مرضیه مداحی

In the aftermath of conflict, the role of translation extends into the realm of conflict resolution. This study examines how translation prefaces address conflict resolution in the context of post-revolutionary Iran following the Iran-Iraq War, focusing on the resolution strategies employed. To achieve this, criterion sampling was used to select three English books on the Iran-Iraq War, originally written from Iraqi or Other perspectives and translated into Persian by Marz-o-Boom Publications. Data were collected from the prefaces of these translations, emphasizing their treatment of the war and the contentious themes in the source texts. Using Salama-Carr’s (2007) and Webne Behrman’s (1998) definitions of conflict, conflict cases were identified and categorized based on Thomas and Kilmann’s (1974) conflict resolution model. The findings indicate that the competing strategy was predominantly employed (44.4%–54.6%), reflecting strong assertiveness in promoting Iranian state perspectives. The compromising strategy was used to a moderate extent (18.6%–34.4%), indicating some engagement in negotiation, while the collaborating strategy ranged from 18.1% to 33.4%, reflecting fluctuating openness to diverse viewpoints. The accommodating strategy appeared only once (2.3%), highlighting a reluctance to embrace alternative perspectives, while the avoiding strategy was entirely absent, suggesting a deliberate effort to confront the complexities of the conflict. Overall, the findings reveal a pattern of using collaboration within a competitive framework as a nuanced approach to conflict resolution in sensitive translation contexts. This strategy demonstrates a strong commitment to constructive dialogue, enriches the discourse on the conflict, and enhances readers’ understanding of its multifaceted nature.

Focusing on the intersection of translation and activism, the current study aimed to address the issue of publishers’ activist agency in the socio-political context of post-revolutionary Iran. In so doing, it mainly drew on Tymoczko’s (2010a) conceptualization of political and ideological agency and activism as engagement and her classification of its different forms. The data came from a body of publishers’ notes, written on Persian translations of six English books selected through criterion sampling from the works that apparently enjoyed a level of prestige among the international readers , and reflected the Other’s views on religious, philosophical, political, and socio-cultural issues, which considering the fundamental values of the Islamic Republic of Iran that the post-revolutionary State tries to keep, could make them a possible site of translational activism. The results showed that in their notes the publishers had encoded their engagement by using a combination of different forms of engagement, i.e., publicizing, witnessing, rousing, inspiring, and mobilizing; they also revealed their interest in introducing the unfamiliar territory of the foreign to the Persian-speaking readers, and in increasing their understanding of the Other’s culture. They emphasized the importance of tolerance, pluralism, openness, and mutual respect in cultural exchanges but introduced the source Islamic culture and its set of moral values as criteria for determining the validity of the Other’s presented ideas and beliefs and rejecting what did not meet such criteria.