ABSTRACT
As with all fields of human endeavour, politics affects many levels of action within the associations and entities of the translation and interpreting sector. Political moves and actions take place within professional institutions and between them, sometimes to the benefit of all and sometimes to the obstruction of common causes, as well as between these entities and other external partners in the wider world – international entities, government ministries, educational and business bodies. Translator and interpreter entities are created for a variety of ends on a number of different bases around the world (Pym 2014); they expand or implode, and sometimes both, on a regular basis, with only the most resilient surviving the test of time. In this chapter, I will concentrate on the translators’ associations within the United Kingdom before providing a brief overview of the current situation in British interpreter entities and the panorama throughout Europe and the wider world.
