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ISSN 1355-6509 © St Jerome Publishing Manchester

The Translator. Volume 18, Number 2 (2012), 269-90 ISBN 978-1-1905763-35-1

Translation/Interpreting Politics and PraxisThe Impact of Political Principles on Babels’ Interpreting Practice

JULIE BOÉRIUniversitat Pompeu Fabra, Spain

Abstract. Focusing on Babels, an international network of volun-teer translators and interpreters, this article provides an in-depth examination of the politics of organizing interpreting in the con-text of the Social Forum and the Alter-Globalization Movement, and discusses the extent to which interpreting is constitutive of the complex political process sparked by such initiatives. Babels’ specifically activist, critical and self-reflective project of volunteer interpreting is examined as emerging and evolving out of a series of internal and external pressures. These pressures involve imple-menting the principles of horizontality, deliberation, participation and prefiguration that Babels calls for in the organizational process of the Social Forum, and delivering interpreting efficiently on the day of the event, while not undermining the professional market of conference interpreting. The article recommends approachingThe article recommends approaching translation and interpreting from both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective – from principles to practice and from practice to principles – in order to better account for the ways in which transla-tion and interpreting shape and are shaped by the geo-political and socio-economic contexts in which they are embedded.

Keywords. Babels, World Social Forum, Alter-Globalization Movement, Politics of interpreting, Horizontality, Participation.

For the last forty years, globalization has been depicted as an inevitable apolit-ical process of modernization and progress that ensures greater growth, greater peace and democracy. However, the ideological apparatus that underpins this claim, referred to as the ‘neo-liberal consensus’ or ‘pensée unique’ (unique thinking), has been challenged by many groups and independent thinkers de-termined to “open the black box of globalization” (Intergalactiques 2003:34). These groups have exposed the workings of globalization at a time when social, economic and ecological conditions in many regions of the world have been worsening at an unprecedented rate. The increased polarization of the world between the majority who suffer and the few who benefit from the concentration

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of resources, land and capital, coupled with the deep crisis of legitimacy of the main lobbyists of Corporate-led Globalization, i.e. international financial and economic institutions, first world states and multinational corporations (Bello 2001), have sparked the emergence of a rather unpublicized but powerful mass-based movement throughout the 1990s, known under the umbrella term of ‘the Alter-Globalization Movement’. After a long subterranean process of convergence of localized and isolated struggles for justice across the world and in many different sectors (Seoane and Taddei 2001), the quantitative growth, depth, extent and degree of radicalism of this movement culminated at the turn of the century with ‘the Battle of Seattle’.1

The unprecedented capacity of the Alter-Globalization Movement to ar-ticulate opposition to Corporate-led Globalization and to present alternatives for another form of globalization where social and human aspects prevail over economic ones, as echoed in the Zapatistas’ slogan ‘One no, many yesses’ (Kingsnorth 2003), inspired the launch of the Social Forum in January 2001, which aimed to gather social movements and activists from across the globe. With the emergence of Babels, an international network of volunteer translators and interpreters, translation – and particularly interpreting – featured promin-ently in this development, and is now constitutive of the complex political process that the Social Forum inspires.

Against this backdrop and given the increasing use of associated (elec-tronic) networks across languages, nationalities and struggles to resist these processes, there is a pressing need to reflect on the socio-politics of translation and interpreting within this context. Accounts of the involvement of translators and interpreters in processes of resistance designed to undermine globalization have been on the rise over the last decade as scholars have become increasingly conscious of linguistic and cultural issues within transnational networks and public spheres (Boéri and Hodkinson 2005, Doerr 2008, Hodkinson 2009). Translation and interpreting scholars have also begun to address the social role of translators and interpreters in the era of globalization (Cronin 2003, Bielsa and Bassnett 2009), within situations of conflict (Baker 2006b, Inghilleri and Harding 2010), and in relation to the ethics of translator and interpreter train-ing (Baker and Maier 2011). Within these innovative avenues of research, a growing literature has emerged that seeks to account for translation and interpreting initiatives within civil society and to engage with the notions of power, agency and intervention from a socio-political and, to a certain extent, socio-pedagogical perspective that goes beyond the realm of mediation (De Manuel et al. 2004, Baker 2006a, 2009, 2010, Boéri 2008, 2009, 2010, Boéri and Maier 2010).

1 The Battle of Seattle refers to a mass demonstration that took the streets of Seattle by surprise in opposition to the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in November 1999 and made headline and TV news worldwide at the time (Cockburn et al. 2000).

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Despite these developments in academia and the world of activism, there seems to be little critical reflection on the notion of ‘civil society’ among both lay members of society and professional translators and interpreters. Society in general continues to view ‘civil society’ as a normative ideal space where being involved is inherently good, with little reflection on the dynamics of resistance and co-optation that characterize this space – an aspect Baker examines with respect to Translators without Borders and its controversial relationship to the Eurotext translation company (Baker 2006b). There is equally little reflection on the contradictions between principles and praxis that are inherent to any setting, regardless of its positioning along the power axis.2 In an attempt to explore the contradictions which weigh on volunteer communities of transla-tors and interpreters and the communities’ reflective and innovative responses to such contradictions, this article focuses on Babels, the international network of volunteer translators and interpreters that set out to cater to the communica-tion needs of the Social Forum and that initially emerged outside the sphere of influence of the professional interpreting community and the labour mar-ket.3 It examines the ways in which Babels’ interpreting policy shapes and is shaped by the tensions between the political principles inherited from the Alter-Globalization Movement it subscribes to and the logistics of interpreting at an event of the scale of the Social Forum.

