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The Routledge Handbook of Translating and Interpreting Conflict offers a comprehensive exploration of the roles translators and interpreters play in conflict 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 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, students, and 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.
List of contents
Introduction
Lucía Ruiz Rosendo and Marija TodorovaPART IHistorical overview1.
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 Payàs3. Language training and interpreting for Japan's imperial ambitions: Kumamoto-connected interpreters for Korean and Chinese in the Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905)
Kayoko Takeda4. The Belgian Interpreter Corps ("Corps des Interprètes") and emerging profiles of interpreters during the First World War
Christophe Declercq and Rebecca Tipton5. Interpreting and translating in the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939
Julia Kölbl 6. Translating and interpreting during World War II
Mägorzata 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 Fidahi¿9. Translation, interpretation and the war on terrorism in East Africa: Efforts to win hearts and minds
Alamin Mazrui10. Narratives of war and frames of conflict across languages: Evolution over a century
Lesia Ponomarenko and Lucía Ruiz RosendoPART IIRecurring topics11. Contracting and working with Interpreters: The wartime linguists
Eleonora Bernardi and Francisco José Leandro12. 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 Moneus14. From interpreters to fixers: fidelity and agency in premodern and contemporary contexts
Zrinka Stahuljak15. The impact of the interpreter's emotions in conflict zones: the case of the local professional interpreter the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Manuel Barea Muñoz16. Interpreting in refugee contexts: The Asylum Claim Process
Alejandra González Campanella17. Red T: Protecting translators and interpreters today for tomorrow
Maya Hess18. Training for translation and interpreting in armed conflicts and cascading crises
Patrick CadwellPART IIIEmerging topics19. New trends in language use in warfare
Pekka Snellman20. 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-Jalón23. Translating political plans in times of conflict: Incompatible interpretations and contesting narratives
Ahmad Ayyad24. 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 IVApproaches to research26. 'Context is All': An interdisciplinary approach
Hilary Footitt 27. Between allies and enemies: proposing a model for analysis of military translation cultures
Pekka Kujamäki28. Translating concepts of an armed conflict: Ukraine in the interaction between institutional and press discourses
Lesia Ponomarenko and Lucía Ruiz Rosendo29. Clemente Cerdeira: The interpreter who wanted to change the course of the Spanish civil war
Mourad Zarrouk30. Memories of war: Analyses of memoirs by interpreters and translator
Marija Todorova31. Ethnographic methods to analyse the role of interpreters in conflict and post-conflict scenarios
Maura Radicioni and Lucía Ruiz RosendoAfterword
Moira InghilleriIndex
About the author
Marija Todorova is Assistant Professor at The Education University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR. She is the author of
The Translation of Violence in Children's Literature: Images from the Western Balkans (Routledge 2022) and co-editor of
Interpreter Training in Conflict and Post-Conflict Scenarios (Routledge 2023).
Lucía Ruiz Rosendo is Associate Professor and Head of the Interpreting Department at the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She is the co-editor of
Interpreter Training in Conflict and Post-Conflict Scenarios (Routledge 2023).
