Interpreting in conflict zones has recently received considerable attention in academic literature. The role of interpreters working in these contexts is blurred, in that the tasks they perform go beyond the oral transfer of linguistic features to encompass their role as translators, cultural media tors and even as original speakers in their own right. Usually they are alone in understanding the languages and cultures involved; often, they are civilians belonging to the community in conflict with no previous training in interpreting who are recruited by armed forces, humanitarian organizations or NGOs. In other cases, they are professional or non- professional volunteers, willing to help in humanitarian crisis situations and post-conflict development. In still other cases, they are trained inter preters who work for international organizations, such as the United Nations, but who face different circumstances when interpreting in the field; this stems from their positionality as interpreting experts and their professional affiliation, which lead them to assume a different role as mediators. In Translation and Interpreting Studies, scholarly interest in the com plex role of interpreters in conflict settings began in the twentieth cen tury. However, the current ubiquity of interpreting, an increasing public awareness of this activity, as highlighted by Pérez González (2012), and its prominence in scientific literature (Schäffner et al. 2013) have led to an increasing interest in the methodical study of interpreting in different conflicts. Studies tend to focus on interpreting in war settings (e.g., Baigorri Jalón 2019; Baker 2010; Inghilleri 2008, 2009; Lan 2016; Footitt and Kelly 2012, 2018; Juvinall 2013; Ozawa 2008; Stahuljak 2009) and much less on the role of interpreters who work in the humani tarian field as a subcategory of post-conflict scenario (e.g., Delgado Luchner and Kherbiche 2018; Todorova 2016, 2017). Interestingly, most of the studies on the role of interpreters in war, mainly those working for the military, have been carried out by scholars who are outsiders to the activity or, in other words, who do not have direct experience as inter preters in these scenarios, with some noteworthy exceptions (Méndez 2018; Snellman 2016). Contrastingly, many of the authors of studies conducted on humanitarian interpreting are interpreters with experience of working in these settings, although these are still scarce. Given the circumstances and conditions under which interpreters in conflict and post-conflict scenarios perform their work, we believe that it is essential to encourage a more interdisciplinary discussion that analyzes the differ ent factors that have an impact on the interpreter’s role in different con texts and settings. Against this backdrop, this volume, which is a compilation of studies that are related to the themes of two panels coordinated by the authors, the first at the 2018 IATIS (International Association for Translation and Intercultural Studies) conference and the second at the 2019 EST (European Society for Translation Studies) conference, consists of contri butions on military and humanitarian interpreting and is particularly interested in studies of an interdisciplinary nature. Contributions seek to foster interprofessional dialogue and are written not only by scholars but also by those directly or indirectly involved in the activity, such as mili tary personnel, humanitarian interpreters and activists, with the ultimate goal of examining the topic through different lenses and from different perspectives.
