Who Has the Right to Translate?
How human rights activism in the Democratic Republic of the Congo taught me to value translation
Who has the right to translate whom?
Translation theorist Şebnem Susam-Saraeva poses this question in her provocative essay, ‘Representing Experiential Knowledge: Who May Translate Whom?’ . When I set out to write my master’s dissertation at Heriot-Watt University in 2024, her question was at the forefront of my mind. I decided to apply it to the broader context of interpretation and representation outside literary texts.
The text I chose to translate for my dissertation is an article entitled ‘’ [The UK Government’s Asylum Dispersal Policy Since 1999: The Glasgow City Case Study]. Written by the French academic Fabien Jeannier and published in the March 2014 issue of the online journal, Miranda, this article examines the devastating impact of the UK government’s Immigration and Asylum Act 1999 on people seeking asylum in the UK, which is often exacerbated by a hostile media.
The text specifically contrasts the UK government’s infamous “” policies, aimed at preventing asylum seekers from accessing public services such as housing and healthcare, with Glasgow’s unique and more compassionate approach to welcoming refugees, asylum seekers and other migrant communities, which is rooted in its urban and social history. The article appealed to me because it reflects my own traumatic childhood experience of war and forced displacement, which led to my obtaining UK refugee status. It also reflects my professional career as a human rights activist, humanitarian aid worker and UN peacekeeper in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Discovering the difference translation makes
I first travelled to the DRC in early 2005 as a humanitarian aid worker based in the capital, Kinshasa. This was in the run-up to its historic 2006 presidential and legislative elections — the first since independence in 1960. I later moved to eastern Congo’s South Kivu province to work for the UN peacekeeping mission, MONUSCO, as a Civil Affairs Officer based in the provincial capital, Bukavu.
My initial optimism at contributing to lasting peace and stability in this war-torn part of the country soon turned to disillusionment when I realised that the hostility and mistrust targeted at MONUSCO’s internationally recruited peacekeepers, in particular, stemmed from their inability to communicate with local communities in eastern DRC’s local languages, including French, without the help of their local colleagues. The resultant misunderstandings regarding MONUSCO’s peacekeeping mandate were eagerly exploited by armed groups and militias to spread fake news and incite violence against MONUSCO’s peacekeepers, especially in remote and inaccessible parts of the province.
After almost a decade spent in eastern Congo witnessing never-ending cycles of violence and humanitarian crises, I was left with the question: who is best placed to create the conditions for lasting peace in eastern Congo? International humanitarian aid workers and peacekeepers who come and go on short-term contracts? Or Congolese people themselves who have an innate understanding of the enormous challenges their country faces and the local knowledge and language skills to resolve these challenges?
Translation and migration
Although written over a decade ago, Jeannier’s message still resonates today. According to the UN Refugee Agency, by the end of April 2024, over 120 million people worldwide had been forced to flee war and persecution in their home countries and this number keeps rising. This trend is coupled with growing support for right wing, anti-immigrant parties around the world such as Alternative für Deutschland in Germany, Reform UK and the MAGA movement in the US.
My thesis explores the interrelated concepts of activism, positionality, ethics and social responsibility and the ways in which they influence the translation of academic texts in the humanities and social sciences. Academic translators are expected to always remain neutral or, in the words of Krisztina Károly , “invisible.” In light of this expectation, I had to develop a new approach to academic translation that was not reflected in the scholarly literature.
In what follows, I explain each of these three approaches (activism, positionality, ethics and social responsibility) and discuss what I bring to the conversation. I have chosen a selection of embroidered textiles produced by the Kuba people as a visual backdrop for each of these approaches. The Kuba live in an area bordered by the Sankuru, Kasai and Lulua rivers in Central DRC and their highly distinctive and world-famous cultural art form, which involves men, women and children from the same clan working together to produce these beautiful textiles, is where my critical analysis and personal politics intersect.
Activism: translating in the time of the now
Activism is currently at the forefront of academic research in the humanities and social sciences. Siobhan Brownlie defines activism as any purposeful activity that results in social, political, economic or environmental change. According to Tuija Kinnunen and Kaisa Koskinen , activism is inextricably linked to the translator’s agency, which refers to their willingness and ability to act, individually or collectively, to bring about social change.
In Translation, Resistance and Activism , Maria Tymoczko highlights the pivotal role played by translators as agents of social change. She also highlights the fact that translation is not just a technical exercise; it can also be a deliberate political, ethical and ideological act. In ‘Two Metaphors for Agency and Activism: Resistance and Engagement’ , Tymoczko describes how activist translators use translation as a tool to either resist oppression in all its forms or engage in the social causes that matter to them. For Tymoczko, activist translations “rouse, inspire, witness, mobilize, and incite to rebellion.”
