voices has proven key to grasp a deeper sense of how she sees herself in relation to others. Analysis of Cícera indicates that AVT needs to carefully consider listening to what women have to say in documentaries, despite such practice perhaps being viewed and considered deviant from some of the current translation norms and guidelines; indeed, it seems that close attention to the women’s words can prove fertile in representing women’s identities in such documentaries. The translation of Estamira’s words has strongly demonstrated the social value of subtitles when added to documentaries, and how translation - as an operation of critical reading/interpretation in the first place, but also as a political practice that involves choices - can produce effects that end up making visible what is usually meant to be concealed from society, including the multiplicity and heterogeneity of meaning. Lastly, Ísis’ representation in the translated version of the documentary leads us to the conclusion that an AVT that effectively listens to what people have to say, particularly in documentaries dealing with socially and politically sensitive issues, can be a means of acknowledging and respecting the right subjects have in defining their own reality and establishing their own identities. This is the path Carolina Maria de Jesus began to clear and which future studies on AVT translation could keep on developing not only with a view to establishing and respecting the discourse of the poor of different countries and how they live their condition, but mainly to go on hearing subtle reminders of the human condition.

• 1
  Quarto de Despejo (The Trash Room), in its various editions and translations from 1960 onwards, has spoken of a Brazilian black woman with only two years of schooling who was proud in her blackness and her high moral standards. More than a million copies of her diary are believed to have been sold worldwide.
• 2
  According to official data (MDR/SNIS), by the end of 2022, there were 2,814 irregular dump sites in Brazil. Importantly, Sant’Ana and Metello (2016) highlight: “What has been happening to waste pickers who leave the dump sites? What economic and social support alternatives are necessary to provide them with better living and working conditions? [...] There is strong resistance among waste pickers regarding the closure of landfills because they see waste picking as their only means of income. Often, the solutions proposed by governments or the planned models by private initiatives fail to recognize the significance of facilitating this transition.” (SANT’ANA; METELLO, 2016, p.33, our translation).
• 3
  https://www.wiego.org/sites/default/files/resources/file/Informal-employment-brazil-statistical-snapshot-2019-20.pdf
• 4
  “An exclusion in the sense of segregation, denial of citizenship rights, and the negation of the very essence of humanity.” (COSTA; PATO, 2016, p. 102).
• 5
  No dubbed or voiced-over versions of the films have been analyzed. Ilha das Flores is the only documentary produced with voice-over and subtitles. Since those modes of translation (dubbing and voice-over) have not been found for the other documentaries, we have chosen to focus on subtitling only.
• 6
  This paper is part of a broader visiting Ph.D. research project that has been carried out at the University of Ottawa (Canada) in partnership with the University of Campinas (UNICAMP, Brazil). It has been funded by CAPES as part of the CAPES-Print (2023) project under number # 88887.802618/2023-00.
• 7
  For all subtitles reproduced herein, a slash is used to indicate a short time interval between the subtitles. This means they appear one after the other but not at the same time on screen.
• 8
  Littau (2000), based on different translated versions of the myth, questions whether it was Pandora or Epimetheus who is the one responsible for opening the container and thus ruining humankind. Importantly, “all these versions constitute instances of the tale’s history of textual transmissions of which translation itself decided the content of the myth, that is, decided both the nature of the box and the gender of who opened it.” (LITTAU, 2000, p. 23).

