This is not a neutral reflection. It is a deliberate intervention.

As an academic researcher, I once again feel compelled to speak out. Over the past few years, I have watched a particular narrative about the translation and interpreting industry take shape across academic publications, public events, and institutional collaborations. It is a narrative that presents the industry as dynamic, innovative, and collaborative—while consistently muting or marginalising the lived realities of translators and interpreters who are struggling with low pay, financial insecurity, diminishing bargaining power, and intensifying pressures linked to technological change, including platformisation, surveillance, and datafication.

I am writing this after watching the recording of the event “Studying Translation in the Age of AI: Why and How”, organised by the University of Surrey. The event brought together academic scholars and institutional representatives, including the CEO of the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), Raisa McNab, who also serves as Secretary General of the European Union of Associations of Translation Companies (EUATC). The heads of the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL) and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) were also present. This post is a normative choice: an attempt to disrupt what I see as the growing normalisation of industry-aligned narratives within academic spaces and professional organisations, and to ensure that these dynamics cannot later be framed as unknown, unintended, or invisible.

What I find particularly frustrating is that this is not new. I have had extended correspondence—and in some cases direct conversations—with several of the speakers. Yet the same framing persists. Across the event, the discussion focused on familiar concerns: the impact of AI and machine translation, the need for professional adaptability, and the importance of aligning education with industry needs. These are not insignificant issues. But what is striking is not what is said—it is what is left out. There is very little sustained attention to the material conditions shaping translators’ lives: stagnant or declining pay, fragmented and insecure work, the effects of outsourcing (especially in public service contexts), and the growing power asymmetries between individual translators and large intermediaries who control work allocations.

Most importantly, the discussion avoids asking the most basic questions: who benefits from the current structure of the industry, and who bears the cost? Who sets rates of pay? Who determines working conditions? Where does responsibility lie?

Instead, the problem is subtly reframed. Risks and responsibilities are transferred to translators. The discussion shift to how translators can adapt—how they can upskill and meet market demand—rather than a question of how the market itself is structured in ways that produce inequality and precarity. As Isabell Lorey puts it in her book State of Insecurity:

If we fail to understand precarization, then we understand neither the politics nor the economy of the present.

I have written extensively on these concerns. This includes my analysis of ethical risks of translation academics “collaborating” with the industry without adequate critical engagement and objective analysis, and my reflections on the ethical tensions and power asymmetries in industry–academic collaboration. I have critiqued the “Better Together” conference organised by the Association of Programmes in Translation and Interpreting Studies in the UK and Ireland (APTIS), held at UCL in November 2025 and sponsored by the same industry actors mentioned about. The “Better Together” conference was promoting collaboration and adaptability of individual translators, rather than highlighting the crucial fact that good translation jobs require good translation companies, legal protections and social dialogue that does not obscure financial insecurities, precarization and potential exploitation. In addition, I have written about Confronting Critical Blind Spots in Sustainability Discourse in Translation Studies. And yet, the same pattern repeats.

What is most striking is that the same excuses keep getting repeated. For example, I critiqued the report titled “The Strategic Case for Languages in UK Higher Education,” published in partnership between the Association of Translation Companies (ATC), the Chartered Institute of Linguists (CIOL), and the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI), for excluding financial realities from key policy documents. I was told by the head of ITI that translators’ rates of pay are “discussed elsewhere.” Interestingly, I was told the exact same phrase by the CEO of ATC. And this is the problem I am calling attention to. When the person heading an organisation funded by translators’ membership fees echoes the same excuse as the person representing corporate interests, then there is something drastically wrong. That is why I have repeatedly called for an honest dialogue about how make the translation industry fairer.

Does anyone have a page number, a meeting link or a postcode for where these conversations are actually taking place? After nearly three years of searching, I have yet to find them. What I have found instead is a corporate-aligned narrative that keeps getting reproduced and amplified. While researching these issues over the last three years, I have also observed that whenever the ATC is present in a collaboration or event, there is very little questioning of the role and responsibilities of the owners and executives of translation companies, who ultimately control rates of pay and working conditions. I would genuinely appreciate it if anyone could direct me to examples that challenge this observation, in order to help me avoid overgeneralisation. However, even after repeated interventions, I sometimes feel like a canary in the coal mine. Yet rather than engaging with the substance of the critique, the response can shift towards challenging the legitimacy of speaking out. This, in itself, is revealing.