An analysis of the World Social Forum literature, including numerous documents available on the Babels website, reveals a series of principles that might usefully serve as analytical categories for investigating the dynamics of resistance and co-optation inherent in both initiatives, as well as the gap between political principles and practical constraints. These are: deliberation versus strug-gle (section 1); participation versus representation (section 2); process versus event (section 3); and horizontality versus verticality (section 4). Although both the Social Forum and Babels, in line with contemporary forms of political engagement, favour the first principle in each dichotomy – ‘participation’ over ‘representation’, ‘deliberation’ over ‘struggle’, ‘process’ over ‘event’, and ‘horizontality’ over ‘verticality’ – the implementation of these principles is constrained by the very essence of the Social Forum and the practical real-ity of its organization. The subsequent gap between discourse and practice in both the Social Forum and Babels is therefore a matter of constant negotiation between them and among the communities they both attempt to mobilize and that cut across categories of activist and professional.

2 Exceptions include Sánchez Balsalobre et al. (2010), a self-reflective paper on ECOS (Asociación de Traductores e Intérpretes por la Solidaridad, based in Granada, Spain), and Lampropoulou (2010), a case study of Babels.3 Although Babels carries out both translation and interpreting tasks, it is interpreting that has been at the centre of discussions over cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication within the Social Forum. This may be because of (a) the greater visibility of volunteer/activist interpreting, and (b) the resources and planning required by a macro-dimensioned event involving thousands of interpreters.

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1. Deliberation versus struggle: strategies of social change

Based on Kantian and Habermasian understandings of civil society, deliber-ation conceptualizes civil society as a medium through which human beings share some sense of solidarity and inter-connectedness, and in which they solve their problems by communicating and reflecting on them in the public sphere. By contrast, struggle is inspired by a neo-Gramscian notion of transforming civil society into a counter-hegemonic force, capable of dismantling the world order. The tension between deliberation and struggle is particularly important in framing the Social Forum as an ‘arena’ or an ‘actor’ (Teivanen 2004:122), or as ‘space’ versus ‘movement’ (Whitaker 2004:111). As we shall see, these frames are particularly meaningful to Babels.

A natural tension seems to exist within civil society initiatives that advo-cate non-violence while at the same time attempting to dismantle oppressive structures. This tension may evolve differently in response to a specific political, historical or economic situation. While throughout the 1990s the Alter-Globalization Movement combined the opening of a variety of spaces for civil society with confrontational acts of civil disobedience across the globe (Notes from Nowhere 2003),4 the Social Forum is primarily thought of as “an open meeting place for reflective thinking, democratic debate of ideas, formulation of proposals, free exchange of experiences and interlinking for ef-fective action, by groups and movements of civil society” (article 1, Porto Alegre Charter).5 Although the Forum functions as a platform for counter-hegemonic struggles against Corporate-led Globalization and against the symbol of the World Economic Forum (article 4, Porto Alegre Charter), it rejects control-ling these mass-based and multiple struggles that exceed its space – an issue I return to in section 1.2 when dealing with the tension between representation and participation.

Thus, the irresolvable tension between deliberation and struggle may re-volve around the ideal of openness versus effective action for social change (Glasius 2005:246):

4 Examples of the commitment of the Alter-Globalization Movement to opening spaces include the International Encounters Against Neoliberalism and for Humanity, initially organized in La Realidad (Chiapas, Mexico) in 1996 and replicated in different regions of the world (Seoane and Taddei 2001, Notes from Nowhere 2003). Acts of civil disobedience included road-blockades by the farmers’ movement against the privatization of water sup-plies in Cochabamba (Bolivia) in 2000, land occupation by Movimento Sin Terra (Landless Movement) to carry out long overdue land reform, occupation of bankrupt factories to be managed by the Piquetero movement of the unemployed in Argentina, as well as acts of protest targeting institutions: the G8, the World Economic Forum, the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the World Trade Organization (WTO) and its forerunner, the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade).5 Porto Alegre Charter. Available at http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.php?id_menu=4&cd_language=2, dated 8 June 2002 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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While deliberation values plurality and diversity, and debate for its own sake, effective action against the domination of capital requires a certain level of unity. On the other hand, a debate that is a priori against something is never an entirely open debate.

The attempt to reconcile the two principles is perhaps one of the most creative aspects of the Social Forum and one which has become a key in establishing Babels’ collective identity. As a political actor and a participant in the organ-ization of the Social Forum, Babels “adheres to the Charter of Principles of the Social Forums” and “participates directly in the organization of Social Forums and ‘anti-capitalist’ international events with which they are linked” (Babels Charter).6 Thus, Babels has a struggle in common with the Social Forum: to fight against corporate-led globalization and for the construction of a better world. However, as evidenced in the About us document posted on its website, Babels considers building such a counter-hegemonic struggle not so much as an isolated and single movement, but as enabling general communication and networking within the Social Forum’s deliberative space:

Babels is made up of activists of all tendencies and backgrounds, united in the task of transforming and opening up the Social Forums. We work to give voice to peoples of different languages and cultures. We fight for the right of all, including those who don’t speak a colonial language, to contribute to the common work. We try to allow everyone to express themselves in the language of their choice. By increasing the diversity of contributions to the debate, we transform its outcome (my emphases).7

Babels’ contribution to building a counter-hegemonic struggle is thus effected through its communicative role in the Social Forum’s deliberative space. In other words, it is by enabling deliberation in the Social Forum, among a plurality of movements and peoples from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds, that Babels allows situational and specific struggles to converge into a counter-hegemonic platform.

