Translation and Interpreting in Maternal Healthcare Contexts: Ethical and Feminist Issues

The session focuses on translation and interpreting in maternal and neonatal health, particularly from a feminist perspective to translation and women’s health. First, issues arising from linguistic and cultural incongruences in perinatal care will be discussed, with a focus on possible solutions, including more widespread, careful and efficient use of interpreting within maternity services. The lecture will then present scenarios in which attendees will be invited to think about certain ethical issues regarding translation and interpreting within the context of maternal health. In the final part of the lecture, information on impact and KE activities arising from the research, as well as an ongoing research project will be shared.

About the Speaker

Şebnem Susam-Saraeva is a Senior Lecturer in Translation Studies at the University of Edinburgh, Scotland, U.K. Her research interests have included retranslations, research methodology in translation studies, internationalization of the discipline, and translation and gender, literary and cultural theories, popular music, social movements, maternal & neonatal health and ecofeminism. She is the author of Translation and Popular Music. Transcultural Intimacy in Turkish-Greek Relations (2015) and Theories on the Move. Translation’s Role in the Travels of Literary Theories (2006), and editor of Translation and Music (2008), Non-Professionals Translating and Interpreting. Participatory and Engaged Perspectives (2012, with Luis Pérez-González) and the Routledge Handbook of Translation and Health (2021, with Eva Spišiaková). Susam-Saraeva’s literary translations into Turkish include Kazuo Ishiguro’s 1989 Booker Prize Winner The Remains of the Day (1993), which went into its 15th reprint in 2021. She is also the winner of PEN Wales Translation Challenge 2017 with her poetry translation from Küçük İskender.