I have taken a few weeks away from my blog to reflect on how I approach public knowledge creation and my advocacy for better pay and working conditions for translators and interpreters. This break brought me to a troubling realisation: I have been carrying an astonishing amount of emotional and intellectual labour simply to exercise what I consider a legitimate part of academic inquiry — asking critical questions, investigating institutional arrangements and making research-informed arguments in public.

Over the past year, I have repeatedly questioned my writing because I am aware of the possible consequences of publishing my views. I have wondered whether a particular article, LinkedIn post or publicly expressed opinion might jeopardise my PhD. Before publishing, I find myself considering not only the evidence and fairness of my arguments, but also who might complain to my university and what consequences might follow. I have seriously considered suspending my blog until I complete my doctorate.

My writing examines inequality in the translation and interpreting industry, particularly the institutional arrangements, economic interests and power relations shaping translators’ and interpreters’ livelihoods. I have also challenged narratives of corporate alignment and university–industry collaboration that risk legitimising unfair or potentially exploitative practices. These are legitimate and important subjects of inquiry, particularly for a publicly funded researcher investigating the political economy of the industry.

Yet my university has received numerous complaints about my public writing from translation academics, a professional association claiming to represent translators and interpreters, and a commercial interest group representing translation companies. The diversity of these complainants is striking. Academics, professional associations and commercial interest groups occupy different institutional positions and serve different purposes. My critical writing has attracted complaints from across these boundaries. What concerns me is the unequal distribution of power in these encounters: established institutions can challenge an individual researcher’s public arguments through institutional channels, while the researcher must bear the professional and emotional costs of responding.

I do not suggest that every complaint has the same motivation, nor that criticism of my writing is illegitimate. I welcome factual correction, substantive disagreement and rigorous debate. But there is a difference between challenging an argument publicly through evidence and directing complaints about its author to their university. Whatever the intentions behind individual complaints, their cumulative effect has been exhausting. Responding to institutional scrutiny, defending the legitimacy of my research and worrying about professional consequences consume time and emotional energy that could otherwise be devoted to research and public engagement.

I began writing because I wanted to contribute to a better understanding of the economic realities facing translators and interpreters and encourage collective thinking about how those conditions might be improved. I did not anticipate spending so much energy wondering whether I could afford to continue asking these questions.

This raises a broader concern: what happens to critical scholarship when questioning established institutional and commercial interests becomes personally and professionally costly?

It should concern us if early-career and precariously employed researchers feel compelled to remain silent for fear of professional repercussions. We risk entering an intellectual dark age when public-interest research gives way to institutional conformity. What does this possibility reveal about the relationships between academic scholarship, professional representation and commercial power in Translation Studies?

During my break, the possibility of abandoning my blog became increasingly tempting. I have invested years in my research, and the thought of jeopardising it is frightening. But then I opened my Language Justice Reading List and scrolled through the articles I have published.

There were articles documenting financial insecurity, poor working conditions and health and safety risks in outsourced public service interpreting. Others examined institutional responsibility, professional representation, university–industry relationships and the independence of academic research. I had written to government departments, contributed to policy debates, examined academic literature and challenged explanations that place responsibility for economic insecurity primarily on individual workers.

Ethics has been a recurring concern. I have questioned how professional organisations can claim ethical commitments while overlooking workers’ economic insecurity, how universities can promote industry collaboration without adequately scrutinising commercial partners, and how sustainability and professionalism can be discussed without asking who benefits, who bears the costs and who is accountable for harm. My argument has been that ethics must be reflected in fair remuneration, decent working conditions, meaningful representation and institutional accountability, not merely professional codes or declarations of good intentions.

There were also articles exploring alternatives: fair pay, collective organisation, institutional reform and what a good translation industry might look like for the people whose labour sustains it.

As I scrolled through these titles, I remembered the curiosity, frustration, anger and, above all, concern for justice that motivated me to write them. I began this blog because I wanted to understand why people performing socially valuable, highly skilled work could experience such profound economic insecurity, and why responsibility for their circumstances was so often placed on their own shoulders.

Looking at this body of work, I realised that I find it worthwhile. Not because every argument is beyond criticism, or because I would write every article in exactly the same way today, but because it represents a sustained effort to ask important questions, bring evidence into public discussion and challenge institutional arrangements that deserve scrutiny.

And I realised something else. This work may be more valuable to me than the PhD title itself, if silence is the price I must pay to obtain it. I want to hold on to my belief that universities should protect researchers’ right to contribute to public knowledge creation. I want to finish my PhD, and I have worked extraordinarily hard to get this far. But I struggle with the idea that becoming a recognised scholar might require me to stop doing what I consider fundamental to scholarship: questioning power, examining injustice and sharing knowledge with the public.

I do not want to choose between completing my doctorate and exercising my intellectual independence. Nor should any researcher have to make that choice simply because their questions make established institutions uncomfortable.

If Translation Studies is genuinely committed to ethics, justice and the social value of translation, there must be room for scholars who critically examine the industry’s economic arrangements, institutional collaborations and their consequences for the people whose labour makes translation possible.

I began this reflection wondering whether I could afford to continue writing.

Having revisited my work, I now find myself asking a different question: what would be the cost of remaining silent?

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Jaredd Craig on Unsplash