Translating women's human rights in a globalizing world: the spiral process in reducing gender injustice in Baroda, India

摘要

In this article we analyse the translation of global women 's rights ideas in a local context, based on an ethnographic study of three women 's organizations from Baroda, Gujarat state, India. On a macro-level, the local social and cultural norms, the development context, and the nature and role of the state strongly shaped the translation process. Micro processes of translation depend on the organization 's core activity, the actors who direct the translation and where thev are culturally anchored. Translation involves meaning-making, which consists of several simultaneous processes, including recuperation, hybridization, simplification and compartmental-ization. The direction of the translation process is not linear, but resembles a spiral with ideas moving from global to local to global. Lastly, there are different types of translators, including converters, generators, conveyers, adaptors and transformers.