Feminist Translation Studies

Feminist Interpreting: Theoretical, Professional and Educational Approaches

This special issue of Feminist Translation Studies aims to explore feminist approaches to interpreting studies, bringing together contributions that critically examine interpreting practices, contexts, and modalities through a feminist lens. It also aims to foster research that draws on feminist, queer, intersectional, decolonial, and activist approaches, examining gender not as an isolated category, but as constituted in relation to other axes of power, including race, sexuality, class, coloniality, language, and geopolitical location. We acknowledge that our understanding of feminist interpreting studies is necessarily situated and shaped by the linguistic, geographical, and scholarly contexts in which we work. We therefore seek to bring into dialogue perspectives and practices that may remain less visible across linguistic and disciplinary boundaries, while remaining mindful that relevant scholarship extends beyond the sources cited in this call.

Activist interpreting practices, i.e., practices explicitly oriented toward social change and the transformation of existing power structures (Boéri & Delgado Luchner, 2020), have been examined across a wide spectrum of professional settings, encompassing community, healthcare, legal, and humanitarian interpreting in migration contexts, as well as interpreting at international conferences. Although activist interpreting has received significant attention over the last two decades, only recent work has explicitly articulated feminist interpreting practices as a distinct form of activist intervention (Susam-Saraeva et al., 2023; Fonseca, 2025). This articulation contributes to the emerging field of feminist interpreting studies, which has attracted increasing scholarly attention in contexts such as interpreting technologies (Giustini, 2024), reproductive rights and healthcare access (Bartłomiejczyk et al., 2024; Patterson & Susam-Saraeva, 2024; Pöllabauer et al., 2024; Fonseca, 2025), and gender and linguistic rights in institutional settings (Del-Pozo-Triviño & Bulut, 2025), among others. 

Alongside these context-specific areas of inquiry, research has also emphasized the need to incorporate feminist and gender-aware perspectives into interpreter training and professional practice (Boéri & de Manuel Jerez, 2011; Toledano Buendía, 2019; Marey-Castro & Del-Pozo-Triviño, 2020), with scholars calling for a revision of training models that continue to reproduce stereotypes (Marey-Castro & Del-Pozo-Triviño, 2020) and advocating for an explicitly feminist framework for interpreter education and practice (Reimóndez, 2020). More recently, technologies and so-called artificial intelligence (AI) raise new questions for activist and feminist approaches to interpreting practice and pedagogy, as these tools may both reproduce existing gendered and geopolitical inequalities and also open possibilities for more inclusive, accessible, and transformative interpreting practices.

As the first special issue ever devoted to feminist interpreting studies in an English-language journal, this publication aims to widen the scope of research to new contexts, languages, and interpreting settings by inviting contributions that address questions such as: How can feminist, queer, intersectional, and decolonial approaches reshape interpreting theory and practice? In what ways do interpreters negotiate gendered, linguistic, and geopolitical power asymmetries across diverse settings? How can feminist pedagogies and activist perspectives transform interpreter education, ethics, and professional practice? What challenges and possibilities do emerging technologies and AI pose for feminist approaches to interpreting?

This special issue seeks to contribute to feminist interpreting studies as an emerging area of inquiry within the broader field of feminist translation studies, a field in which interpreting has remained relatively underexplored. By foregrounding interpreting practices through feminist, queer, intersectional, decolonial, and activist practices, the publication aims to expand current theoretical, methodological, and pedagogical debates in translation and interpreting studies. It also attempts to foster dialogues across diverse interpreting modalities, geographical contexts, and epistemological traditions to challenge the marginalization of particular voices, experiences and forms of knowledge and encourage collaboration among researchers, practitioners, educators, and activist communities. In doing so, this issue intends to advance ongoing discussions on feminist pedagogies, ethics of care, interpreter subjectivity, linguistic justice, and the impact of new technologies on interpreting practices, among others, while opening new avenues for interdisciplinary and socially engaged research that position feminist interpreting studies as a critical framework for rethinking language mediation, power, and social transformation. 