This view of enabling social change impacts Babels’ politics of organizing volunteer interpreting, as evidenced in the minutes of a Babels’ meeting in Brussels in July 2004 on the network’s scope of involvement:

WE WORK FOR … social movements which are networks (not single organizations), work on a horizontal and democratic manner and

6 Babels Charter. Available at http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article1, dated 15 June 2004 (last accessed 28 March 2012).7 About us, http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article272, 15 June 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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respect or comply with the Charter of principles of the WSF (emphases in the original).8

These minutes clearly affirm the Babels Charter, stressing the principle of ser-vicing only social movements that are politically attuned to the Social Forum to avoid disrupting the interpreting labour market, a concern raised on the Babels electronic forum9 when the network was flooded with ‘dubious’ requests for volunteer interpreting based on the momentum of the Paris European Social Forum. At the same time, the rejection of single organizations demonstrates Babels’ commitment to networking processes (where deliberation is key) to bring about social change. Deliberation grants Babels the status of a political actor rather than just another service provider on the market.

Babels thus considers that by allowing people to communicate across lan-guages and cultures in an open space, volunteer interpreting enables the Social Forum to be both a deliberative space and a counter-hegemonic struggle. Yet as an organization in its own right, Babels does not escape the tension between functioning as an open space and having to set some goals, however broad: as a network, it is first of all a space shaped by the virtual connection of and deliberation among its many members through electronic tools (website, wiki, electronic forums, mailing lists, etc.), and as an actor with concrete political agendas in the context of the Social Forum and the wider Alter-Globalization Movement, it has to take a position in specific temporal and spatial locations. Thus, in the same way that participants in the Social Forum are required to adhere to its agendas and methods, volunteers who wish to be part of Babels must align themselves with the political agendas of the group, as well as those of the Social Forum.

As argued by Glasius (2005), it is advisable for the Social Forum to main-tain the tension between deliberation and struggle (a claim that can be extended to Babels), given that both principles have advantages and disadvantages in practice. The emphasis on deliberation, which allows for the participation of a plurality of movements and peoples and avoids co-optation from mainstream structures, nevertheless runs the risk of inaction and pessimism about prospects for change. For example, the emphasis on counter-hegemonic struggle, which requires unity around a common struggle and some form of a body to represent it, makes the forum vulnerable to co-optation by hegemonic structures such as traditional political groups and institutions. Hence, it is precisely the attempt of the Social Forum to have it both ways, to be both a locus of open deliber-ation and a meeting place for real world counter-hegemonic campaigns, that

8 Brussels Meeting Archives: Workshop on Participation and Decision-Making, http://www.http://www.babels.org/wiki/wikka.php?wakka=BrusselsReportParticipation, undated (last accessed, undated (last accessed 27 March 2012).9 Which Projects does Babels get involved with?, http://www.babels.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=88#p308, 18 February 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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makes Babels and the Social Forum such interesting and radical experiments in mobilization.

2. Participation versus representation: resisting institutionalization

Participation refers to the direct involvement of citizens in politics, as opposed to delegating political power to representatives through a voting system. It is inspired by participative forms of democracy implemented as early as the 1960s in the student sit-in movement against segregation in the US, and in feminist, anti-war and new left movements (Polletta 2006), and has contin-ued to strongly influence the Alter-Globalization Movement since the 1990s (Maeckelbergh 2007). The principle of participation received a renewed impetus from the deep crisis of representation experienced by liberal democ-racies, evidenced in low voter turn-outs, erosion of the difference between right and left, disillusionment with political parties, and proliferation as well as intensification of expressions of dissatisfaction that shaped the fight for social justice throughout the 1990s (see for example, Böhm 2005, Gilbert 2005, Sullivan, Sian 2005).

The Social Forum and Babels explicitly reject representative politics. This means that no declaration, statement, vote proposal or position can be put forward on behalf of the participants of the Forum (article 6, Porto Alegre Charter) or Babels. Though this position is not stated in Babels’ institutional texts, it is evidenced in its practice. Needless to say, no initiative can claim to be exempt from patterns of representation (Gilbert 2005), and indeed the praxis of the Social Forum and Babels reveals that they are neither fully participative nor free of representation.

One example of practices of representation is the issuing of public com-muniqués. In the case of the Social Forum, the Manifesto of Porto Alegre, issued in January 2005 by a Group of 19 intellectuals referred to as the G19,10 formulated twelve proposals viewed as common to the Alter-Globalization Movement and the Social Forum. Although the proposals themselves were not controversial from the outset, and the Manifesto stated that the signatories spoke only in their own name, the very issuing of the Manifesto by these intellectu-als – who were often portrayed in the press as the stars of Porto Alegre – was viewed as a form of representation, and a simplification of the diversity of the Social Forum’s proposals that were not reducible to a single manifesto (Mueller 2005). Similarly, the Bamako appeal, produced by eight prominent figures at the Bamako World Social Forum in January 2006 in an attempt to consolidate the gains made at previous forums (Smith et al. 2008:75), was criticized for functioning in the media as an official statement of the Social Forum.

