Abstract
Translators play a significant function in negotiating meaning between discursive partners within social and political processes, though their social and interactional status is almost always contingent on more powerful players. The fact that translators may have communication rights granted to or withheld from them in certain social or institutional contexts is itself of considerable interest and perhaps highlights the contradictory esteem in which they are held — objects of both necessary trust yet at the same time deep suspicion. Translators have historically been viewed as ‘prodigal figures’ or returned natives, earning trust or suspicion from the other participants in interpreted exchanges and the wider community; they can also become authority figures, garnering power from their linguistic and cultural understanding of both sides while remaining nonetheless vulnerable (Cronin 2006: 76–82). Whatever their status in any given context, in situations where conflicting agendas arise or where the proper exercise of human or legal rights may be in doubt, translators’ ethical and political judgements become as central to their task as cultural or linguistic competence.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agamben, G. (1993) The Coming Community, trans. M. Hardt, Minneapolis: Minn.: University of Minnesota Press.
Agamben, G. (1998) Homo Sacer, trans. D. Heller-Roazen, Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Agamben, G. (2002) Remnants of Auschwitz, trans. D. Heller-Roazen, New York: Zone Books.
Allawi, A. (2007) The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing the Peace, New Haven: Yale University Press.
Baker, M. (2006) Translation and Conflict, London: Routledge.
Basalamah, S. (2005) ‘La traduction citoyenne n’est pas une métaphore’, TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 18(2): 49–70.
Beckerman, G. (2004) ‘In Their Skin’, Columbia Journal Review, 2 http://www.cjr.org/issues/2004/2/beckman-iraq.asp?printerfriendly=yes (consulted January 2007).
Boulet, J. (2003) ‘The Peril of Perfidious Translators: a Clintonian Problem’, National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/boulet200310080856.asp (consulted February 2008).
Bourdieu, P. (2000) Pascalian Meditations, trans. R. Nice, London: Polity Press.
Bowden, M. (2003) ‘The Dark Art of Interrogation’, The Atlantic Monthly, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/print/200310/bowden (consulted February 2008).
Brenkman, J. (2007) The Cultural Contradictions of Democracy: Political Thought since September 11, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Budiansky, S. (2005) ‘Truth Extraction’, The Atlantic Monthly, http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200506/budiansky (consulted February 2008).
Chandrasekaran, R. (2006) Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq’s Green Zone, New York: Vintage Books.
Chatterjee, P. (2004) ‘Titan’s Translators in Trouble’, CorpWatch, 7 May, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=10848 (consulted July 2007).
Chatterjee, P. and Thompson, A.C. (2004) ‘Private Contractors and Torture at Abu Ghraib, Iraq’, CorpWatch, 7 May, http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id= 10828 (consulted July 2007).
Cronin, M. (2006) Translation and Identity, London: Routledge.
Derrida, J. (1978) ‘Violence and Metaphysics: an Essay on the Thought of Emmanuel Levinas’, in Writingand Difference, trans. A. Bass, London: Routledge, pp. 97–192.
Derrida, J. (1992) ‘Force of Law: the Mystical Foundation of Authority’, trans. M. Quaintance, in D. Cornell, M. Rosenfeld and D. Gray Carlson (eds) Deconstruction and the Possibility of Justice, London: Routledge, pp. 3–67.
Dragovic-Drouet, M. (2006) ‘The Practice of Translation and Interpreting during the Conflicts in the Former Yugoslavia (1991–1999)’, in M. Salama-Carr (ed.) Translating and Interpreting Conflict, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 29–40.
Eaglestone, R. (2005) ‘Levinas, Translation and Ethics’, in S. Bermann and M. Wood (eds) Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation, Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 127–38.
Goldfarb, M. (2005) Ahmed’s War, Ahmed’s Peace, New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers.
Inghilleri, M. (2005) ‘Mediating Zones of Uncertainty: Interpreter Agency, the Interpreting Habitus and Political Asylum Adjudication’, The Translator, 11(1): 69–85.
Inghilleri, M. (2007) ‘National Sovereignty vs. Universal Rights: Interpreting Justice in a Global Context’, M. Salama-Carr (ed.) ‘Translation and Conflict’, Special Issue of Social Semiotics, 17(2): 195–212.
