At every gathering and event, one question constantly echoes in the minds of Shubra Archive’s audience and on the tongues of its followers: What is community archiving?
This workshop aimed to formulate an answer to that question by translating a selection of materials that discuss community archives.
As the first community archive in Egypt, Shubra Archive chose translation as a means to lay the foundations for the field of community archives in Arabic.
Over the course of three months — the duration of the workshop — Shubra Archive worked to transfer the unique nature of community archiving experiences from around the world into the Arabic context, while also highlighting the distinctiveness of Shubra Archive’s own experience in documenting Cairo’s popular neighborhoods and building a historical narrative through the combination of paper archives and oral history.
In this practical workshop, participants explored the specific skills involved in translation, working on articles and chapters that presented concepts related to the field of community archives and their intersections and differences with other categories, such as counter-archives, local history, and community heritage.
They also gained a comprehensive understanding of the elements involved in translating such texts — from navigating cultural differences and historical contexts to linguistic considerations and punctuation.