10 See http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/03/313122.shtml (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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Babels experienced a similar controversy at the London European Social Forum in 2004, recognized by many activists as one of the most difficult events to organize. The relationship between the London European Social Forum and Babels worsened as the event drew closer. Babels’ coordinators strongly expressed their dissent at the London European Social Forum by drafting a statement that was very critical of the organizational process and by releasing it publicly during the plenary at which the Major of London, Ken Livingstone, was scheduled to speak.11 This statement led to some dissatis-faction among volunteers, some of whom felt they had not been informed of the organizational process nor consulted with respect to Babels’ statement.12 The thousands of volunteers who work with Babels are not all involved with the process to the same extent, and this means that some members of Babels will take decisions and speak in the name of others, despite Babels’ stance on participative politics. Therefore, even though the rejection of representation means that statements can only be released in the name of the specific groups that draft and communicate them, they still function as representative of the Social Forum and Babels.

These controversies raise an important issue about decision making. Several failed attempts by Babels to set up decision making processes or organizational bodies bear witness to the tension between participation and representation. On the one hand, Babels realized it could not function without specific bodies or procedures; on the other, decisions had to be taken in a network of tens of thousands of members. In response to this vacuum – in terms of the who, where and how of decision making with respect to Babels’ involvement in a given event – Babels-France proposed the launching of the Green Light Group, a six-months rotating decision-making structure composed of both experienced and inexperienced volunteer ‘coordinators’ and ‘interpreters’ whose temporary mission would consist of processing applications and mak-ing decisions on the involvement of Babels on the basis of an established list of criteria, leading either to declining an application or to setting up a Babels project. Although this proposal was framed as a mid-way alternative to a complete lack of structure or a formal hierarchy, the Green Light Group never became a reality. The reluctance within Babels to embrace not only formal ethical committees elected by members but also any structure involving a hierarchy of decision makers (even a temporary/rotating one) may have been instrumental in dismissing the Green Light Group proposal; the main criticism formulated against the Group in the discussion on the Babels forum revolved around the shift it would instantiate (a) from a loose participative network to

11 ESF Babels Coordinators’ Statement 7pm, October 16 2004, http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article88, 21 October 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012).12 Maria Brander, Babels France, http://www.babels.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=385#p1332, 6 March 2005 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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a structure composed of a few decision-makers who would represent the rest of the members; and (b) from a network whose activities would evolve on the basis of each Social Forum (or similar) event towards an independent and permanent organization that might become institutionalized over time.13 The proposal to set up a rotating body of Babels’ spokespersons to attend meetings of the Social Forum – like the International or Hemispheric Council – was declined on similar grounds.14

The rejection of representation has been as problematic for Babels as it has been for the Social Forum. For both, the denial that some form of repre-sentation exists in practice makes it difficult for mechanisms of accountability and transparency to be put in place. It allows some people to assume certain responsibilities arbitrarily and to become the de facto interlocutors of Babels for other organizations of the Social Forum. Yet as the Social Forum and Ba-bels continue to develop, decisions must be taken, and since not everyone can take part in every instance of decision-making, the decisions in question will inevitably be taken by some people in the name of others. As Böhm (2005) argues, it is time to acknowledge that the Social Forum is not fully participa-tive, that the space is not entirely open, and that a form of representation is unavoidable and should be discussed and acted upon democratically rather than dismissed – a claim that can be extended to Babels. Paradoxically, by rejecting the decision-making processes of traditional political groups, the Social Forum and Babels have discarded from the open space they set out to establish the democratic guarantees that come with representation, such as accountability and transparency.

Interestingly, Babels has not dismissed these issues, and in late 2004 acted upon them with the launching of the Babels Protocols.15 According to these protocols, Babels combines a permanent ‘structure’ through the long-term use of an open international mailing list to discuss its involvement in any new project, and a project-based ‘structure’ through the setting up of a specific coordination list for the organization of previously approved Babels projects. Thus, the Babels Protocols pledge participatory, deliberative and consensus-based e-democracy to resolve the conundrum of taking decisions and organizing interpreting for events taking place across the globe through a network of tens of thousands of members. However, the contradictions be-tween representation and participation that the Protocols attempt to resolve through the virtualization of the community have tended to persist. Despite

13 Propositions de Fonctionnement Babels-fr, http://www.babels.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=160, 22 June 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012).14 Consejo Hemisférico Américas/Americas Hemispheric Council, http://www.babels.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=405, 9 April 2005 (last accessed 27 March 2012).15 Babels Protocols, http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article30, 28 May 2005 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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the fact that the Protocols allow for greater accountability among members of the network (they have to report on what they do, reach consensus before acting, etc.), members possess very different skills, knowledge, time and thus power in terms of ensuring that these Protocols are enforced. Despite a high level of agency among its members, Babels continues to constitute a laboratory for contemporary activism, where organizational logistics inevitably take on a strong political meaning.

