Sunday, January 24, 2021

proyectos productivos (Col): (usually small-scale) entrepreneurial ventures / income generating projects

I have been endlessly frustrated by seeing this term rendered as the false cognate productive projects. That rendition just won't mean much to English only speakers.  Or it might make the listener instead think of things like cleaning out your garage, or organizing your cupboards - not starting a small business.

I also like 'income generating projects', which I sometimes see, but I stumbled on this better rendition in the article:

Counter, Max. “‘La Doble CondiciĆ³n ’: Landmine Victims, Forced Displacement, and Disability in Colombia’s Magdalena Medio.” Social & Cultural Geography 19, no. 4 (May 19, 2018): 448–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2017.1280616.

Max rendered it at first as small-scale, and then later adds the usually. In a simultaneous interpreting scenario I would add that qualification the first time and then just use entrepreneurial ventures to be able to keep up, since the term will surely be repeated if it is an event about peacebuilding in Colombia.

I would note that many of these entrepreneurial ventures by former FARC combatants are not small scale at all, but rather large scale coops - making everything from honey to bags to, my favorite, 'la roja' beer (see photo). 




3 comments:

Nico Jah said...

Honestly, I feel that I've only seen proyecto productivo in the context of agriculture or agro-industrial projects, hence I've always written ag projects or farming projects. Entrepreneurial ventures sounds a bit redundant. I guess it depends on what the project is about... show me one that is not related to farming/processing.

Nico Jah said...

And then you have the problem of the use of "productivo" to refer to proyectos productivos... such as this translation here:

"Tumaco is analyzing how to scale up existing productive activities, such as cacao and wax palm."

Productive! It's like when you do anything outside of procrastinating! LOL

Sara Koopman said...

Is beer really related to farming? I don't think they're growing the hops! But also the other ex-combatant biz that gets a lot of attention is the one where they make clothes, frequently called a proyecto productivo.