Full Description
The Routledge Handbook in Translating and Interpreting in Conflict offers a comprehensive exploration of the roles translators and interpreters play in conflict-related settings. Spanning diverse geographical regions and historical periods, this volume examines how language professionals contribute to military operations, humanitarian aid, peacebuilding, and asylum processes. The Handbook addresses pressing issues such as the recruitment and protection of interpreters, ethical dilemmas, emotional and psychological challenges, and the evolving use of technology in conflict zones. It also includes emerging topics such as the role of women interpreters, the translation of peace agreements, and the impact of environmental conflicts. Drawing on a wide range of case studies—from the medieval Iberian peninsula to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine—the book blends historical insights with contemporary examples, offering a truly global perspective.
Methodologically diverse, the chapters range from archival research and ethnographic studies to interviews, memoir and documentary film analyses, and micro-histories of individual interpreters. This volume is an essential resource for researchers, practitioners, and students, as well as anyone interested in understanding how language shapes and responds to the complexities of conflict. It highlights the critical, yet often overlooked, contributions of translators and interpreters in some of the world's most challenging situations
Contents
Introduction
Lucía Ruiz Rosendo and Marija Todorova
PART I
Historical overview
1. Alfaqueques on the medieval Iberian Peninsula (12th-15th century): the evolution of linguistic and cultural mediators in a multilingual armed conflict
Icíar Alonso-Araguás
2. The changing shapes of interpretation: War with the Mapuche in the southernmost frontier of the Spanish Empire in America.
Gertrudis Payàs
3. Language training and interpreting for Japan's imperial ambitions: Kumamoto-connected interpreters for Korean and Chinese in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
Kayoko Takeda
4. The Belgian Interpreter Corps ("Corps des Interprètes") and emerging profiles of interpreters during the First World War
Christophe Declercq and Rebecca Tipton
5. Interpreting and translating in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
Julia Kölbl
6. Translating and interpreting during World War II
Małgorzata Tryuk
7. Interpreters as interrogators in some armed conflicts of the Cold War
María Manuela Fernández Sánchez
8. Interpreting at the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
Besmir Fidahić
9. Translation, interpretation and the war on terrorism in East Africa: Efforts to win hearts and minds
Alamin Mazrui
10. Narratives of war and frames of conflict across languages: Evolution over a century
Lesia Ponomarenko and Lucía Ruiz Rosendo
PART II
Recurring topics
11. Contracting and working with Interpreters: The wartime linguists
Eleonora Bernardi and Francisco José Leandro
12. Understanding the complexities of interpreter positionality and positionality management in armed conflict and beyond
Conor Martin
13. Ethical issues and neutrality in the work of translators and interpreters in Yemen's armed conflicts
Ahmed Moneus
14. From interpreters to fixers: fidelity and agency in premodern and contemporary contexts
Zrinka Stahuljak
15. The impact of the interpreter's emotions in conflict zones: the case of the local professional interpreter the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Manuel Barea Muñoz
16. Interpreting in refugee contexts: The Asylum Claim Process
Alejandra González Campanella
17. Red T: Protecting translators and interpreters today for tomorrow
Maya Hess
18. Training for translation and interpreting in armed conflicts and cascading crises
Patrick Cadwell
PART III
Emerging topics
19. New trends in language use in warfare
Pekka Snellman
20. Intercultural communication in contexts involving terrorist violence
Carmen Pena Díaz
21. Countertransference concept as a psychological aspect of interpretation in the field
Cherine Haidar Ahmad
22. Women in conflict situations: the case of Kajsa Rothman, a Swedish polyglot in defence of the Loyalist government during the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
Jesús Baigorri-Jalón
23. Translating political plans in times of conflict: Incompatible interpretations and contesting narratives
Ahmad Ayyad
24. Changing landscape of translation and interpreting: A systematic review of technological advancements and their impact on translation and interpreting practice in armed conflicts
Khetam Al Sharou
25. Whose nature is it anyway? Translating and researching environmental conflict in the global south
Nancy V. Piñeiro
PART IV
Approaches to research
26. 'Context is All': An interdisciplinary approach
Hilary Footitt
27. Between allies and enemies: proposing a model for analysis of military translation cultures
Pekka Kujamäki
28. Translating concepts of an armed conflict: Ukraine in the interaction between institutional and press discourses
Lesia Ponomarenko and Lucía Ruiz Rosendo
29. Clemente Cerdeira: The interpreter who wanted to change the course of the Spanish civil war
Mourad Zarrouk
30. Memories of war: Analyses of memoirs by interpreters and translator
Marija Todorova
31. Ethnographic methods to analyse the role of interpreters in conflict and post-conflict scenarios
Maura Radicioni and Lucía Ruiz Rosendo
Afterword
Moira Inghilleri
Index
