Disability and (Dis)empowering Technologies: The Case of Blind Translators

Abstract

This paper is based on fifteen in-depth interviews with blind translators and interpreters from Poland. Due to the age-diverse sample of participants, three periods based on available assistive technologies have been isolated: the analogue period, the transitional period and the current, digital period. The paper discusses in detail challenges and opportunities faced by the interviewees working in each of these periods, with particular emphasis on accounts of analogue period and transition into digital technologies provided by three veteran translators. The data is analysed within the theoretical framework provided by Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of capitals. The results of the study suggest that there is a growing gap between the volumes of embodied and objectivised cultural capital indispensable for sighted and blind translators. The more technologically advanced the world of translators becomes, the more surplus technologies have to be mastered by the blind. And some of the digital tools which have become essential for translators are hardly accessible for the blind. In conclusion, the author argues that modern technologies, far from eliminating the need for additional volumes of cultural and social capital, have actually aggravated it. Unless digital translation tools and settings are made accessible blind and low sighted translators and interpreters will continue facing exclusion from the labour market. Moreover, looking at the experiences of the older generation of successful translators and interpreters with visual impairment, we can draw conclusions on what factors sup ort the inclusion of younger generations of blind translators and interpreters in the labour market.