Cover not available
Part of
The Complexity of Social-Cultural Emergence: Biosemiotics, semiotics and translation studies
Edited by Kobus Marais, Reine Meylaerts and Maud Gonne
[Benjamins Translation Library 164] 2024
► pp. 84–108

Chapter 4
Animal photojournalism as knowledge translation

An ecosemiotic approach to visual activism

| University of the Free State
This chapter explores the ways in which photojournalism (specifically animal activist photography of domesticated animals) functions as translation and, in particular, knowledge translation. Referring broadly to the synthesis, exchange, and application of knowledge produced during research processes, knowledge translation actively bridges the chasm between the acquisition of knowledge and application of knowledge. By providing visual information that verbal communication would otherwise not be able to convey, animal activist photography is not only a translational process of the knowledge of the activist/photographer behind the lens, but also the plight of the animal in front of the lens. Furthermore, by approaching this study within ecosemiotics, a branch of semiotics that explores the human relationships to nature this chapter engages with the human/non-human relations that are represented by animal activist photojournalism.
Keywords: intersemiotic translation, knowledge translation, activism, photography, photojournalism, translation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • An argument for a semiotic enlarging of translation studies
  • Why ecosemiotics?
  • The human/non-human relationship
  • Translation and activism
  • Photojournalism and activism
  • Knowledge translation
  • Non-human and human agency in knowledge translation
  • The photographs
  • Agency in photography: Animal gaze and restriction of movement
  • Activist intersemiotic translation as knowledge translation
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 May 2024
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.164.04van
References (72)
References
Aguiar, D., and J. Queiroz. 2013. “Semiosis and Intersemiotic Translation.” Semiotica, 196: 283–92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Andersson Cederholm, E., A. Björck, K. Jennbert, and A.-S. Lönngren (Eds.). 2014. Exploring the Animal Turn: Human-Animal Relations in Science, Society and Culture. The Pufendorf Institute for Advanced Studies.Google Scholar
Angelelli, C. V. (Ed.) 2014. The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arluke, A., and Sanders, C. R. 1996. Regarding Animals. Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Armstrong, P. 2011. “The Gaze of Animals.” In Theorizing Animals, edited by N. Taylor, and T. Signal, 175–199. Brill. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Baker, M. 2006. “Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community.” The Massachusetts Review, 47, no. 3: 462–84.Google Scholar
Bauer, E. 2017. Language Brokering. Mediated Manipulations, and the Agency of the Interpreter/Translator. In Non-Professional Interpreting and Translation, edited by R. Antonini, L. Cirillo, L. Rossato, and I. Torresi, 359–80. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bekoff, M. 2002. Minding Animals: Awareness, Emotions, and Heart. Oxford University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bennett, K. 2007. “Words Into Movement: The Ballet as Intersemiotic Translation.” In Teatro e Tradução: Palcos de Encontro, edited by M. J. Brilhante, and M. Carvalho, 125–138. Colibri.Google Scholar
Berger, J. 1980. “Why Look at Animals?” In About looking, edited by J. Berge, 1–26. Pantheon Books.Google Scholar
Bliss-Moreau, E. 2017. “Constructing Nonhuman Animal Emotion.” Current Opinion in Psychology 17: 184–8. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Boéri, J., and C. Delgado Luchner. 2020. “Ethics of Activist Translation and Interpreting.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Ethics, edited by K. Koskinen, and N. K. Pokorn. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 2000. Les Structures sociales de l’economie. Paris: Seuil.Google Scholar
Burns, G. L., and M. Paterson. (Eds.) 2014. Engaging with Animals: Interpretations of a Shared Existence. Sydney University Press.Google Scholar
Caple, H. 2013. Photojournalism: A Social Semiotic Approach. Palgrave Macmillan UK. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Carcelén-Estrada, A. 2018. Translation and Activism. In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Politics, edited by F. Fernández, and J. Evans, 254–69. Routledge Handbooks in Translation and Interpreting Studies. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chapnick, H. 1994. Truth Needs No Ally: Inside Photojournalism. University of Missouri Press.Google Scholar
