Azioni traduttive. I miti classici e i nuovi alfabeti della migrazione

The chapter reflects on the issue of cultural translation as a “third space”, a site where, as Bhabha suggests, translation, decolonization, and location or relocation are tied together (Bhabha & Rutheford, 2017-221). Drawing on both translation studies and cultural studies, migration studies, performance studies, visual studies and film studies, I focus on the ways in which many contemporary artists have been trying to account for the risks, losses, difficulties and hopes implied in forced migration. Within the context of the constant relocation that migrant people experience, the effort at developing a dialogic relationship between languages and cultures has been gradually shaping a “grammar” of representation that is new though built on familiar signs and images. Particularly in the Mediterranean Sea, forced migration has been going on since ancient times, though the changes in its nature have multiplied the number of stranger-in-need, whatever their country of origin. The representation of the migrants of today through the alphabet provided by the Greek classic literature is one of the strategies currently used in activist creative and political practices.