黑料不打烊

Citation

Li S, Fuentes-Luque A & Desjardins R (2026) Introduction to Special Issue: Food and translation: international and interdisciplinary issues. Perspectives, 34 (4), pp. 655-660. https://doi.org/10.1080/0907676x.2026.2684381

Abstract
First paragraph: This special issue began to take shape nearly four years ago, when the world was still grappling with the challenges and uncertainties of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, it was becoming increasingly clear that the topic of food and translation was highly relevant. Not only did the pandemic disrupt global supply chains, which invariably impacted food supply chains as well, but agricultural and food processing/food manufacturing were among some of the sectors most hit by early and devastating waves of contagion. Unifor, one of Canada’s largest private sector unions, confirmed that the food and beverage processing workers across the country were disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and that meat processing plants, in particular, were hit hard and led to numerous deaths (Unifor, Citation2020). Incidentally, the Cargill High River plant (a meat-processing facility located in Alberta, Canada) was the site of the largest single outbreak in Canada in 2020 and reporting concluded that a lack of translation and interpreting had contributed to exacerbating the crisis (Baum et al., Citation2020). This example speaks to the fact that translation and interpreting inadequacies in the food industry have real effects, including contagion and deaths. The Cargill High River example also speaks to the need for policy that ensures access to critical information in one’s language beyond the logic of official languages (as in the case in Canada, but in other countries as well), especially in crises (Desjardins, Citation2022). Unfortunately, the role played by translation and interpreting within the food industry has largely been and continues to be overlooked (Cavanaugh et al., Citation2014; Karreb?k et al., Citation2018), leaving the often multilingual and migrant workforce employed in these settings left to find other strategies, like community-based translation or machine/AI translation, to parse and decipher important messaging. Unfortunately, while community, volunteer, and machine translation can have their respective merits and be appropriate strategies in some contexts, they can also contribute to misinformation and disinformation, adding complexity to already fraught crises. We invite readers of this special issue to consider how lessons learnt over the arc of the COVID-19 pandemic might inform language and translation policy moving forward: after all, research has real-world impact when it can meaningfully shape more effective and equitable policy.

Keywords
food; translation; interdisciplinary issues; mediation; culture

Journal
Perspectives: Volume 34, Issue 4