3. Process versus event: the ends and means of social change

Process refers to locating social change in our very practices, in the way we relate to and communicate with each other, rather than locating it at a macro-level of institutional politics by way of reformism, a “new social deal with capital”, or revolution, i.e. “the seizure of state power” (De Angelis 2005:198). The principle of process has its roots in the Zapatista uprising, whose armed struggle for indigenous survival in Chiapas (South-East Mexico) explicitly calls for exercising power, rather than seizing it, and for what the Zapatistas’ most popular motto refers to as ruling by obeying civil society – the latter to be organized in autonomous community-based forms of governance (Marcos 2001:50). It is also inspired by the wider Alter-Globalization Movement’s attempt to function independently of mass consumption and production by relying on free software, volunteer work and alternative media.

In the context of the Social Forum, process means that the event ought to be organized in ways that embody and put into practice the type of change being endorsed. Process overlaps with what has been termed prefigurative politics. Rooted in the Gandhian principle of being the change we want to see, prefigurative politics refers to the “enactment of the ultimate values of an ideal society within the very means of struggle for that society” (Maeckel-bergh 2007:43, Polletta 2002, Chesters and Welsh 2005). In “encourag[ing] its participant organizations and movements ... to introduce onto the global agenda the change-inducing practices that they are experimenting in building a new world in solidarity [sic]” (Article 14, Porto Alegre Charter), the Social Forum defines itself as ‘a process’ in which participants’ practices prefigure a better world, which can then be introduced into the global agenda. In this light, the logistics of an event that calls for change are of utmost political importance, since they themselves must embody this change and therefore cannot be delivered conventionally.

In spite of explicit support for the principle of process, the macro-dimen-sions of Social Forum events lead the Forum into contradictory organizational methods. For example, Forum organizers rely on funding from unethical com-panies or resort to service providers (or the treatment of volunteer networks as such) to deliver the logistics of the event, rather than implement alternatives

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such as solidarity-based economy, sustainable management, free software and alternative media. Although the latter admittedly require much more energy and commitment, they are at the heart of the social change called for by the Alter-Globalization Movement (Caracol Intergalactika 2005, Caruso 2005). The tension between politics and logistics that has pervaded Social Forum praxis so far has led to a dichotomous understanding of the Social Forum, as either an initiative to be organized conventionally, focusing on the event, or as one that is organized innovatively, focusing on the process (De Angelis 2004).

The tension between process and event is perhaps most relevant to Babels’ role as a facilitator of volunteer interpreting at the Social Forum. Recogniz-ing the Social Forum as a process is indeed crucial for Babels to position itself as a political actor and for volunteer work to be considered a form of engagement with the political agendas of the Social Forum. Were the Social Forum event to be organized conventionally, as a private event management company would organize it, using volunteer work would be an economical, if rather unethical, choice rather than a political one. There is no doubt that by providing interpretation on a volunteer basis Babels allows the Social Forum to make savings. But if the contribution of Babels to the Social Forum were limited to this financial aspect, interpreting would risk being reduced to a mere commodity provided by free labour. In a process-oriented understand-ing of the Social Forum, however, volunteer interpreting is granted a much more powerful political meaning that goes beyond solidarity. Doing away with payment allows Babels and the Social Forum to increase the number of languages covered and to cover the translation and interpreting needs of all seminars taking place in a Social Forum event equally, irrespective of financial capacity, hence overcoming the law of profit that enforces the dominance of some languages and cultural communities over others. For example, as Lamp-ropoulou (2010:31-32) reports, in the Athens European Social Forum in 2005 interpretation was enhanced in minority languages from the outset, in order to foster participation from these communities instead of simply providing support in the dominant languages. This is a clear example of translation and interpreting ceasing to be a commodity and instead being used as a political tool that empowers people to participate. Thus, viewing the Social Forum as a process frames translation and interpreting, like any other initiative contribut-ing to the delivery of the event, as an alternative mode of production to that of the labour market. As I argue with Stuart Hodkinson (Boéri and Hodkinson 2005), in the mainstream market language tends to be treated as

“something that interpreters and translators provide” to those who say they need it, and not as a political right to self-expression and democratic participation, or as a means of pro-actively including and expanding out to people and movements traditionally marginalized.

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This is an attitude that tends to prevail in activist circles too.16 But again, reality on the ground demonstrates the extent to which political principles are pressured by logistical constraints and that overcoming commodification is more often a target than a fully achieved goal. Event after event, and despite Babels coordinators’ genuine efforts, volunteers tend to work under difficult conditions (last minute involvement, poor quality of technical equipment, excessively long working days, no precise documentation in advance, multiple relays in the room, etc.). Moreover, linguistic diversity is never fully achieved. English, French and Spanish continue to be the unavoidable lingua francas within both the Social Forum and Babels. Thus, despite Babels’ stance on pro-cess and on raising a high political profile or status for interpreters, on the day of the event, it has not avoided low standards of involvement for volunteers.

To a certain extent, Babels does provide a service, though this does not necessarily relegate interpreting to a mere commodity. The logistics versus politics dichotomy impinges on the meaning of interpreting as either a free commodity supplied as a conventional service or a political tool through which people are empowered to participate. Associating the logistics of interpreting with a market-style organization of the event has eluded important questions of responsible use of resources, efficient organization and quality of communica-tion, without which political participation and empowerment remain solely as principles. In this sense, delivering smooth communication at the event can-not be considered less important than the political means used to achieve it, since the former is what makes the event a key moment of mobilization and networking that the Social Forum and Babels set out to initiate.