Therefore, I am deeply concerned by the continued involvement of organisations such as ATC in the event of the Surry University. The interest group play a significant role in shaping a constructed narrative of the translation industry and the broader discourse around what counts as legitimate knowledge in the field. Their presence lends authority to particular ways of talking about the industry. What is being reproduced—across events, reports, and collaborations—is a reassuring narrative: the industry is evolving, “opportunities” exist, collaboration is key, and the future belongs to adaptable professionals. But this framing comes at a cost. It risks obscuring the ethical responsibilities of commercial actors, normalising outsourcing practices known to depress wages and working conditions, and reinforcing a version of the industry in which structural problems are softened or displaced. The result is a consensus-oriented space where critique exists but is carefully contained. Even when issues such as fair pay are mentioned, they are often framed as matters of advocacy or individual concern, rather than as central analytical problems requiring structural explanation.

What emerges across these discussions is a consistent pattern. Precarity is acknowledged but downplayed. It is framed as something to navigate rather than something to confront. Translators are encouraged to be resilient, adaptable, entrepreneurial. Meanwhile, far less attention is given to those with the power to shape the conditions under which translators work—large language service providers, platform operators, and industry intermediaries. This matters because narratives are not neutral. They shape how problems are understood, and therefore what kinds of solutions appear possible. If the issue is framed as individual adaptation, then the solution lies in skills and mindset. If the issue is structural, then the conversation must turn to power, regulation, labour rights, and accountability. At present, that second conversation remains underdeveloped.

This raises a broader question about the role of academia. Is it to describe the world as it is presented by dominant actors, or to interrogate the structures that produce inequality—even when that is uncomfortable? For me, the answer is clear. Academia is not simply about amplifying convenient narratives; it is about producing knowledge that serves the public good. That includes the responsibility to speak truth to power, not just to engage with it.

I am aware that writing in this way can be perceived as contentious. But this is not about individuals. It is about a pattern that I have now seen repeated across multiple contexts. And it is about a choice. I cannot ignore the fact that financial insecurity is increasingly documented in academic research, yet often obscured or naturalised as if it were inevitable. In my own PhD research, a significant proportion of public service interpreters reported that they do not earn enough to meet their basic needs. This is not an isolated issue; it is a structural condition with profound implications for dignity, wellbeing, and rights. Writing this publicly is therefore a way of making that structure visible. Because once something is visible, it becomes harder to dismiss. At the very least, it becomes harder to say: “we did not know.”

If collaboration between academia and industry is to be meaningful, it cannot be treated as an unquestioned good. It must be conditional, transparent, and explicitly oriented towards improving labour conditions. Otherwise, there is a real risk that academic work—however unintentionally—contributes to the normalisation of the very inequalities it should be examining. There is also a broader question that remains largely unaddressed: what happens to those who are displaced or marginalised by technological change and deepening precarity? This cannot be answered through narratives of adaptability alone.

I also want to be clear about where I am coming from. I studied political science and trained in journalism, and I continue to work as a broadcast interpreter covering major international events, alongside my academic research. These experiences shape how I understand knowledge, power and responsibility. In journalism, credibility is not built through alignment, but through questioning, verification, and a commitment to getting as close as possible to the truth. It requires challenging authority and refraining from amplifying propagandas. Academia shares that responsibility. It requires critical distance from powerful actors, openness to disagreement, and a willingness to examine whose interests are being served by particular narratives. If it loses that, it risks becoming something else entirely.

For that reason, I choose to intervene and to speak out.

About the author

Fardous Bahbouh is a Researcher and Consultant specializing in Labour Rights, Public Policy, and the Political Economy of the Translation Industry. Her research is funded by Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) / The White Rose College of the Arts and Humanities (WRoCAH).