ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the interventionist role of translators in the (re)production, (trans)formation, and dissemination of knowledge in the civil sphere in general and the digital world in particular. More specifically, the chapter investigates how translation is used as a tool not just to circulate knowledge but primarily to challenge dominant, legitimized narratives and to subvert hegemony in situations of resistance. It does this by drawing on various examples from NewsPro, a non-profit media organization run by a group of South Korean and Korean-American translators who see themselves as civil activists, and by using the concept of ‘transediting.’ It pays particular attention to translations of news articles that have been ignored by the mainstream South Korean media. Both headlines and bodies of the articles published about the December 2015 agreement on the ‘Comfort Women’ issue between the Korean and Japanese governments are examined. The chapter will ultimately indicate how this translated knowledge, particularly news articles, can be used as a tool to deconstruct legitimized knowledge or voices when initiated in the recipient culture by politically and ideologically motivated individuals, including translators, who recover those parts that have lost focus and some of the color of the voices bleached out in the process of transediting.
