Exercising agency: A Bourdieusian account of Iranian feminist translators

Abstract

ABSTRACT In spite of the challenges imposed on practices of feminist cultural production in restrictive states, feminist activists have contributed to speaking about the needs of women through their writings and translations. While earlier studies have highlighted the role of translators in communicating external feminist ideas, factors that have contributed to their agency remain unexplored. The present study, framed by Bourdieu’s theory, is an attempt to address this gap by locating the social, cultural, and economic capital of Iranian feminist translators within the conservative publication context of Iran. In doing so, in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with 17 Iranian translators of feminist works. Our findings show that despite the regulatory measures imposed on cultural production, translators have managed to compete against the doxa of the publishing sphere and produce heterodoxa by publishing translations of secular feminist works.