The journey of Arabic human rights testimonies, from witnesses to audiences via Amnesty International
Within the human rights knowledge production infrastructure, information undergoes processes of entextualisation, archiving, publication, and reception. This article examines the place of testimonies – first-person accounts of suffering and/or historic events – in Amnesty International. A network of agents form around testimonies to produce them through translation from the witnesses’ languages – spoken varieties of Arabic – to the language of globalised governance – written English – and to formal written Arabic. The co-construction of meaning, in encounters between human rights researchers and witnesses, is a modern ritual that is entextualised in the genre ‘testimony’; its translations between spoken and written modes, languages and styles, are exercises in persuasive rhetoric aimed at redressing ‘testimonial injustice’. The researchers are not professional translators, yet their unselfconscious translations are constitutive of the knowledge that audiences receive. The data is based on interviews and questionnaires with Amnesty International staff, textual analysis of publications, and on focus groups and surveys.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction: Networks of agents performing rituals and translations
- 2.Collecting testimonies: Notations in a meaning-producing event
- 3.Entextualising and archiving testimonies: Reiterating the genre
- 4.The publication of a testimony: Orchestrated polyphony
- 4.1Locking testimonies into persuasive formulations
- 4.2Contracting testimonies’ professional translation: Internal power relations
- 4.3Translators’ styles: Channelling norms and designing audiences
- 4.4Modifying testimonies: Stretching the connection with witnesses for the persuasion of audiences
- 5.Disseminating testimonies: Reception in Arabic
- 5.1Witnessing in focus groups
- 5.2Surveying regional commonalities and discords
- 6.Conclusion: Translating for epistemic justice
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
References (52)
Abdalla, Mohamed Siddig
2018 The Influence of Translation on the Arabic Language: English Idioms in Arabic Satellite TV Stations. Newcastle unpon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Abdallah, Kristiina
2010 “
Translators’ Agency in Production Networks.” In
Translators’ Agency (Tampere Studies in Language, Translation and Culture),
Tuija Kinnunen and
Kaisa Koskinen (eds), 11–46. Tampere: Tampere University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Agamben, Giorgio
1999 Remnants of Auschwitz: The Witness and the Archive. New York: Zone books.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Albirini, Abdulkafi
2016 Modern Arabic Sociolinguistics: Diglossia, Variation, Codeswitching, Attitudes and Identity. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Allen, Lori
2013 The Rise and Fall of Human Rights: Cynicism and Politics in Occupied Palestine. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Amnesty International
2006 Guidelines for Writers. London: Amnesty International Ltd.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Amnesty International
2008 Guidelines for Writers. London: Amnesty International Ltd.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Amnesty International
2017 Writing for Amnesty International – Guidance for Staff on Writing Style and Use of Language. London: Amnesty International Ltd.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Andrews, Molly
2014 “
Beyond Narrative: The Shape of Traumatic Testimony.” In
We shall Bear Witness: Life Narratives and Human Rights,
Meg Jensen and
Margaretta Jolly (eds), 32–47. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Baker, Mona
2010 “
Narrating the World: ‘Accurate’ Translations, Suspicious Frames.” In
Translating Justice – Traducir la Justicia,
Icíar Alonso Araguás,
Jesús Baigorri Jalón and
Helen J. L. Campbell (eds), 47–60. Granada: Editorial Comares.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bell, Allan
2001 “
Back in Style: Reworking Audience Design.” In
Style and Sociolinguistic Variation,
Penelope Eckert and
John R. Rickford (eds), 139–169.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bell, Allan, and Andy Gibson
2011 “
Staging Language: An Introduction to the Sociolinguistics of Performance.”
Journal of Sociolinguistics 15:5, 555–572.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Benmamoun, Elabbas, Mahmoud Abunasser, Rania Al-Sabbagh, Abdelaadim Bidaoui, and Dana Shalash
2013 “
The location of Sentential Negation in Arabic Varieties.”
Brill’s Journal of Afroasiatic Languages and Linguistics 5:1, 83–116.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Bielsa, Esperança, and Susan Bassnett
2009 Translation and Global News. London and New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Briggs, Charles L., and Richard Bauman
1992 “
Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power.”
Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2:2, 131–172.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cameron, Deborah
2005 Verbal Hygiene. Abingdon: Routledge.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Chesterman, Andrew
2014 “
A Causal Model for Translation Studies.” In
Intercultural Faultlines: Research Models in Translation Studies Vol.1: Textual and cognitive aspects (second edition),
Maeve Olohan (ed.), 15–28. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cohen, Stanley
1996 “
Government Responses to Human Rights Reports: Claims, Denials, and Counterclaims.”
Human Rights Quarterly 18:3, 517–543.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Crystal, David
2003 English as a Global Language (Second edition). Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Culpeper, Jonathan
2007 “
Reflections on Impoliteness, Relational Work and Power.” In
Impoliteness in Language,
Derek Bousfield and
Miriam Locher (eds), 22–53. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Duranti, Alessandro
1993 “
Intentions, Self and Responsibility: An Essay in Samoan Ethnopragmatics.” In
Responsibility and Evidence in Oral Discourse,
Jane H. Hill and
Judith T. Irvine (eds), 24–47. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Eckert, Penelope
2004 “
The Meaning of Style.”
Texas Linguistic Forum 471, 41–53.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ehrlich, Susan
2001 Representing Rape: Language and Sexual Consent. London and New York: Routledge.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Eisele, John C.
