Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account

by Mona Baker

Translation and Conflict demonstrates that translators and interpreters participate in circulating as well as resisting the narratives that create the intellectual and moral environment for violent conflict. Drawing on narrative theory and using numerous examples from historical and contemporary conflicts, the author provides an original and coherent model of analysis that pays equal attention to micro and macro aspects of the circulation of narratives in translation, to translation and interpreting, and to questions of dominance and resistance. The study is particularly significant at this juncture of history, with the increased interest in the positioning of translators in politically sensitive contexts, the growing concern with translators’ and interpreters’ divided loyalties in settings such as Guantanamo, Iraq, Kosovo, and other arenas of conflict, and the emergence of several activist communities of translators and interpreters with highly politicized agendas of their own, including Babels, Translators for Peace, Tlaxcala and ECOS. Including further reading suggestions at the end of each chapter, Translation and Conflict will be of interest to students of translation, intercultural studies and sociology as well as the reader interested in the study of social and political movements.

Genres: Nonfiction, Language, Academic

220 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Professor of Translation Studies, Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies, University of Manchester.

Reviews

[Selima · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. My favorite part is the one about the normalizing function of narratives, it still applies to most current issues:

"One of the effects of narrativity is that it normalizes the accounts it projects over a period of time, so that they come to be perceived as self-evident, benign, uncontestable and non-controversial. This explains why the leading nineteenth-century scientist Georges Cuvier (1769–1832) could write as follows in his Elementary Survey of the Natural History of Animals in 1798 without raising an eyebrow:

The white race, with oval face, straight hair and nose, to which the civilized peoples of Europe belong and which appear to us the most beautiful of all, is also superior to others by its genius, courage and activity. ... [There is a] cruel law which seems to have condemned to an eternal inferiority the races of depressed and compressed skulls. ... and experience seems to confirm the theory that there is a relationship between the perfection of the spirit and the beauty of the face.

By 1815, Cuvier’s narrative had come to seem so natural and self-evident that he was able to perform, without censure, his infamous ‘scientific’ dissection of the South African woman Saartjie Baartman, known as the ‘Hottentot Venus’, to solve the mysteries of her genitalia. (...)

Many may have felt pity, even disgust at the spectacle, but they still queued up to inspect her and then went on merrily with their lives.5 Their senses had been numbed by the narratives of their time, much as ours are by the narratives of today. When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke out in 2004, Ahdaf Soueif reminded us that we had all already been willing accomplices in this developing narrative, just as Cuvier’s contemporaries had been accomplices in his degrading narrative of race:

It was only a matter of time. In the past year the world has seen photos of many Iraqis stripped with their wrists tied behind their backs with plastic cord. At first we could look into their eyes and bear witness to what was happening. Then they were bagged. At no point was there an outcry. (Soueif 2004; emphasis added)"

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Los Reyes Magos saw fit to give me this gift I had on my list, definetely looking forward to it! I have to read it for my thesis, but it definetely seems to be one of the more interesting books on my list.

[I. Mahmood · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read for everyone involved in translation.