After 40 years of Cold War, NATO found itself intervening in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan, where the ability to communicate with local people was essential to the success of the missions. This book explains how the Alliance responded to this challenge so as to ensure that the missions did not fail through lack of understanding.

After 40 years of Cold War, NATO found itself intervening in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan, where the ability to communicate with local people was essential to the success of the missions. This book explains how the Alliance responded to this challenge so as to ensure that the missions did not fail through lack of understanding.

This edited book provides a multi-disciplinary approach to the topics of translation and cross-cultural communication in times of war and conflict. It examines the historical and contemporary experiences of interpreters in war and in war crimes trials, as well as considering policy issues in communication difficulties in war-related contexts. The range of perspectives incorporated in this volume will appeal to scholars, practitioners and policy-makers, particularly in the fields of translating and interpreting, conflict and war studies, and military history.

The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Politics presents the first comprehensive, state of the art overview of the multiple ways in which ‘politics’ and ‘translation’ interact. Divided into four sections with thirty-three chapters written by a roster of international scholars, this handbook covers the translation of political ideas, the effects of political structures on translation and interpreting, the politics of translation and an array of case studies that range from the Classical Mediterranean to contemporary China. Considering established topics such as censorship, gender, translation under fascism, translators and interpreters at war, as well as emerging topics such as translation and development, the politics of localization, translation and interpreting in democratic movements, and the politics of translating popular music, the handbook offers a global and interdisciplinary introduction to the intersections between translation and interpreting studies and politics. With a substantial introduction and extensive bibliographies, this handbook is an indispensable resource for students and researchers of translation theory, politics and related areas.

This book explores how endangered local interpreters in Afghanistan were seen through Western eyes in the period from 2014, when the West drew down the bulk of its military forces, to the summer of 2021, when NATO forces withdrew completely. The author examines how these interpreters were understood and represented by Western governments, militaries, agencies, press and lobby organisations, how the understandings changed over time, and to what extent the representations reflect distinct rationales for intervention/historic relationships with Afghanistan, specific immigration and anti-terrorism policies, and notions of citizenship. The book will be of interest to students and scholars of translation and interpreting, history, war studies, and migration studies.

This Handbook maps the contours of an exciting and burgeoning interdisciplinary field concerned with the role of language and languages in situations of conflict. It explores conceptual approaches, sources of information that are available, and the institutions and actors that mediate language encounters. It examines case studies of the role that languages have played in specific conflicts, from colonial times through to the Middle East and Africa today. The contributors provide vibrant evidence to challenge the monolingual assumptions that have affected traditional views of war and conflict. They show that languages are woven into every aspect of the making of war and peace, and demonstrate how language shapes public policy and military strategy, setting frameworks and expectations. The Handbook's 22 chapters powerfully illustrate how the encounter between languages is integral to almost all conflicts, to every phase of military operations and to the lived experiences of those on the ground, who meet, work and fight with speakers of other languages. This comprehensive work will appeal to scholars from across the disciplines of linguistics, translation studies, history, and international relations; and provide fresh insights for a broad range of practitioners interested in understanding the role and implications of foreign languages in war.

How can defendants be tried if they cannot understand the charges being raised against them? Can a witness testify if the judges and attorneys cannot understand what the witness is saying? Can a judge decide whether to convict or acquit if she or he cannot read the documentary evidence? The very viability of international criminal prosecution and adjudication hinges on the massive amounts of translation and interpreting that are required in order to run these lengthy, complex trials, and the procedures for handling the demands facing language services. This book explores the dynamic courtroom interactions in the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in which witnesses testify through an interpreter about translations, attorneys argue through an interpreter about translations and the interpreting, and judges adjudicate on the interpreted testimony and translated evidence.