Reflexive Translation Studies: Translation as Critical Reflection

Over the past few decades, translation studies have increasingly focused on the ethical dimension of translational activity with an emphasis on reflexivity to assert the role of the researcher in highlighting issues of visibility, creativity, and ethics. In Reflexive Translation Studies, Silvia Kadiu investigates the viability of theories that seek to empower translation by making visible its transformative dimension, such as championing the visibility of the translating subject or the translator’s right to creativity. Inspired by Derrida’s deconstructive thinking, Kadiu presents practical ways of challenging theories that argue reflexivity is the only way of developing an ethical translation. She questions the capacity of reflexivity to counteract the power relations at play in translation and problematizes affirmative claims about self-knowledge by using translation itself as a process of critical reflection. In exploring the interaction between form and content, Reflexive Translation Studies promotes the need for an experimental, multisensory, and intuitive practice, which invites students, scholars, and practitioners alike to engage with theory productively and creatively through translation.