Globalization, Political Violence and Translation

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Globalization, PoliticalViolence and TranslationEdited by

Esperanza BielsaLecturer, Department of Sociology, University of Leicester, UK

and

Christopher W. HughesProfessor of International Politics and Japanese Studies, Department of Politics andInternational Studies, University of Warwick, UK

Introduction, selection and editorial matter© Esperanza Bielsa andChristopherW. Hughes 2009Individual chapters © their contributors 2009

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of thispublication may be made without written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmittedsave with written permission or in accordance with the provisions of theCopyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licencepermitting limited copying issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency, 90Tottenham Court Road, LondonW1T 4LP.

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The authors have asserted their rights to be identifiedas the authors of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designsand Patents Act 1988.

First published 2009 byPALGRAVE MACMILLANHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and175 Fifth Avenue, NewYork, N.Y. 10010Companies and representatives throughout the world

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the PalgraveMacmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd.Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdomand other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the EuropeanUnion and other countries.

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Globalization, political violence and translation / edited byEsperanza Bielsa and ChristopherW Hughes.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. Globalization. 2. Political violence. 3. Violence. 4. Internationalrelations. I. Bielsa, Esperanza, 1971– II. Hughes, ChristopherW.

JZ1318.G67912 2009303.48’2—dc22

2008043564

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 118 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2009 978-0-230-21881-9

ISBN 978-1-349-30460-8 ISBN 978-0-230-23541-0 (eBook)

DOI 10.1057/9780230235410

ISBN 978-1-349-30460-8

Contents

List of Figures and Table vii

Acknowledgements viii

Notes on the Contributors ix

Globalization, Political Violence and Translation: an Introduction 1Esperanza Bielsa

Part I Interpreting Global Violence

1 The Terminal Paradox of Globalization 25Keith Tester

2 Translating Terror: Siting Truth, Justice and Rights amidstthe Two ‘Terror’ Wars 45Upendra Baxi

3 Ethics and Violence 72Antonio Aguilera

4 The Sovereign, the Martyr and ‘Just War’ beyond theJus Publicum Europaeum: the Dilemma of Political Theology,Discussed via Carl Schmitt and Walter Benjamin 88Sigrid Weigel

Part II Narratives of Global Terror

5 Semantic Asymmetries and the ‘War on Terror’ 117Martin Montgomery

6 Missiles in Athens and Tanks at Heathrow: Urban Security andthe Materialization of ‘Global’ Threat 135Stuart Price

7 Between Exceptionalism and Universalism: Photography asCultural Diplomacy 152Liam Kennedy

v

vi Contents

Part III Translating Terror

8 Translation, Ethics and Ideology in a Violent Globalizing World 171Maria Tymoczko

9 Translation – 9/11: Terrorism, Immigration, Language Politics 195Emily Apter

10 Translators in War Zones: Ethics under Fire in Iraq 207Moira Inghilleri

11 Resisting State Terror: Theorizing Communities of ActivistTranslators and Interpreters 222Mona Baker

Conclusion: Globalization, Political Violence and Security 243Christopher W. Hughes

Index 255

List of Figures and Table

Figures

5.1 Comparison of numbers of articles about war on terrorversus war on terrorism in UK broadsheets between2002 and 2007 at yearly intervals with trend line inblack for each 119

5.2 Total number of articles with selected expressions in whichterror is used as a pre-modifier over a six-year periodfrom 10/01/02 to 10/01/08 124

5.3 Annual variations between 10/01/02 and 10/01/08showing the relative frequency of articles containingterror expressions 125

Table

5.1 Number of articles annually in UK broadsheetscontaining selected terror expressions from10/01/02 to 10/01/08 123

vii

Acknowledgements

This book has been made possible by the generosity of the Arts and Human-ities Research Council, which provided the funding for a research projectthat included a series of events that brought together academics, graduatestudents and practitioners in the field of news translation. The idea for thisbook emerged in an interdisciplinary one-day conference entitled ‘Translat-ing Terror: Globalization and the New Planetary Wars’, which took place atthe University of Warwick in November 2005.We are particularly grateful to Professor Susan Bassnett, of the Centre for

Translation andComparative Cultural Studies, and Professor Jan Aart Scholte,of the Centre for the Study of Globalization and Regionalization of the Uni-versity of Warwick. We also wish to thank all those who participated inthe original conference and in the lively debate which ensued. Thanks arealso due to colleagues and postgraduates at the University of Warwick, inparticular Lynn Guyver, Georgina Paul, Jeannette Rissmann and Claire Tsai.Chapter 6, ‘Missiles in Athens and Tanks at Heathrow: Urban Security and

the Materialization of “Global” Threat’, by Stuart Price, previously appearedin Social Semiotics (Vol. 18 (1), 2008), and is reprinted by permission of thepublisher (Taylor & Francis Ltd, http://www.informaworld.com).

viii

Notes on the Contributors

Antonio Aguilera works at the Department of History of Philosophy, Aes-thetics and Philosophy of Culture at the University of Barcelona. He is authorofHombre y cultura (1995), editor of the Spanish editions of Theodor Adorno’sActualidad de la filosofía (1991), Arnold Gehlen’s Antropología filosófica (1993)and Max Horkheimer’s Autoridad y familia y otros escritos, and co-editor ofLa Ortiga’s monographic issue on the aesthetic experience as philosophicalmodel (2002).

