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Article published In:
Translation and the Formation of Collectivities: Special issue of Translation in Society 2:1 (2023)
Edited by Dilek Dizdar and Tomasz Rozmysłowicz
[Translation in Society 2:1] 2023
► pp. 71–95

Inter-organizational conflict in the participatory web

(Re)narrating interpreting and (re)imagining the community

ORCID logo | Hamad Bin Khalifa University
Social, professional and political imaginaries are increasingly produced, contested and negotiated in and across online platforms. Adopting a socio-narrative perspective, this paper explores the ways in which collectivities of interpreters use communication technologies in the construction of, and competition over, their organizational identity, practice and space. It focuses on Babels, which organized activist interpreting in social forums, and AIIC, the international association of conference interpreters, and their use of babels​.org and aiic​.net. It analyzes the narrative ‘position’ of these collectivities through the prism of their Web 2.0 homepage design, and individual members’ enactment of, or departure from, these positions (narrative ‘locations’) in the context of an inter-website and interorganizational conflict. The study shows that the participatory web mediates and shapes how collectivities publicly project, enact and contest competing imaginaries of the profession, of the interpreting community, and of society at large.
Keywords: AIIC, Babels, communication technologies, conference interpreting, inter-organizational conflict, narrative locations, narrative positions, participatory web, profession, social imaginaries
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Socio-narrative theory
  • 3.The case of the interpreting profession: A focus on AIIC and Babels
  • 4.Narrative analysis of Aiic.net and Babels.org
    • 4.1AIIC and Babels’ narrative positions: Focus on web design
      • The AIIC homepage
      • The Babels homepage
    • 4.2Narrative locations across aiic.org and Babels.org
  • 5.Conclusions and new directions
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 10 March 2023
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.22003.boe
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