A ferramenta tradutória de acessibilidade (áudio)descrição como mediadora na formação cidadã, crítica e cultural

Abstract

This article aims to present (audio)description as a translation tool for accessibility being a mediator in the civic, critical and cultural education of blind or visually impaired people, as well as taking into account social, cultural and everyday practices. Since 2013, the profession of (audio)describer has been included in the Brazilian Code of Occupations from the Ministry of Labor and Employment in the category of translators. Thus, it is relevant to consider to which extent this type of translation has contributed to promoting social justice for people with disabilities (PwDs) in different cultural and social spaces, more specifically, considering people with visual impairment. Although translation studies in postmodernity have moved towards the deconstruction of traditional and positivist notions, we believe it is still necessary to think about translation through the lens of accessibility. This is due to the fact that translation practices, as part of a social body, face several barriers resulting from an ableist logic. In this sense, this paper argues that translation, specifically audiovisual translation (AVT), can be more emphatically approached as a mediator in overcoming ableism and attitudinal barriers, in order to contribute to a more just and democratic reality. This study is mainly theoretical and discusses the role of AVT in offering blind or visually impaired people possibilities of access to cultural and social practices and, to this end, relies on AVT studies  - in which (audio)description is inserted – (Vergara-Nunes, 2016; Barbosa, 2024) and on the critical disability studies (Ferrari, 2023; Autor 2, 2024).