From the perspective of a legal aid clinic that works with foreign workers in Mae Sot, Thailand, this article explores how the project of extending legal rights to migrants is structured by tensions between the ideals of translation – what translation should be, who ought to conduct it, and how its efficacy might be imagined – and the various ways in which translation actually occurs. Analysis of these tensions reveals three aspects of the linguistic mediation of rights discourse: first, it speaks to the foundational limits of rights advocacy, underscoring the fact that these limits are located in the materiality of human communicative practice; second, it brings to light the specific linguistic structures of rights discourse in Mae Sot; and, third, it considers how, despite the best efforts of legal activists, those structures circumscribe liberal rights imaginaries in the town.

中文翻译：

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一厢情愿的表演性：泰国美索（Mae Sot）想象中的停滞权利的翻译和语言结构

本文从泰国湄索一家与外国工人合作的法律援助诊所的角度，探讨了将法律权利延伸至移民的项目是如何在翻译理想之间的紧张关系中构建的——应该是什么，应该由谁进行翻译它，以及它的功效是如何被想象的——以及翻译实际发生的各种方式。对这些张力的分析揭示了权利话语的语言中介的三个方面：首先，它谈到了权利倡导的基本限制，强调了这些限制位于人类交流实践的物质性中的事实；其次，揭示了美索权利话语的特定语言结构；第三，它考虑了如何在法律活动家尽最大努力的情况下，