Publications

Publication details [#23930]

Monzó-Nebot, Esther. 2011. Legal and translational occupations in Spain: regulation and specialization in jurisdictional struggles. In Sela-Sheffy, Rakefet and Miriam Shlesinger, eds. Identity and status in the translational professions (Benjamins Current Topics 32). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. pp. 11–30.

Abstract

The aim of this article is twofold. First, the author outlines a theoretical framework that synthesizes some concepts from both the sociology of professions and Bourdieu’s economy of practice. Within this framework, distinction and legitimation are highlighted as two major strategies employed by occupational groups to advance their interests within the labor market. In the second part of the article, the author discusses two particular conflicts, both of which involve Spanish certified (or “sworn” in European Spanish) translators and interpreters (TIs). The first is a jurisdictional struggle between certified TIs and notaries public (a legal occupation) and the other, a struggle between certified TIs and court TIs. These struggles illustrate how the jurisdiction, the segment of the labor market formerly occupied by certified TIs, has been progressively claimed by notaries public and court TIs through various strategies and processes, and how certified TIs have in turn reacted by pursuing strategies of their own. These examples show how and why a particular group may lose ground to other groups using diverse strategies and investing different types of capital (in Bourdieu’s sense of the term). Moreover, these cases exemplify how some professionalization processes and projects have worked in the Spanish context and how certain occupational groups are developing professionalization strategies of their own.
Source : Based on abstract in book