REFERENCES

• AUTHIER-REVUZ, J. Palavras incertas: as não-coincidências do dizer. Campinas: Editora UNICAMP, 1998.
• BOSSEAUX, Charlotte. Translating Gender-Based Violence Documentaries: Listening Ethically to the Voices of Survivors. In: JI, Meng; LAVIOSA, Sara (Eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Translation and Social Practices, 2020, p. 84-108. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190067205.013.35
  » https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190067205.013.35
• BOUVIER, Mathilde; VANEK, Joann; ROUBAUD, François. Informal Workers in Brazil: A Statistical Profile, 2022. Available at: https://www.wiego.org/publications/informal-workers-brazilstatistical-profile
  » https://www.wiego.org/publications/informal-workers-brazilstatistical-profile
• CASTRO, Olga; ERGUN, Emek. (Eds.). Feminist Translation Studies: Local and Transnational Perspectives. New York: Routledge, 2017.
• COSTA, Cláudia Moraes da; PATO, Cláudia. A constituição de catadores de material reciclável: a identidade estigmatizada pela exclusão e a construção da emancipação como forma de transcendência. In: PEREIRA, Bruna Ceistina Jaquetto; GOES, Fernanda Lira (Orgs.). Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis: um encontro possível. Rio de Janeiro: IPEA, 2016. p. 101-123.
• CRÉPON, Marc; KEOHANE, Elizabeth Geary; KEOHANE, Oisín. The Invention of the Idiom: The Event of the Untranslatable. Paragraph, Vol. 38, No. 2, Translation and the Untranslatable, 2015, p. 189-203.
• ESPASA, Eva. Myths about documentary translation. In: ORERO, Pilar (Ed.). Topics in Audiovisual Translation. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2004. p.183-197
• FLOTOW, Luise von. Conferência 1 - Prof. Dra. Luise Von Flotow. Youtube. Disponível em: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCAnwjG3I-c 1:29:28, 2021. Acesso em: ago, 2022.
  » https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCAnwjG3I-c
• FLOTOW, Luise von; JOSEPHY-HERNÁNDEZ, D. Gender in audiovisual translation studies. In: PÉREZ-GONZÁLEZ, L. (Ed.). The Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London & New York: Routledge, 2018. pp. 296-311.
• FLOTOW, Luise von. Translation and gender: translating in the ‘era of feminism’ (Perspectives on translation). Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1997.
• FREUD, Sigmund. (1955[1919]) The ‘uncanny’. In: J. Strachey (ed.), The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 17, p. 219-56
• JESUS, Carolina Maria de. Child of the dark: the diary of Carolina Maria de Jesus. Trad. David St. Clair. Nova York: New American Library, 1962.
• KILOMBA, Grada. Memórias da Plantação: Episódios de Racismo Cotidiano. Rio de Janeiro: Cobogó, 2008.
• KILOMBA, Grada. Plantation Memories: Episodes of Everyday Racism. 2 ed. Munster: UNRAST, 2010.
• LIMA, Francisco de Paula Antunes, et al. (Coord.). Atlas Brasileiro de reciclagem. São Paulo: Associação Nacional dos Catadores e Catadoras de Materiais recicláveis, 2022
• LINS, Consuelo. O documentário de Eduardo Coutinho: televisão, cinema e vídeo. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 2004.
• LITTAU, Karin. Pandora’s Tongues. TTR, 13(1), 2000, p. 21-35. Available at: https://doi.org/10.7202/037391ar
  » https://doi.org/10.7202/037391ar
• MEDINA, Martin. Scavenger cooperatives in Asia and Latin America. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 31, 2000, p. 51-69.
• MIURA, Paula Cerantola. Tornar-se catador: uma análise psicossocial. 2004. Dissertação (Mestrado) - Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, São Paulo, 2004. Available at: http://www.sapientia.pucsp.br/tde_arquivos/25/TDE-2009-09-09T13:34:15Z8342/Publico/Paula%20Miura%20completa.pdf Acesso em: Ago. 2023.
  » http://www.sapientia.pucsp.br/tde_arquivos/25/TDE-2009-09-09T13:34:15Z8342/Publico/Paula%20Miura%20completa.pdf
• MULVEY, Laura. Fetishism and Curiosity. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1996.
• NICHOLS, Bill. Introduction to Documentary, Third Edition. Indiana University Press, 2017.
• SANT’ANA, Diogo; METELLO, Daniela. Reciclagem e inclusão social no Brasil: balanço e desafios. In: PEREIRA, Bruna Ceistina Jaquetto; GOES, Fernanda Lira (Orgs.). Catadores de Materiais Recicláveis: um encontro possível. Rio de Janeiro: IPEA, 2016. p. 21-43.
• SOUZA, Marco Aurélio de. Pode Estamira falar? O cinema documentário brasileiro e a voz do sujeito subalterno. Revista Arredia, Dourados, MS, Editora UFGD, v.4, n.6, 2015, p.68-79.
• UNITED NATIONS. Gender, climate and finance: How investing in women can help combat climate change. 2022. Available at: https://www.unepfi.org/themes/climate-change/gender-climate-and-finance-how-investing-in-womencan-help-combat-climate-change/ Acesso em: 15 Jun. 2023.
  » https://www.unepfi.org/themes/climate-change/gender-climate-and-finance-how-investing-in-womencan-help-combat-climate-change/

Filmography

• BOCA de Lixo. Direção: Eduardo Coutinho. Brasil: Centro de Criação de Imagem Popular (CECIP), 1993. (50 min.).
• ESTAMIRA. Direção: Marcos Prado, José Padilha. Brasil: Riofilme, 2004. (1:55 min).
• ILHA das Flores. Direção: Jorge Furtado. Brasil: Casa de Cinema de Porto Alegre, 1989 (13 min.).
• LIXO Extraordinário. Direção: Lucy Walker. Brasil: 02 Filmes, 2009. (99 min.).
• O Lixo Nosso de Cada Dia. Direção: Fernanda Barban. Brasil: Casa Rosa Filmes, 2020. ((38 min.).
• RESTOS. Direção: João Batista de Andrade. Brasil: Grêmio da Faculdade de Filosofia da USP, 1975. (10 min.).

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  10 Nov 2023
• Date of issue
  May-Aug 2023

History

• Received
  03 Aug 2023
• Accepted
  23 Aug 2023
• Published
  05 Sept 2023