On the Decolonial Otherwise of Translation: Alexander J. Ellis, Mário de Andrade, and the Contingency of Form

Abstract

Abstract In this article, I analyze the whys of ethnomusicological translation before arguing for a reframing of translation as both polyvocal and polydiscursive. To do this, I analyze aspects of A. J. Ellis's translation of Hermann von Helmholtz's Die Lehre von den Tonempfindungen als physiologische Grundlage für die Theorie der Musik as well as the early twentieth-century oeuvre of famed Brazilian writer and musicologist Mário de Andrade. I conclude by discussing briefly how these different issues and considerations can allow us to rethink translation as a decolonial praxis and a decolonial otherwise that may help us challenge some of the perennial Western logical structures that continue to plague ethnomusicology and the academy more generally.