Translating values

Abstract

In June 2018, the Aquarius, a search and rescue vessel operating in the Mediterranean Sea, rescued 630 migrants at sea and asked to dock at the nearest port. First Italy and then Malta refused and the dramatic situation of those on board made the news and highlighted the increasingly restrictive nature of European migration policies. Progressive parties in the Valencian regional and Spanish central governments provided the conditions to offer a safe berth and to implement the regional government’s plan to assist refugees in a crisis situation. This chapter will offer an overview of the plan, focusing on its linguistic component, and analyze how translation and interpreting were approached by the policymakers responsible for its inception and development. A distance between the values protected by translation and interpreting professional codes of practice and those that policymakers desire to advance in crisis situations will be evinced as revolving around the role of translation and interpreting in mediating asymmetries.