In their contribution to the third edition of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies , Moira Inghilleri and Katrijn Maryns emphasise the key role played by translators and interpreters in global communication processes aimed at promoting and protecting the rights of refugees and asylum seekers. Although governments worldwide often design immigration and asylum policies to exclude these vulnerable and marginalised communities, activist translators and interpreters can exercise their agency by engaging with more inclusive and humane policies and practices.
For and , writing in the (2020), activist translation is a call to political action. Under certain circumstances the source text may need to be “reconfigured” if it is to appropriately speak to a particular activist agenda. Developing the ideas of German philosopher Walter Benjamin, the authors stress that activist translation can only happen in the present moment, “The Time of the Now,” when it is far more likely to have a revolutionary impact.
Positionality: neutrality is a problematic concept
Positionality is also an increasingly important concept in Translation Studies. In ‘Ethics of Activist Translation and Interpreting’ , Julie Boéri and Carmen Delgado Luchner define a translator’s positionality in terms of their agency, background, relationships, and socio-political context.
The importance of the translator’s positionality was vividly illustrated by the fierce debate that broke out when a white non-binary Dutch writer, Lucas Rijneveld, was chosen to translate the spoken word poem ‘The Hill We Climb’, which was written and recited by the Black female poet and activist, Amanda Gorman, at Joe Biden’s presidential inauguration in 2021.
This debate, focused on the translator’s positionality and its effect on the translation, proves the point that neutrality can be a problematic concept. For an in-depth understanding of the issues involved in this debate see Alison Flood’s article and AFP in Barcelona’s article .
In ‘Ideology and the Position of the Translator: In What Sense is a Translator ‘In Between’?’ , Tymoczko argues that a translation’s ideology is not only determined by the source text, but also by the translator’s “place of enunciation,” i.e. the translator’s positionality in terms of cultural and ideological affiliation and, to a lesser extent, time and space. Tymoczko (2007) goes further in defining a translator’s positionality, which transcends questions of history, geography, culture or literary systems to engage with power structures, politics and ethics.
Ethics & social responsibility: grounding translation in reality
In ‘Ethics’, Moira Inghilleri points out that ethics and ethical practice in the humanities and social sciences have always been key concerns for translators and interpreters. According to John Victor Luce (1992), the word “ethics” is derived from a Greek term meaning “things pertaining to ethos, i.e. to character”, which originally applied to moral codes of conduct linked to religion.
In Translation Studies, the concept of ethics has evolved to focus on the rights and wrongs of translation practice. However, as Inghilleri points out, exact definitions of ethical practice and approaches are highly contested. This is demonstrated by the contested field of “translator ethics,” which focuses on professionalism and professional codes of conduct. Anthony Pym , for example, argues that ethics should always be grounded in reality rather than in idealised notions of neutrality and impartiality.
In describing the ethical dilemmas facing activist, professional and academic communities, Boéri and Delgado Luchner (2021) focus on the “ethics of positionality” and the “ethics of organisation”. The former describes the tension between impartiality and engagement and the latter the tension between professional expertise and local knowledge. In their view, the ethics of positionality successfully undercuts the presumed neutrality of professionalism and empowers activist translators and interpreters to actively engage with socio-political issues.
Joanna Drugan and Rebecca Tipton examine the emerging link between translation ethics and social responsibility, which Drugan defines as a translator or interpreter’s “responsibility to the broader social context beyond the immediate translated encounter”. For Karen Bennett , social responsibility “brings ethics down from its rather rarefied and abstract philosophical plane to the level of the individual translator working on a particular text in a particular context”.
Mona Baker and Carol Maier highlight the growing recognition that translators and interpreters have an ethical responsibility to their local communities and wider society, which overrides their responsibility to their clients and other stakeholders.
Fostering change
In responding to the debate provoked by her essay, Susam-Saraeva acknowledges that positionality matters, but insists that what matters more are translators, interpreters, editors and publishers who are diverse, representative and ethically responsible.
My experience as well as my reading have shown me that when it comes to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrant communities, translators matter. Their translation strategies not only challenge the negative stereotypes targeting these vulnerable and marginalised communities; they also promote an activist agenda that fosters socio-political change.
Author’s Note: This article is an excerpt from Chapter 2 of my MSc dissertation Activist Translation, Refugees and Asylum Seekers in “The Time of the Now” (Department of Languages and Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University, 2024).
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