Inghilleri, M. (2008) ‘The Ethical Task of the Translator in the Geo-Political Arena: From Iraq to Guantánamo Bay’, Translation Studies, 1(2): 212–23.
Katayama, L. (2005) ‘A Hundred and One Days: an Interview with Asne Seierstad’, Mother Jones, 12 May, http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/05/asne_seirstad. html (consulted February 2008).
Lagouranis, T. (2007) Fear up Harsh: an Army Interrogator’s Dark Journey through Iraq, New York: New American Library Caliber.
Larkosh, C. (2004) ‘Levinas, Latin American Thought and the Futures of Translational Ethics’, TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 17(2): 27–44.
Laygues, A. (2004) ‘La traducteur semeur d’éthique. Pour une application de la pensée d’Emmanuel Levinas à la traduction’, TTR: traduction, terminologie, rédaction, 17(2): 45–55.
MacDonald, H. (2006) ‘How to Interrogate Terrorists’, in K. J. Greenberg (ed.) The Torture Debate in America, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 84–97.
Marting, S. T. (2004) ‘Shortage of Interpreters Foreshadowed Prison Excesses’, 20 May, http://www.globalsecurity.org/org/news/2004/040520-interpreters-shortage.htm (consulted July 2007).
Nuri, A. (2007) ‘At War, at Home, at Risk’, The New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/29/magazine/29iraqi-t.html?_r=1&oref= (consulted February 2008).
Packer, G. (2003) ‘Letter from Baghdad: War after the War’, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/031124fa_fact1 (consulted February 2007).
Packer, G. (2007) ‘Betrayed: the Iraqis who Trusted America the Most’, The New Yorker, http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/03/26/070326fa_fact_packer?printable=true (consulted February 2008).
Palmer, J. (2007) ‘Interpreting and Translation for Western Media in Iraq’, in M. Salama-Carr (ed.) Translating and Interpreting Conflict, Amsterdam and New York: Rodopi, pp. 13–28.
Palmer, J. and Fontan, V. (2007) ‘“Our Ears and our Eyes”: Journalists and Fixers in Iraq’, Journalism, 8(1): 5–24.
Pym, A. (2001) ‘Introduction: the Return to Ethics in Translation Studies’, The Translator, 7(2): 129–38.
Ricks, T.E. (2006) Fiasco: the American Military Adventure in Iraq, New York: Penguin Books.
Roychoudhuri, O. (2005) ‘Inside the Wire: an Interview with Eric Saar’, Mother Jones,24 May, http://www.motherjones.com/news/qa/2005/05/saar.html (consulted February 2007).
Saar, E. and Novak, V. (2005) Inside the Wire, New York: The Penguin Press.
Schmitt, C. (1996) The Concept of the Political, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Seierstad, A. (2003) A Hundred and One Days, trans. I. Christophersen, New York: Basic Books.
Shadid, A. (2003) ‘Baghdad: Minding your Minder’, Columbia Journal Review, 3, http://cjarchives.org.issues/2003/3/shadid.asp?printerfriendly=yes (consulted February 2007).
Staten, Henry (2005) ‘Tracking the “Native Informant”: Cultural Translation as the Horizon of Literary Translation’, in Sandra Bermann and Michael Wood (eds) Nation, Language and the Ethics of Translation, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Thornhill, C. (2002) Karl Jaspers: Politics and Metaphysics, London: Routledge.
Tymoczko, M. (2007) Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators, Manchester: St. Jerome Publishing.
Williams, K. (2006) Love My Rifle More Than You, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson.
Yee, J. (2005) For God and Country, New York: Public Affairs.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2009 Moira Inghilleri
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Inghilleri, M. (2009). Translators in War Zones: Ethics under Fire in Iraq. In: Bielsa, E., Hughes, C.W. (eds) Globalization, Political Violence and Translation. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235410_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230235410_11
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-30460-8
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-23541-0
eBook Packages: Palgrave Social & Cultural Studies CollectionSocial Sciences (R0)
Keywords
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