For communication to be possible, volunteers need to be prepared for interpreting and to work under acceptable working conditions. This involves quality, skills and responsible management of resources, for which members of Babels (particularly professional interpreters) have been pressuring the organization from within the network. As a result of these pressures, the Situ-ational Preparation initiative (or Sit-prep) emerged in the run up to the London European Social Forum in 2004. The Sit-prep was a contribution of ECOS (The Association of Translators and Interpreters for Solidarity) and the Marius interpreting educational project (Boéri 2010, Boéri and De Manuel 2011) to the Babels network. It consists of a methodology designed to prepare volunteers with no professional and/or activist background to perform interpreting at the Social Forum event. It addresses quality as a process of collective knowledge

16 It is precisely the use of English as a lingua franca among activists that sparked the emer-gence of Tlaxcala, La red de traductores por la diversidad lingüística (Talens 2010:20). In opposition to such restrictive language policies, Babels claims for itself the role of a political actor rather than service provider, and lobbies the Social Forum to regard it as such. In this light, the lack of remuneration may not be considered as a form of exploitation but as participation in a process of social change.

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and skills acquisition through interpreting practice, by using video-recordings from previous Social Forums, followed by volunteers’ self-assessment of their capacity to interpret in the Social Forum. The Sit-prep allows Babels to improve quality without falling into the trap of institutionalizing the network in the form of a representative body in charge of selecting volunteers on the basis of expertise and skills – an option that would be dismissed on similar grounds to those behind the dismissal of the Green Light Group initiative.

Issues of quality and skills are thus common to any community of inter-preting – whether in civil society or the labour market. These issues, however, have to be addressed in ways that are attuned to the setting in question – in this case through the prism of participation and/or expertise.

4. Horizontality versus verticality: top-down versus bottom-up forms of organization

Horizontality and verticality are two terms that emerged in opposition to each other in the context of the Social Forum, particularly the London European Social Forum in 2004 (Dowling 2005, Sullivan 2005), but, as Böhm suggests (2005:139), they also have to be understood in the wider context of

[t]he historical conflict between so-called new social movements (feminist, radical ecology, civil rights movements, indigenous peoples, queer, etc.) and their grassroots politics and participatory demo-cratic principles on the one hand, and old social movements (labour movements, unions, socialist parties, etc.) and their more traditional bureaucratic and hierarchical organizational model, on the other.

Juris (2005:256-57) defines this conflict further as one between contemporary ‘networking logic’ and ‘a command-oriented logic’:

While the command-oriented logic of parties and unions is based on recruiting new members, building unified strategies, political repre-sentation, and the struggle for hegemony, network politics involve the creation of broad umbrella spaces, where diverse movements and collectives converge around common hallmarks, while preserving their autonomy and specificity. Rather than recruitment, the objective becomes horizontal expansion through articulating diverse move-ments within flexible structures that facilitate maximal coordination and communication.

Juris argues that “struggles between network-based movements and their traditional organizational counterparts are constitutive of the forum process itself, and the broader anti-corporate globalization movements from which the

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forums emerged” (ibid.:256).17 It follows, then, that horizontality and vertical-ity are not ‘states of being’ (old versus new movement), as their history might suggest, but ‘modes of doing’ (De Angelis 2005:194) which encompass the cross-cutting and overlapping principles outlined above.

The term ‘horizontality’ offers a conceptualization of the Social Forum as an open space where actors are empowered to take part in a democratic (deliberative and participative) process that seeks to bring about social change from the bottom-up through the networking of a plurality of localized struggles. In this view, volunteer interpreting, by allowing participation and networking, aims to constitute an activist space and to construct an alternative society independent of the neoliberal order and mainstream forms of political organization. The openness of the Social Forum and Babels, the negotiability of their principles and internal rules, however, may affect both their internal democracy, and hence participation, as well as their capacity to use financial and technical resources responsibly.

The principles of representation, struggle and event are all subsumed under ‘verticality’, a term coined by those who identify themselves as ‘horizontals’. Horizontals criticize verticality for co-opting the initiative and streamlining the Social Forum into a unitary political programme, one that can be made sufficiently representative of the movement to enable it to seize power over the neoliberal state or international system. Focusing on the event rather than the process, a vertical approach acknowledges volunteer interpreting as constituting solidarity action without which the event could not take place, and sees it as a key tool of mobilization and social change in its own right. Nevertheless, unlike the horizontal approach, this instrumental view may risk relegating language and interpreting to mere logistical issues, thus missing the opportunity to place them at the heart of the alternatives being explored within open, experimental spaces.

As we have seen, despite the Social Forum’s formal stance in favour of the principles encompassed by horizontality, its praxis tends to reproduce various patterns of verticalization. This is due not only to the broad range of organizational principles present in the open space or the inevitable tensions between political principles and logistical constraints, but also to the perva-sive dynamics of resistance and co-optation which characterize any political project (Böhm 2005:139):

Although the charter of the WSF follows horizontal principles of organ-izing, many would say that the WSF process has been dominated by

17 Bello (2001:162-63) reports, for example, that after the unprecedented victory of Seattle in 1999, the Alter-Globalisation Movement experienced a conflict of interests between those favouring reform of the Bretton Woods Institutions from within, and those calling for their disempowerment as a necessary step towards the construction of an alternative global system.