Cronin, M. 2017. Eco-translation: Translation and Ecology in the Age of the Anthropocene. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Daston, L., and G. Mitman. 2005. “Introduction: the How and Why of Thinking with Animals.” In Thinking with Animals: New Perspectives on Anthropomorphism, edited by L. Daston, and G. Mitman, 1–14. Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Dawkins, M. S. 2006. “Through Animal Eyes: What Behaviour Tells Us.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 100, no. 1–2: 4–10. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Waal, F. B. M. 2011. “What is an Animal Emotion?” Annals of the New York Academy of Science, 1224, no. 1: 191–206. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
De Waal, F. B. M., and P. F. Ferrari, 2010. “Towards a Bottom–Up Perspective on Animal and Human Cognition.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 14, no. 5: 201–7. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dewsbury, D. A. 1997. “Readings in Animal Cognition.” PsycCRITIQUES 42, no. 1.Google Scholar
Drenthen, M. 2016. “Understanding the Meaning of wolf Resurgence, Ecosemiotics and Landscape Hermeneutics.” In Thinking about Animals in the Age of the Anthropocene, edited by M. Tønnessen, K. Armstrong Oma, and S. Rattasepp, 109–26. Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Duncan, I. J. H. 2006. “The Changing Concept of Animal Sentience.” Applied Animal Behaviour Science 100, no. 1–2: 11–9. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Giddens, Anthony. 1979. Central Problems in Social Theory. Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar
Gould, R. R., and K. Tahmasebian (Eds.). 2020. “Introduction: Translation and Activism in the Time of Now.” In The Routledge Handbook of Translation and Activism, edited by R. R. Gould, and K. Tahmasebian. Taylor and Francis. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grandin, T., and C. Johnson. 2005. Animals in Translation: Using the Mysteries of Autism to Decode Animal Behavior. Scribner.Google Scholar
Greenebaum, J. 2009. “‘I’m Not an Activist!’: Animal Rights vs. Animal Welfare in the purebred Dog Rescue Movement.” Society and Animals 17, no. 4: 289–304. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grimshaw, J. M., M. P. Eccles, J. N. Lavis, S. J., Hill, and J. E. Squires. 2012. “Knowledge Translation of Research Findings.” Implementation Science 7, no. 50: 1–17. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Halloran, K. L. O., S. Tan, and P. Wignell. 2016. “Intersemiotic Translation as Resemiotisation: A Multimodal Perspective.” Signata 7, no. 7: 199–229. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hosseini, S. A. H. 2010. “Activist Knowledge: Interrogating the ideational Landscape of Social Movements.” The International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences: Annual Review 5, no. 5: 339–58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Inghilleri, M. 2003. “Habitus, Field and Discourse: Interpreting as a Socially Situated Activity.” Target International Journal of Translation Studies 15, no. 2: 243–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005. “Mediating Zones of Uncertainty.” The Translator 11, no. 1. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Jakobson, R. 1959. “On Linguistic Aspects of Translation.” In On Translation, edited by R. A. Brower, 232–9. Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Jansen van Vuuren, X. 2023. “Translation Between Non-Humans and Humans.” In Translation Beyond Translation Studies, edited by K. Marais, 219–30. Bloomsbury.Google Scholar
Kull, K. 1998. “Semiotic Ecology: Different Natures in the Semiosphere.” Sign Systems Studies 26: 344–71. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2005. “Semiosphere and a Dual Ecology: Paradoxes of Communication.” Sign Systems Studies, 33, no. 1: 175–89. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2010. “Ecosystems are Made of Semiosic Bonds: Consortia, Umwelten, Biophony and Ecological Codes.” Biosemiotics 3, no. 3: 347–57. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Latour, Bruno. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Lefebvre, M., and M. Furstenau. 2004. “Digital Editing and Montage: The Vanishing Celluloid and Beyond.” Cinémas 13, no. 1–2: 69–107. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lester, P. M. 2015. Photojournalism: An Ethical Approach. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lotman, Y. 1990. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. I.B. Tauris.Google Scholar
Magnus, R. 2016. “The Semiotic Challenges of Guide Dog Teams: The Experiences of German, Estonian and Swedish Guide Dog Users.” Biosemiotics 9: 267–85. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marais, K. 2019. A (Bio)Semiotic Theory of Translation: The Emergence of Social Cultural Reality. Routledge.Google Scholar
