Re-presenting the Arab women in contemporary translation of the 19th century travel literature

Abstract This paper examines the re-presentation of Arab women in modern Arabic translations of two 19th-century British travelogues: John Lewis Burckhardt’s Travels in Arabia (1830) and Richard Burton’s Personal Narrative of a Pilgrimage to Al-Madinah and Mecca (1855). The study analyses how gendered portrayals from colonial-era texts are reinterpreted and re-presented for 21st-century Arabs through translation. A combined socio-ethnographical approach is used to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the complexities involved in re-presenting Arab women in translated works produced for contemporary audiences. Sociologic analysis of translated examples reveals systematic strategies that reflect translators’ habitus and institutional influences to align with modern socioreligious norms, mediating between historical ethnography and contemporary norms. Through close analysis of examples, the paper identifies systematic strategies, including manipulation, omission, toning down contentious terms, and paratextual interventions. Findings highlight the role of translators in challenging 19th-century source-text Orientalist descriptions and in conforming to modern Arab socioreligious norms.