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so-called ‘vertical’ organizational politics, which means that the open space of the WSF has never been truly open. Instead, many traditional forces of the Left have been trying to co-opt the energy of the WSF and use it for their own political agendas. We are not just talking here about a conflict between different organizational principles and agendas, but about different movements and their histories, identities ....

The dynamics of resistance and co-optation have sparked a proliferation of spaces at the margins, outside or against the Social Forum (in particular the Youth Camp and the autonomous spaces) whose horizontal configuration has allowed different modes of organization to co-exist and cross-fertilize (Böhm et al. 2005). The autonomous spaces strategy of the Social Forum, referred to as ‘one foot in, one foot out’, as Juris (2005:262) argues, overcomes the dichotomy between political ‘contamination of’ versus ‘opposition to’ the Forum.

When Babels claims to be “united in the task of transforming andunited in the task of transforming and open-ing up the Social Forums” and to “transform its outcome … by increasing the diversity of contributions to the debate” (About us 2004),18 it chooses to operate within the social space as a proactive participant that leans towards horizontality. The consequence of this positioning in practice is that Babels’Babels’ relationship with the Social Forum is far from static; it evolves dynamically as the Social Forum’s organizational process progresses along the spectrum of verticality versus horizontality. For example, while Babels’ relationship with the London European Social Forum (2004) was conflictual because of the vertical patterns of the latter’s organizational process, the group acted in solidarity with the Porto Alegre World Social Forum (2005), which was rec-ognized for making genuine steps towards horizontal forms of organization,19 giving way to a more organic and symbiotic relationship between the two. Consequently, in Porto Alegre the energy of Babels’ members was channelled towards addressing the issue of internal democracy within the network while organizing interpreting at the Forum, rather than fighting for its recognition as a political actor, as had been the case in London. The group who launchedThe group who launched the Porto Alegre project endeavoured to create a virtual community for collec-tive decision making. Political and logistical aspects of the project were made public through the Babels website by its different working groups, and were then debated and agreed upon collectively on the electronic forum. Thus, for

18 About us, http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article272, 15 June 2004 (last accessed 12 March 2012).19 This shift resulted in the launching of a ‘new methodology’ which consisted of a broadThis shift resulted in the launching of a ‘new methodology’ which consisted of a broad consultation of all actors in the collective elaboration of the WSF programme and in the organization of the site of the event as a ‘social territory’, defined as a “space to experiment [sic] different practices and lifestyles, which are demonstrative in nature and exemplary [sic] that another world is possible”. See INFO 1, http://www.babels.org/spip.php?article92, 21 October 2004 (last accessed 11 March 2012).

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example, decisions on the political and logistical aspects of the WSF – such as language policy and budget – were informed by a wider participation of Babels volunteers. The documents posted on Babels’ website before the In-ternational Council20 meeting provided a link to the electronic forum, where members could discuss the issues; their discussions could then inform the decisions of the coordinators.21

These two cases reflect the extent to which volunteer interpreting may benefit from both horizontal and vertical organizational practices, and the fact that the border between the two is fuzzy. In fact, the very vertical patterns that made Babels critical of the organizational process – such as the concentra-tion of decision making in the local and national organizing committees in the hands of only a few organizations, the heavy financial support from the Greater London Authority, the subsequent risk of co-opting the initiative, etc. – also created opportunities for better planning of volunteer interpreting at the Forum. The Babels team managed to negotiate a budget not only for cover-ing volunteer interpreters’ transport and accommodation costs, but also for gathering together Babels coordinators working on the project across Europe in the run-up to and after the event. Babels initiatives included the Knowledge Transmission Fund, which enabled the group to pass on the knowledge and experience gained during the London European Social Forum to the Athens European Social Forum that took place a year and a half later in Greece. Thus, despite their inherent patterns of formalization and institutionalization, funds and infrastructures can also encourage participation. Without proper funding, it is unclear who can afford to participate as a volunteer in the Forum or in the Babels interpreting coordinating team. Babels innovative tools created in the run-up to the London European Social Forum – such as the Sit-prep or Baboo, a semi-automatized booth planning tool – may not have been possible without the facilities and funds provided by the Social Forum. In contrast, in the con-text of the horizontalization process of the Porto Alegre World Social Forum, the logistics of the event were not given priority. Consequently, last-minute unavailability of alternative simultaneous technical equipment produced and provided by the volunteer and activist network Nomad led to a collapse of Babels’ interpreting plans. So, while the London European Social Forum was an opportunity for Babels to make genuine progress on planning and deliver-ing the event, the Porto Alegre World Social Forum was an opportunity for making advances on internal (electronic) democracy.

It is important to note that both configurations also had disadvantages. The

20 The International Council is a standing body which consists of the organizations whichThe International Council is a standing body which consists of the organizations which participated in the 1st WSF and is intended to monitor the process of the Social Forums.21 Assessing the language issue for the WSF 2005 in Porto Alegre, http://www.babels.org/article42.html, 30 April 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012), and http://www.babels.org/article45.html, 23 June 2004 (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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Babels case demonstrated the extent to which horizontally-configured spaces are never fully free of vertical patterns. One should thus be wary of reifying horizontality and vilifying verticality, as Juris argues (2005:257):

Specific networks involve varying degrees of organizational hierarchy, ranging from relatively horizontal relations within radical networks ... to more centralized processes, such as the world and regional social forums. Horizontal relations do not suggest the complete absence of hierarchy, but rather the lack of formal hierarchical designs. This does not necessarily prevent, and may even encourage, the formation of informal hierarchies.

