Translation in the war-zone: the Gaza Strip as case study

This chapter takes an indigenous approach to the use of language and translation in war-zone areas. I write as an indigenous woman, a Palestinian from the Gaza Strip. This is not only who I am but it is an identity I feel increasingly obliged to assert in these times, when the advance of research methodologies, translation work, and epistemologies on Palestine are rooted in the imperialism seemingly inherent in Orientalist academia, journalism, and activism. To examine how language and translation are used to oppress instead of represent in the Palestinian case, this chapter examines the knowledge -production discourse in the case of the Gaza Strip, since the other parts of Palestine are more widely accessed by scholars. It develops an alternative approach of knowledge production by indigenous people to better understand how to speak a different language in the war-zone. I also show how indigenous points of view continue to be marginalised by mainstream Orientalist discourse. The chapter also examines how the ongoing Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip contributes to the process of Orientalist knowledge production by allowing only a certain type of people to enter and leave the Strip, and by denying such mobility to others.