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Contribution to Book
The Visibility of Collaborators: Snapshots of wartime and post-war interpreters
Framing the Interpreter: Towards a visual perspective (2014)
  • Kayoko Takeda, Rikkyo University
Abstract
This article examines two photos that presumably feature local interpreters serving foreign military occupiers during the Second Sino-Japanese War and the US occupation in postwar Japan, focusing on implications of their visibility. Different captions indicate that they can be identified as those who cooperate, collaborate or betray. Being visible can be disempowering for those interpreters. In close contact with locals as mediators of communication, interpreters are more recognizable by locals as traitors since they speak the language of oppression on behalf of the occupier. Also, the occupiers may make local interpreters visible through photography as model citizens of the occupied land to demonstrate successful cases of local ‘cooperation’. Here, interpreters’ desire to stay invisible is disregarded as they may face personal dilemmas and social stigma as collaborators for the occupier.
Keywords
  • visibility,
  • wartime and post-war interpreters,
  • collaborators
Publication Date
2014
Editor
Fernández-Ocampo, A. & Wolf, M.
Publisher
Routledge
Citation Information
Kayoko Takeda. "The Visibility of Collaborators: Snapshots of wartime and post-war interpreters" London & New YorkFraming the Interpreter: Towards a visual perspective (2014)
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/kayoko_takeda/33/