Book review: Boéri, Julie and Maier, Carol (ed.) (2010). Compromiso Social y Traducción/Interpretación Translation/Interpreting and Social Activism

This bilingual Spanish – English volume brings together papers first presented at the International Forum on Translation/Interpreting (T/I) and Social Activism, which took place in 2007 at the University of Granada. It is a political book, hoping to overcome the traditional divide between social activism and scholarly research. ECOS, the publishers behind the volume are devoted to facilitating “communication across language barriers for those individuals and groups excluded from the institutional and private market” and to raise awareness about “injustices in the present-day world” (8-9). The political motivation and commitment to widening access are reflected by the bilingual format of the book – all articles either originally written in Spanish or English are presented in both languages – and by the fact that the texts were registered under a ‘copyleft’ license, which stipulates that the material can be copied and circulated as long as the work of the original authors is acknowledged. This is an alternative to academic publishing where knowledge is treated as intellectual property and texts as commodities.