Possible topics for submissions include, but are not limited to:

• Feminist, intersectional, decolonial and queer perspectives on interpreting theory and practice
• Feminist pedagogy and interpreter education
• Feminist interpreting practices across community, healthcare, legal, humanitarian, and migration contexts
• Feminist ethics, care, and social responsibility
• AI, technology, and feminist interpreting
• Linguistic policies and feminist interpreting
• Interpreter ethos, visibility, and subjectivity from a feminist perspective
• Feminist approaches to sign language interpreting 

As the journal addresses an international readership, we would encourage authors to ensure that their articles are accessible to readers for whom English serves as the shared language of communication.

References 

Bartłomiejczyk, Magdalena, Pöllabauer, Sonja, & Straczek-Helios, Viktoria. (2024). “The Heart Will Stop Beating.” Ethical Issues in Activist Interpreting – The Case of Ciocia Wienia, Interpreting, 27(1), 124-150. https://doi.org/10.1075/intp.00103.bar

Boéri, Julie, & de Manuel Jerez, Jesús. (2011). From Training Skilled Conference Interpreters to Educating Reflective Citizens. The Interpreter and Translator Trainer, 5(1), 41–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13556509.2011.10798811

Boéri, Julie, & Delgado Luchner, Carmen. (2020). Ethics of Activist Translation and Interpreting. In Kaisa Koskinen & Nike Pokorn (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics (pp. 245–261). Routledge.

Del-Pozo-Triviño, Maribel & Bulut, Alev (Eds.). (2025). Gender and Linguistic Rights: an Interdisciplinary Perspective. Comares.

Fonseca, Luciana Carvalho. (2025). No mato sem cachorro, mas com uma doula-intérprete: definindo a Interpretação Feminista. Cadernos de Tradução, 45, 1–30. https://doi.org/10.5007/2175-7968.2025.e108711

Giustini, Deborah. (2024). Deconstructing the En-Gendering Binary Mechanisms of Interpreting Technologies: A Posthumanist Feminist Inquiry. In Esther Monzó-Nebot & Vicenta Tasa-Fuster (Eds.), Gendered Technology in Translation and Interpreting—Centering Rights in the Development of Language Technology (pp. 69–93). Routledge.

Marey-Castro, Cristina, & Del-Pozo-Triviño, Maribel. (2020). Deconstruir mitos y prejuicios para interpretar mujeres migrantes en contextos de violencia de género y/o prostitución en España. Mutatis Mutandis. Revista Latinoamericana de Traducción, 13(1), 64–92. https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.mut.v13n1a04

Patterson, Jenny, & Susam-Saraeva, Şebnem. (2024). Translating Informed Consent in Scottish Maternity Services: Perspectives from Providers and Researchers of Both Maternity Care and Translation/Interpreting Services. Language and Health, 2(2), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.laheal.2024.06.001

Pöllabauer, Sonja, Bartłomiejczyk, Magdalena, Zwischenberger, Maria Bernadette, & Straczek-Helios, Viktoria. (2024). “We Have a Damn Duty.” What Motivates Volunteer Interpreters to Engage in Activist Interpreting in Abortion Clinics? Translation in Society, 3(2), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1075/tris.23021.pol

Reimóndez, María. (2020). El enfoque feminista de la traducción e interpretación: una ventaja competitiva. Transfer, 15, 168–190. https://doi.org/10.1344/transfer.2020.15.168-190

Susam-Saraeva, Şebnem, Acosta Vicente, Carmen, Carvalho Fonseca, Luciana, García-Caro, Olga, Martínez-Pagán, Begoña, Montero, Flor, & Yañez, Gabriela. (2023). Roundtable: Feminist Interpreting (Studies) – The Story So Far. Translation Studies, 16(1), 134–159. https://doi.org/10.1080/14781700.2022.2147989

Toledano Buendía, Carmen. (2019). Integrating Gender Perspective in Interpreter Training: A Fundamental Requirement in Contexts of Gender Violence. In Marcella De Marco & Piero Toto (Eds.), Gender Approaches in the Translation Classroom: Training the Doers (pp. 167–187). Palgrave Macmillan.