Tag: politics
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Who Speaks for Academia? An Open Letter to ITI’s University Members on Due Diligence, Representation and Academic Independence
The CEO of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting (ITI) is due to speak at an upcoming Association of Translation Companies (ATC) event in a discussion framed around “academia, associations and community”. But who, exactly, speaks for “academia”? The ITI has a controversial membership structure: it offers membership to individual translators and interpreters, universities, and…
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What Would Fair Pay for Translators and Interpreters Actually Look Like?
Translation and Interpreting Studies have documented declining rates and deteriorating working conditions, while commercial intermediaries have raised concerns about the difficulty of attracting and retaining skilled translators and interpreters. Yet a fundamental question remains largely absent from these discussions: What would actually make a rate of pay fair? Discussions of fair pay often move quickly…
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A Patchwork of Insecure Jobs or Diversification? What the Positive Language of Portfolio Careers Might Be Obscuring
Many translators and interpreters today do not have a single career. They have a patchwork. A few hours of translation here. Some teaching there. A training session next week. A short editing project next month. A handful of regular clients and intermediaries, a stream of one-off assignments, and a constant search for the next opportunity.…
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Three Simple Ways Translators Can Reclaim Agenda-Setting Power
Many translators and interpreters are facing growing challenges. Rates continue to fall, financial insecurity is intensifying, and stories of unfair treatment circulate widely across professional networks. Yet translators are often excluded from shaping the conversations about the profession. At conferences, within professional organisations, and in some academic and industry discussions, narratives that align closely with…
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Are You Procuring Translation and Interpreting Services Through Agencies and Platforms? Here’s What You Need to Know
When organisations procure translation and interpreting services, decisions often focus on practical considerations: cost, availability, turnaround times, scalability, and administrative convenience. I do not deny that these factors matter. However, language services are not simply interchangeable products moving through a supply chain. They are delivered by human beings. Behind every translated document, interpreted meeting, healthcare…
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What Does the 2026 World Cup Have in Common with Court Interpreting?
At first glance, absolutely nothing. One is a global sporting event watched by billions. The other is an essential public service that helps ensure access to justice. Yet both are increasingly governed by the same principle: dynamic pricing. The 2026 FIFA World Cup has already generated headlines because of the extraordinary cost of tickets. Unlike…
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Are Translators Being Treated as Professionals, Entrepreneurs, or “Humans as a Service”?
Drawing on Jeremias Prassl’s concept of “Humans as a Service” (developed in relation to the gig economy) (2018), this article argues that translation work is increasingly organised in ways that combine formal independence with practical dependency. Translators are often presented as freelancers or professionals, yet in practice they operate within tightly structured systems where rates,…
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Why can’t translators go on strike? How dominant narratives obscure the possibility of collective action
I came across the claim that translators cannot go on strike in an academic book on translation and capitalism. I am interrogating this assumption as part of my work on re-politicising translation labour and developing a theory of change for the UK translation and interpreting industry. My interest is not simply whether translators can strike,…
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Who gets to define what counts as credible knowledge about translators’ rights—and whose knowledge is excluded in the process?
Recently, in a conversation with a senior representative of a translation and interpreting professional body, I found myself saying something quite simple: it does not make sense for us to be positioned on opposite sides of this discussion, because one side represents translators, and the other is trying to write about their rights. This perplexing…
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The Dangerous Politics of “Working Together”: Why Interpreter and Translator Organisations Must Review Their Role in Normalising Outsourcing
This second article in an ongoing investigation builds on a theory of change for the UK translation and interpreting sector. The first article examined the institutional structure of Professional Interpreters for Justice (PI4J) and the tensions between claims of representation, institutional hybridity, and embedded organisational incentives. This article turns to a critical analysis of the…
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The Government Has Admitted the Current Framework “Does Not Prevent Worker Exploitation and Leaves Vulnerable Workers without Core Employment Protections.”
I received a ministerial reply from the Cabinet Office in response to concerns I raised about public supply chains, outsourcing, equality obligations, and precarious labour arrangements affecting interpreters and other workers in publicly funded services. A copy of the correspondence is included at the end of this article. The response was issued following my open…
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