2021. “Tom, Dick and Harry as well as Fido and Puss in Boots are Translators: The Implications of Biosemiotics for Translation Studies.” In Translating Asymmetry - Rewriting Power, edited by O. Carbonell i Cortés and E. Monzó-Nebot, 101–21. Benjamins Translation Library. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Marais, K., and K. Kull. 2016. “Biosemiotics and translation Studies: Challenging ‘Translation’”. In Border Crossings. Translation Studies and other Disciplines, edited by Y. Gambier, and L. van Doorslaer: 169–88. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maran, T. 2020. Ecosemiotics: The Study of Signs in Changing Ecologies. Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Maran, T., and K. Kull. 2014. “Ecosemiotics: Main Principles and Current Developments.” Geografiska Annaler: Series B, Human Geography, 96, no. 1: 41–50. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Meijer, E. 2016. “Speaking with Animals.” In Thinking About Animals in the Age of the Anthropocene, edited by M. Tønnessen, K. Armstrong Oma, and S. Rattasepp, 73–88. Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Merrell, F. 2000. Change Through Signs of Body, Mind, and Language. Waveland Press.Google Scholar
Newton, J. H. 2012. The Burden of Visual Truth: The Role of Photojournalism in Mediating Reality. Routledge.Google Scholar
Peirce, C. S. 1935a. The Collected Papers of Charles. S Peirce (Vol. 2). Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
1935b. The Collected Papers of Charles S. Peirce (Vol. 3). Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Petrilli, S. 2014. “Sign Studies and Semioethics: Communication, Translation and Values.” In Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, edited by P. Cobley, and K. Kull. De Gruyter Mouton. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2016. “Translation Everywhere.” Signata 7: 23–56. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schlesinger, W. H. 2010. “Translational Ecology.” Science, 329, no. 5992: 609. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Seelig, M. I. 2015. “Advocating Environmental Issues Beyond Photography.” Qualitative Research Reports in Communication 16, no. 1: 46–55. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Sharov, A. and M. Tønnessen. 2021. “Semiotic agency: Science Beyond Mechanism.” Springer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Stibbe, A. 2015. Ecolinguistics: Language, Ecology and the Stories we Live by. Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Straus, S. E., J. Tetroe, and I. Graham. 2009. “Defining Knowledge Translation.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 181, no. 3–4: 165–68. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tønnessen, M. 2011. Umwelt Transition and Uexküllian Phenomenology: An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Norwegian Wolf Management. PhD diss, University of Tartu.Google Scholar
Tønnessen, M., and K. Armstrong Oma, 2016. “Introduction: Once Upon a Time in the Anthropocene.” In Thinking About Animals in the Age of the Anthropocene, edited by M. Tønnessen, K. Armstrong Oma, and S. Rattasepp, vii–xix. Lexington Books.Google Scholar
Torop, P. 2003. “Intersemiosis and Intersemiotic Translation.” In Translation, Translation, edited by S. Petrilli. Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tymoczko, M. 2007. Enlarging Translation, Empowering Translators. Routledge.Google Scholar
2010. Translation, Resistance, Activism. University of Massachusetts Press.Google Scholar
2013. “Translation, Resistance, Activism.” Translation and Interpreting Studies 8, no. 2: 293–9.Google Scholar
Wadensjö, C. 2014. “Perspectives on Role Play: Analysis, Training and Assessments.” The Interpreter and Translator Trainer 8, no. 3: 437–51. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Weil, K. 2010. “A Report on the Animal Turn.” Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 21, no. 2: 1–23. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wolf, M. 2014. “The Sociology of Translation and its ‘Activist Turn’.” In The Sociological Turn in Translation and Interpreting Studies, edited by C. V. Angelelli, 7–21. John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Yasmeen, R., I. Aslam, M. Ahmad, and M. H. A. Shah. 2023. “Zoochosis: A Short Review on Stereotypical Behavior of Captive Animals.” Journal of Wildlife and Biodiversity 7, no. 2: 8–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zeder, M. 2012. “The Domestication of Animals.” Journal of Anthropological Research 68, no. 2: 161–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar