Knowledge is situated rather than fixed, making it inherently open to refinement, correction, and, where necessary, replacement. Translation Studies is no exception. Positioned at the intersection of languages, institutions, technologies, and global supply chains, it is especially exposed to rapid change and competing narratives. For this reason, the capacity for self-correction is central to intellectual credibility. It requires a willingness to revisit assumptions, acknowledge limitations, broaden its ethical scope, undertake meaningful due diligence, and reassess influential narratives when they no longer adequately account for the evolving realities of the field. I argue that as the object of inquiry expands from translation as a linguistic activity to translation as an organised economic activity, the forms of scrutiny required by the field must also expand.

Much of the early development of Translation Studies focused on the linguistic and process-oriented dimensions of translation, examining how texts move across languages and how concepts such as equivalence, meaning, and method can be theorised and taught. In recent years, however, the field has increasingly expanded its scope to include the economic conditions in which translation takes place. This shift has opened important new lines of inquiry, particularly around labour structures, technological change, and globalised supply chains. It has also transformed the ethical questions confronting the discipline. The ethical concerns associated with the act of translating are not identical to those associated with an industry that intersects with access to justice, healthcare, and other essential public services; relies heavily on fragmented and often precarious forms of labour; and increasingly operates through outsourced procurement arrangements within markets characterised by significant concentration of power among a relatively small number of language service providers (LSPs). As a result, Translation Studies now operates within a more complex intellectual environment in which dominant assumptions require continuous reassessment.

One area where such reassessment may be particularly important is the relationship between academic narratives and external stakeholder discourse. When academic frameworks become closely intertwined with industry actors, there is a risk that critical distance is reduced and that some dimensions of translation activity receive greater analytical attention than others. This is not necessarily a matter of intent, but of intellectual balance. The closer a field becomes to powerful stakeholders, the greater the need to reflect on whose perspectives are amplified, whose interests are represented, and which questions remain underexplored.

My concern is particularly with those areas of Translation Studies where “industry” is increasingly treated as a partner rather than an object of critique. Across industry-academia collaborations, industry actors are frequently positioned as sources of expertise, practical knowledge, and legitimacy, while students are framed primarily as future workers rather than as individuals developing lifelong critical and analytical capacities. Within this framework, precarity is acknowledged but depoliticised; professional organisations appear mainly as collaborators rather than subjects of scrutiny; and structural problems are increasingly reframed as questions of resilience, adaptability, or skills development. Consequently, questions such as “What skills does the future language industry need?” often receive greater attention than questions like “Why is translation work becoming increasingly insecure?”, “What governance and procurement structures shape translation labour?”, or “What gaps in labour protections should be addressed?”

These tendencies raise broader questions about the relationship between knowledge production and institutional power. Can an organisation simultaneously function as a research partner, sponsor, gatekeeper, and object of critical scrutiny? What risks emerge when research is conducted through partnerships with organisations that are themselves implicated in shaping the narratives being studied? These questions do not imply that collaboration between academia and industry is always problematic.

Self-correction should begin with a stronger culture of due diligence. As Translation Studies deepens its engagement with external stakeholders, it is reasonable to ask not only what expertise organisations bring to the field, but also what interests, incentives, and institutional positions they represent. Due diligence requires looking beyond stated missions and examining organisational contexts more broadly: who these actors serve, who their clients are, how they engage with workers, freelancers, and subcontractors, and what role they play within wider market structures including outsourcing arrangements. It also requires considering whether engagement with universities generates reputational capital for commercial actors that is not always accompanied by equivalent scrutiny.

These questions are not intended to discourage collaboration, but to ensure that partnerships are approached with the same critical scrutiny applied to other objects of academic inquiry. Most importantly, translation departments should remain attentive to whether their educational practices, partnerships, and knowledge production activities might unintentionally contribute to processes that intensify financial insecurity, labour fragmentation, or unequal power relations within the translation and interpreting professions.

Self-correction also requires reflection on whether the dominant model of “academia–industry synergy” risks shifting Translation Studies away from analysing labour systems and toward managing labour market adaptation. The purpose of university education should not be limited to merely helping students enter the profession. We need greater awareness of how systemic economic questions within the translation industry are increasingly reframed as pedagogical and psychological challenges for individual translators and interpreters, leaving the underlying structures of translation labour insufficiently examined.

Addressing this challenge requires broadening the field’s external points of reference. Translation Studies could benefit significantly from deeper engagement with political economy and the sociology of work, particularly scholarship on outsourcing, precarious labour, platformised employment, and highly feminised and racialised service sectors. The translation and interpreting workforce is shaped not only by linguistic and technological developments, but also by race, gender, power, labour regulation, and economic organisation. The field is no longer only studying translation; it is increasingly studying an industry.

While collaboration with industry actors could provide valuable insights, it is also structurally limited, since those actors are themselves embedded within the economic relations the field seeks to understand. For this reason, relying primarily on industry voices risks narrowing the analytical lens rather than expanding it. A more robust approach would place industry engagement alongside scholarly perspectives specifically equipped to analyse value distribution, intermediary power, ethical supply chains, conflicts of interest, precarity, and labour exploitation across comparable sectors.

Translation Studies has made significant contributions to our understanding of multilingual communication and the social realities of translation. Its strength lies in its interdisciplinarity and capacity for adaptation. Yet its growing engagement with economic and institutional questions demands an equally strong commitment to intellectual reflexivity. As the field continues to evolve, it must remain willing not only to refine its theories and methods but also to reconsider its assumptions, reassess its relationships with powerful actors, and, where necessary, publicly correct the record. The ability to do so is one of the defining characteristics of a mature and intellectually honest discipline.

About the author
Fardous Bahbouh is a researcher and broadcast interpreter specialising in labour rights and the political economy of the translation and interpreting industry. Alongside her academic research, she continues to work with agencies and production companies that value interpreters and translators and provide fair working conditions. She also runs a small translation company and does not generalise critiques of unfair intermediaries to all translation companies or agencies.

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