Author(s): Hilary Footitt
Series: Palgrave Studies in Languages at War
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Year: 2023
Acknowledgements
Contents
Abbreviations
List of Figures
1: Reversing the Gaze
From Benignity and Positivism to Conflict and the Situated Interpreter
Afghan Interpreters
Spaces of Encounter in the Afghan Conflict
Power Dynamics
Time and the Interpreter
Sources and Approaches
References
2: Western Imaginings of Afghanistan
The Graveyard of Empires
One Tribe at a Time
Languages in the Tribal Analysis of Afghanistan
The West’s Knowledge Base About Afghanistan in the Twenty-First Century
Weaponising ‘Culture’
References
3: Spaces of Encounter
Afghan Employees
Western Employers
Recruiting
Tasks and Working Conditions
The Location of the Interpreter
References
4: Naming the ‘Interpreter’: From the NATO Drawdown Until the Evacuation
The ‘Traitor’
The ‘Professional Translator/Interpreter’
The ‘Alien Translator’
Western Cultures of Protection
The ‘Military Interpreter’
The ‘Civil Servant’
The ‘Honorary Veteran’
The ‘Victim’
The ‘Unnamed Interpreters’
References
5: Evacuation
The Evacuation of August 2021
Initial Priorities for Protection
Widening the Protection Net
Identifying Evacuees
Managing the Evacuation
Veterans
Time, Space and Hierarchy
References
6: After the Evacuation
The Afghans Left Behind
Spaces of Encounter in the West
Post-Taliban Afghanistan
References
7: Conclusions
Contextualising
The Local Interpreter
Foreignness
Evacuation
Moving Forward
References
Index