Emily Apter is Professor of French, English and Comparative Literature atNew York University. She is author of, among other books, Continental Drift:From National Characters to Virtual Subjects (1999), and The Translation Zone.A New Comparative Literature (2006). She is editor of a book series, Trans-lation/Transnation, Princeton University Press, and serves on the editorialboards of October, Diacritics, Women’s Studies Quarterly and Public Culture. Sheis working on a new book project entitled ‘What is Yours, Ours and Mine:On the Limits of Literary Ownership and the Creative Commons’.

Mona Baker is Professor of Translation Studies at the University of Manch-ester, UK. She is author of In Other Words: a Coursebook on Translation (1992),editor of the Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies (1998, 2001; 2ndextended edn, 2008), founding editor of The Translator: Studies in InterculturalCommunication (1995–), editor of Critical Concepts: Translation Studies (4 vols,forthcoming) and Essential Readings in Translation Studies (forthcoming), andeditorial director of St. Jerome Publishing. Hermost recent book is Translationand Conflict: a Narrative Account (2006).

Upendra Baxi has since 1996 been Professor of Law in Development at theUniversity of Warwick, and previously served as Professor of Law at the Uni-versity of Delhi (1973–96) and as its Vice Chancellor (1990–94). His leadingbooks include: Inhuman Wrongs and Human Rights (1994); Mambrino’s Helmet?Human Rights for a Changing World (1994); The Future of Human Rights (2002)and Human Rights in a Posthuman World (2007).

Moira Inghilleri is an ESRC Research Fellow at the Centre for InterculturalStudies, University College London. Her current research focuses on thedevelopment of sociological perspectives on the social, political and ethicalrole of translators and translation in zones of conflict. She recently com-pleted a four-year ESRC-funded research project on the role of interpreters

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x Notes on the Contributors

in the UK asylum system and is currently writing a book which consolidatesthe findings of this investigation. A book is also planned which will exploredifferent sociological perspectives on translation that have influenced recentscholarship in the field of translation studies.

Liam Kennedy is Director of the Clinton Institute for American Studies atUniversity College Dublin. He is the author of Susan Sontag: Mind as Passion(1995) and Race and Urban Space in American Culture (2000). He is co-editor ofUrban Space and Representation (1999) and City Sites: an Electronic Book (2000),and editor of Remaking Birmingham: the Visual Culture of Urban Regeneration(2004). He is currently researching a monograph on photography and inter-national conflict, and preparing two edited books – on urban photographyand on cultural diplomacy and US foreign policy.

Martin Montgomery is Reader in Literary Linguistics at the University ofStrathclyde where he was head of English from 1992 to 1996 and Director ofthe Scottish Centre for Journalism Studies from1998 to 2008. He is the authorof The Discourse of Broadcast News (2007) and An Introduction to Language andSociety (3rd edn, 2008). He is currently researching changes in the discourseof television news.

Stuart Price is Principal Lecturer in Media and Cultural Production at deMontfort University, UK. His research concerns the rhetorical production ofpower in contemporary society, with particular reference to the mediationof security and the representation of state agency. His most recent book isDiscourse Power Address (2007).

Keith Tester is Professor of Sociology at the University of Hull, and he hasbeen Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Thesis Eleven Centre for CriticalTheory at LaTrobe University in Australia. He is the author of a number ofbooks, the most recent of which include Moral Culture (1997), Compassion,Morality and the Media (2001) and The Social Thought of Zygmunt Bauman(2004). He is presently writing a book on humanitarianism and modernculture for Penn State University Press.

Maria Tymoczko is Professor of Comparative Literature at the University ofMassachusetts Amherst. She is an Irish Studies specialist and has publishedon Irish literature in both Irish and English. She is author of Translation in aPostcolonial Context (1999) and co-editor, with Edwin Gentzler, of Translationand Power (2002). Her most recent book is Enlarging Translation, EmpoweringTranslators (2007).

Notes on the Contributors xi

Sigrid Weigel is Director of the Zentrum für Literaturforschung (Berlin) anda professor at TU Berlin. An honorary member of the MLA, Professor Weigelhas published on Heine, Warburg, Freud, Benjamin, Arendt, Bachmann,cultural history, media theory, genealogy and secularization. Her publica-tions in English include Body- and Image-Space: Re-Reading Walter Benjamin(1996); ‘AbyWarburg’s Schlangenritual’ (New German Critique, 1995); ‘Eros andLanguage in Walter Benjamin’s Writings’, in Benjamin’s Ghosts (2002);and ‘Secularization and Sacralization, Normalization and Rupture: Kristevaand Arendt on Forgiveness’ (PMLA, 2002).