The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Migration explores the practices and attitudes surrounding migration and translation, aiming to redefine these two terms in light of their intersections and connections. The volume adopts an interdisciplinary and transnational perspective, highlighting the broad scope of migration and translation as not only linguistic and geographical phenomena, but also cultural, social, artistic, and psychological processes.
The nexus between migration and translation, the central concern of this Handbook, challenges limited conceptualisations of identity and belonging, thereby also exposing the limitations of monolingual, monocultural models of nationhood. Through a diverse range of approaches and methodologies, individual chapters investigate specific historical circumstances and illustrate the need for an intersectional approach to questions of language access and language mediation.
With its range of approaches and case studies, the volume highlights the inherently political nature of translation and its potential to shape social and cultural inclusion, emphasising the crucial role of language and translation in informing professional practices, institutional policies, educational approaches and community attitudes towards migration. By bringing together perspectives from both researchers and creative practitioners, this book makes an innovative contribution to ongoing global discussions on linguistic hospitality and diversity, ideal for those pursing postgraduate and doctoral studies in translation studies, linguistics, international studies and cultural studies.
Brigid Maher is Associate Professor of Italian Studies at La Trobe University (Melbourne, Australia). Her research interests include literary translation, contemporary Italian literature and culture, the translation of humour and the translation, circulation and reception of crime fiction, as well as gender-inclusive teaching practices.
Loredana Polezzi is D’Amato Chair in Italian and Italian American Studies at Stony Brook University (USA) and Honorary Professor of Translation Studies at Cardiff University (UK). Her research interests combine translation and transnational Italian studies. She has written on travel writing, colonial and postcolonial literature, translingualism and migration. She is co-editor of The Translator.
Rita Wilson is Professor of Translation Studies at Monash University (Australia). Her research explores how language, place and mobility shape cultural identities. Recent publications include Translating Worlds (with S. Radstone, 2020) and “Redefining Information Acessibility in Cisis Tanslation” (with L. Qi) in The Routledge Handbook of Translation, Interpreting and Crisis (2023). She is co-editor of The Translator.
