Dragomen and checkpoints

Abstract

Humanistic studies of translation have often taken for granted that translational activity produces cultural understanding, which in turn leads to deeper human sympathy. However, the history of military translation in the US occupation of Iraq suggests that this model is inadequate on a number of accounts, including the ways in which translation theory privileges literary translation over other translational activities. This essay surveys the development of Arabic–English translation within US military strategic thinking and the adjunct role played by militarised interpreters in the US occupation of Iraq. It then considers Arabic–English translation in terms of the lives of translators, as opposed to the textual products produced by their labour. It concludes by sketching the nineteenth-century history of the Levantine dragoman in order to draw resemblances with more recent histories of military translation.