Armed with Words: (De)colonising Translation in the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

TY - CHAP

T1 - Armed with Words

T2 - (De)colonising Translation in the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan (2001–2021)

AU - De Jong, Sara

PY - 2024/5/15

Y1 - 2024/5/15

N2 - Afghan local civilian interpreters employed by international forces operated in a space inextricably marked by and complicit with the logics and violence of coloniality. Analysis of the translation practices in a space that weaponises translation needs to recognise the conditions that constrain the potential for subversion. I argue in this chapter that this does not preclude that interactions in translation can – at times – confront and undermine neo-colonial logics and relations. Based on unique data from in-depth interviews with male Afghan interpreters who worked for international forces during the US-led NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, this chapter presents three decolonial translational challenges posed during interactions in translation. The first traces how a missed translation of a joke reveals the anxiety of Western soldiers and briefly uncovers and unsettles the hegemonic order. The second translational interaction showed how efforts to instrumentally and ignorantly use Farsi training to establish rapport backfired into creating further distrust. It also created a moment where a local interpreter’s task shifted from translation to the silencing of an international soldier. In the final example, I trace the way in which local interpreters responded to the selective translation and appropriation of a Dari phrase with their own affirmative sabotage of the falsely equivalent English phrase to demand their rights to protection. Drawing on postcolonial theory and decolonial theory’s epistemic aims, this chapter shows that attention to interpretative interactions can deepen and complicate understandings of power and highlight neo-imperial dependencies, anxieties, and ignorance in the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan.

AB - Afghan local civilian interpreters employed by international forces operated in a space inextricably marked by and complicit with the logics and violence of coloniality. Analysis of the translation practices in a space that weaponises translation needs to recognise the conditions that constrain the potential for subversion. I argue in this chapter that this does not preclude that interactions in translation can – at times – confront and undermine neo-colonial logics and relations. Based on unique data from in-depth interviews with male Afghan interpreters who worked for international forces during the US-led NATO military intervention in Afghanistan, this chapter presents three decolonial translational challenges posed during interactions in translation. The first traces how a missed translation of a joke reveals the anxiety of Western soldiers and briefly uncovers and unsettles the hegemonic order. The second translational interaction showed how efforts to instrumentally and ignorantly use Farsi training to establish rapport backfired into creating further distrust. It also created a moment where a local interpreter’s task shifted from translation to the silencing of an international soldier. In the final example, I trace the way in which local interpreters responded to the selective translation and appropriation of a Dari phrase with their own affirmative sabotage of the falsely equivalent English phrase to demand their rights to protection. Drawing on postcolonial theory and decolonial theory’s epistemic aims, this chapter shows that attention to interpretative interactions can deepen and complicate understandings of power and highlight neo-imperial dependencies, anxieties, and ignorance in the US-led NATO war in Afghanistan.

U2 - 10.4324/9781003351986-8

DO - 10.4324/9781003351986-8

M3 - Chapter

SP - 119

EP - 134

BT - Translation and Decolonisation

A2 - Chambers, Claire

A2 - Demir, Ipek

PB - Routledge

ER -