Vers une approche communicationnelle de l’engagement: les récits des traducteurs-interprètes du réseau Babels dans le mouvement altermondialiste

The paradigm of neutrality which has long prevailed in the conceptualisation of Translation and Interpreting practices has been largely questioned by translation scholars in the 90s. Like fieldwork anthropologists in the 50/60s, translation scholars recognised that neither knowledge transfer nor intercultural/linguistic mediation can ever take place objectively. In the context of this epistemological shift, the study of translators’ and interpreters’ engagement is faced with a double challenge : opening up the scope of analysis of engagement and problematizing the subjectivity of any actor involved in the analysis, practitioners and researchers alike. Engagement, in the sense of action oriented towards societal change, ought to be analyzed beyond the human/social divide. This study proposes a communicational and narrative approach to explore the relationships between “collective identity”, “collective action” and organizations, at the heart of social movements theory, and recounts the ways in which these three elements, co-constructed by actors of a given translators’ and interpreters’ organization, underpin any type engagement. Resorting to narrative theory, this study focuses on interactions among actors within the communicational device of Babels, the international network of volunteer translators and interpreters, born in the context of the social forums, and examines the ways in which practitioners grant meaning to their engagement in time and space.