Reconciling proper interpreting (in terms of quality and working conditions) and participative, deliberative and pre-figurative forms of organization seems difficult without planning and organization, often dismissed in an overly restricted and thus paradoxical understanding of horizontality. There needs to be room for the Social Forum and Babels to find ways to overcome the inherent vulnerability of horizontal spaces in terms of implementing internal democracy (transparency and accountability), as well as delivering the logis-tics of the event.

5. Concluding remarks: the interplay between praxis and principles

Given its objective to cater for the communication needs of the Social Forum, to which it adheres politically, Babels felt bound to both implement the prin-ciples of participative and deliberative democracy, prefigurative politics and horizontality in the Forum’s organizational process, and to successfully fulfill its mission to deliver interpreting at the Forum’s events. The tension between horizontality and verticality inherent in the Social Forum and Babels resulted from: (a) the diversity of organizational principles applied in a space like the Social Forum, which is meant to be an open space; (b) the logistical constraints of organizing (and interpreting at) an event of the scale of the Social Forum; and (c) the dynamics of dominance and resistance from which no space can escape. Such tensions, however, also create opportunities for negotiation and make the meaning of the Social Forum – and any initiative embedded in it, such as Babels – ambivalent, contentious, dynamic and ultimately productive and reflexive (Biccum 2005). Even though organizing interpreting independently of the neoliberal market without jeopardizing quality, working conditions and the responsible use of resources may not have been systematically achieved, the contention between politics and logistics can continue to be reflected upon to experiment with different ways in which a better balance might be reached. The attempt to reconcile principles and practice should thus continue to be a major factor in the construction of Babels’ collective identity and action.

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By inscribing its interpreting politics and praxis within social movement processes, Babels abides by political principles that depart from the profession-al standards prevalent in mainstream institutional or private markets. Although the politics and praxis of volunteer/activist interpreting in the Social Forum grant Babels’ members sufficient agency to challenge professional standards of neutrality and expertise, Babels and its members are also held accountable by the professional community of (conference) interpreting (Boéri 2008). In this sense, Babels is pressured to reflect on interpreter engagement not only through the prism of political participation but also through the prism of ef-fective communication. There seems to be room here for cross-fertilization of contemporary forms of engagement and professional interpreting.

If, in contemporary politics, “ideology is increasingly expressed through organizational practice and design as opposed to discourse” (Juris 2005:258), it follows that engagement, including that of translators and interpreters operat-ing in any context, needs to be approached not only at the cross-cultural and cross-linguistic levels but also at the geo- and socio-political levels of com-munication. Recent scholarship that engages with these issues has revealed the extent to which interpreters operating across different contexts – war zones (Kahane 2007, Baker 2010, Inghilleri 2008, 2010, 2012), civil society (De Manuel et al. 2004, Baker 2006a, 2009, Boéri 2008, Boéri and Maier 2010), courtrooms (Martin and Ortega Herráez 2011) – find themselves engaged, willingly or otherwise, in scenarios that make impartiality unsustainable, both practically and ethically. This might invite us to revisit professionalism beyond the lens of impartiality and neutrality, despite their influence in the professional interpreting community.

Rejecting impartiality, the Granada Declaration,22 proposed and adopted within the framework of the 1st International Forum on Translation/Inter-preting and Social Activism organized in Granada in 2007, constitutes a first collective attempt by the academic and professional communities to articulate the social responsibility of translators and interpreters, as well as scholars and trainers. It frames translation and interpreting as a tool both of resistance and dominance and calls on scholars, professionals, teachers and students to put their knowledge not only at the service of the market, but of society as a whole, to boycott interpreting activities in wars of occupation, to promote linguistic diversity in the field and beyond and, finally, to build a more inclusive and mutually supportive community of translators and interpreters. Although this declaration of principles may not hold the same power as professional codes of ethics that centre on impartiality, it does function as a set of principles to guide interpreters’ behaviour. And importantly, it aims to avoid the prescriptiveness of other ethical codes, recognizing that an individual interpreter’s perception of ‘the right thing to do’ under specific circumstances will be contingent upon

22 Granada Declaration, www.translationactivism.com (last accessed 27 March 2012).

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a number of factors, including their “personal biography and social history” (Inghilleri 2010:192).

Despite the “undeniability of interpreters’ agency” (Inghilleri 2010:192), codes and principles are unavoidable means of establishing patterns of organ-ization within the interpreting profession; they will invariably impact the ways in which interpreting is both practised and perceived. Bearing this in mind, initiatives like the Granada Declaration may be considered a step towards streamlining socially responsible interpreting politics and practices. If impar-tiality is powerful enough to continue to inform perceptions of interpreting in and beyond the professional community, the establishment of a principle of social responsibility can serve to expand the reductive prisms through which interpreting tends to be practised, theorized and taught.

JULIE BOÉRIUniversitat Pompeu Fabra, Roc Boronat 136, 08018 Barcelona, Spain. Julie.Boeri@upf.edu

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