Translation, Resistance, Activism

Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community

23 This article begins the exploration of some of the ways in which translation and interpreting may be embedded in a variety of projects that are set up outside the mainstream institutions of society, with agendas that explicitly challenge the dominant narratives of the time. More specifically , the essay outlines a narrative framework within which the work of communities of translators and interpreters who are actively involved in social or political agendas may be explained and critiqued. As I argue, narrative provides a basis for shared language and values, thus enabling the mobilization of numerous individuals with very different backgrounds and attributes around specific political, humanitarian, or social issues. Numerous amorphous groups of individuals of various backgrounds have long participated in translating and interpreting a range of narratives that challenge the dominant institutions of society. Examples of organizations that continue to draw heavily on the services of such committed translators and interpreters include Peace Brigades International (www.peacebrigades .org/), Front Line Defenders (www.frontlinedefenders.org), Habitat International Coalition (www.hic-net.org), and Gush Shalom, The Israeli Peace Bloc (www.gush-shalom.org/english/), among many others. In addition to these groups, a pattern of committed, strongly politicized communities is emerging within the world of professional translation and interpreting itself. I refer here to the part spontaneous, part planned conversions of professionaltranslationandinterpretingcommunitiesintopolitical /activistgroups. Examples include Translators for Peace (www.traduttoriperlapace.org/), MONA BAKER Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community What matters at this stage is the construction of local forms of community within which civility and the intellectual and moral life can be sustained through the dark ages which are already upon us. Alasdair MacIntyre, After Virtue 24 Mona Baker Babels (www.babels.org/), Translators and Interpreters Peace Network (www.saltana.com.ar/pax/paxbabelica.htm), and ECOS (Traductores e Intérpretes por la Solidaridad; www.ecosfti.tk/). Inbetweentheamorphousgroupsofprofessionalandnon-professional translators who service a broad range of humanitarian and activist organizations on the one hand and committed communities of professional translators and interpreters with a clear political agenda on the other, there is a vast range of different types of groupings and associations, including some with less clearly defined agendas. One such group is Translators Without Borders/Traducteurs Sans Frontières, an offshoot of Eurotexte, a commercial translation agency based in Paris. Promoted as a not-for-profit association set up to provide free translations for humanitarian organizations, especially for Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières), Translators Without Borders is nevertheless used by Eurotexte as a selling point for the agency, thus arguably commodifying the very idea of establishing political communities of action within the professional world of translation. I return to Translators Without Borders at the end of this essay, where I draw on Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm to assess the moral implications of its ambivalent position as a commercial-cum-activist community. I begin with an outline of the theoretical framework that informs my understanding of the emergence and practices of various activist groups in the field. These, I argue, are ultimately motivated not by any intrinsic attributes of the individuals who constitute each group but by a sense of identification with a “story” or set of “stories” around which the group gathers. They are, in other words, held together by their willingness to subscribe to the same, or a very similar, set of narratives. The account offered here acknowledges the power of narrative to instigate and maintain a sense of common identity and its potential as a basis for political action. Narrative in Social and Communication Theory People act, or do not act, in part according to how they understand their place in any number of given narratives. (Somers and Gibson 1994:61) The notion of narrative has attracted much attention in a variety of disciplines and has accordingly been defined in a variety of ways. Many scholars , especially in literary studies and pragmatics, tend to treat narrative as an optional mode of communication, often contrasting it with argumenta- Translation and Activism 25 tion or exposition. In the work of social theorists such as Margaret Somers (1992, 1997) and communication theorists such as Walter Fisher (1984, 1985, 1997), by contrast, narrative is conceived as the principal and inescapable mode by which we experience the world. Thus, Margaret Somers and Gloria Gibson write that “everything we know is the result of numerous crosscutting story-lines in which social actors locate themselves...