2002 “
Approaching Diglossia: Authorities, Values and Representations.” In
Language Contact and Language Conflict in Arabic,
Aleya Rouchdy (ed.), 3–23. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Elsadda, Hoda
2016 “
An Archive of Hope: Translating Memories of Revolution.” In
Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution,
Mona Baker (ed.), 148–160. London and New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Felman, Shoshana, and Dori Laub
1992 Testimony: Crises of Witnessing in Literature, Psychoanalysis, and History. New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Fricker, Miranda
2007 Epistemic Injustice: Power and the Ethics of Knowing. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Gobodo-Madikizela, Pumla
2006 “
Healing.” In
Truth and Reconciliation in South Africa: 10 years on,
Charles Villa-Vicencio and
Fanie Du Toit (eds), 71–76. Claremont: David Philip.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hachimi, Atiqa
2013 “
The Maghreb‐Mashreq Language Ideology and the Politics of Identity in a Globalized Arab World.”
Journal of Sociolinguistics 17:3, 269–296.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Halliday, M. A. K., and Ruqaiya Hasan
2014 Cohesion in English. Abingdon: Routledge.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Harris, Verne
2002 “
The Archival Sliver: A Perspective on the Construction of Social Memory in Archives and the Transition from Apartheid to Democracy.” In
Refiguring the Archive,
Carolyn Hamilton,
Verne Harris,
Jane Taylor,
Michèle Pickover,
Graeme Reid,
Razia Saleh (eds), 135–160. Dordrecht: Springer.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Haugen, Einar
1966 “
Semicommunications: The Language Gap in Scandinavia.”
Sociological Inquiry 36:2, 280–297.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Heller, Monica, and Alexandre Duchêne
(eds) 2007 Discourses of Endangerment: Ideologies and Interest in the Defense of Languages. London and New York: Continuum.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hirsch, Marianne, and Leo Spitzer
2010 “
The Witness in the Archive: Holocaust Studies/Memory Studies.” In
Memory: Histories, Theories, Debates,
Susannah Radstone and
Bill Schwarz (eds), 390–405. New York: Fordham University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Hopgood, Stephen
2006 Keepers of the Flame: Understanding Amnesty International. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Jensen, Meg, and Margaretta Jolly
(eds) 2014 We shall Bear Witness: Life Narratives and Human Rights. Madison and London: University of Wisconsin Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Kahane, Eduardo
2007 “
Interpreters in Conflict Zones: The Limits of Neutrality.”
aiic.net,
[URL] 12 June 2007, accessed 11 December 2017.
Koskinen, Kaisa
2010 “
Agency and Causality: Towards Explaining by Mechanisms in Translation Studies.” In
Translators’ Agency (Tampere Studies in Language, Translation and Culture),
Tuija Kinnunen and
Kaisa Koskinen (eds), 165–187. Tampere: Tampere University Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Krog, Antjie, and Nosisi Mpolweni
2016 “
Archived Voices: Refiguring three Women’s Testimonies Delivered to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission.” In
Translating Testimony,
Anneleen Spiessens and
Tom Toremans (eds).
Témoigner/Getuigen 1231, 84–99.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Lyon, Arabella and Lester C. Olson
2011 Special Issue on Human Rights Rhetoric: “Traditions of Testifying and Witnessing.”
Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 41:3, 203–212.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Maryns, Katrijn
2006 The Asylum Speaker: Language in the Belgian Asylum Procedure. Abingdon and New York: Routledge.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Mason, Ian
2000 “
Audience Design in Translating.”
The Translator, 6:1, 1–22.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Milroy, James, and Lesley Milroy
1985 Authority in Language: Investigating Language Prescription and Standardisation. Abingdon: Routledge.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Pauwels, Anne
1998 Women Changing Language. London and New York: Longman.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Ryding, Karin Christina
2010 “
Media Arabic as a Regional Standard.” In
Arabic and the Media: Linguistic Analyses and Applications,
Reem Bassiouney (ed.), 217–228. Leiden: Brill.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Schwartz, Joan M. and Terry Cook
2002 “
Archives, Records, and Power: The Making of Modern Memory.”
Archival Science 21, 1–19.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Spiessens, Anneleen, and Tom Toremans
(eds) 2016 “
Translating Testimony.”
Témoigner/Getuigen, 1231, 49–155.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty
1988 “
Can the Subaltern Speak? Reflections on the History of an Idea.” In
Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture,
Cary Nelson and
Lawrence Grossberg (eds), 21–78. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press.
![DOI logo](https://benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Tesseur, Wine
2015 Transformation through Translation: Translation Policies at Amnesty International, PhD Thesis. Aston University.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Wilson, Richard
1997 “
Representing Human Rights Violations: Social Contexts and Subjectivities.” In
Human rights, Culture and Context: Anthropological Perspectives,
Wilson, Richard (ed.). London: Pluto Press.
![Google Scholar](https://benjamins.com/logos/google-scholar.svg)
Cited by (2)
Cited by 2 other publications
devereux, veronika
2023.
Assessment of the Approach of the Selected International and National Non Governmental Organisations Specialising in Addressing the Current Issues of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
SSRN Electronic Journal ![DOI logo](//benjamins.com/logos/doi-logo.svg)
This list is based on CrossRef data as of 19 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers.
Any errors therein should be reported to them.