The Activist Role of Translation in Promoting Cultural Anti-Imperialism: A Historical Analysis of Translations Rendered by Ali Shariati

The activist view regards translation as an influential instrument for furthering large programs of social and political change. Accordingly, this study aimed to investigate the activist role of translation in promoting attitudes against cultural imperialism in Iran with a focus on two translations carried out by Ali Shariati. To achieve this, a historical analysis of the translations was conducted using an exploratory-analytical approach. The data were collected from paratextual sources including the translator’s foreword to translations, translatorial comments in sources other than the translated books, biographical records, and news or views about translations based on D’hulst’s (2010) questions to investigate the history of translation. The data relevant to the translator and authors were collected and analyzed based on Chesterman’s (2009) method of analyzing translators. The data were analyzed using Tymoczko’s (2010) ideas on activism in translation. The results indicated that the translations were used as a means to develop ideas against cultural imperialism in Iran via a number of measures and attempts. Moreover, the translations seem to stand in the second stage of activism in a colonial or imperial context tending to reject and oppose imperialism and define an identity based on polarized thinking and binary opposites.