TRANSLATING KNOWLEDGE: FROM THEORY TO PRAXIS
Translating academic knowledge into social praxis has always been a central question for critical theory. This is particularly true in an age of polycrisis. Neoliberal globalization has intensified the exploitation of natural resources, the financialization of social reproduction, and the precarization of labor. Climate change, the COVID-19 pandemic, and housing precarity yield a unique moment that urges us to consider how to bridge the gap between academic and practical knowledge. Moreover, the rise of chauvinist discourses and authoritarian political regimes around the world, often accompanied by outright attacks on knowledge production, has narrowed the potential for social scientists to communicate and impact public discourse. In this conference, we aim to explore the ways to overcome these challenges and translate our work into meaningful social action.
Translating knowledge into action has long been integral to grassroots activism in housing, migration, gender equality, and environmental justice. Academics continue to take an active part in social movements, working together with NGOS and mobilizing/ bottom-up initiatives. We understand translation not only in the linguistic sense, but in a broader sense as interpretations, associations, and representations that mediate between different contexts. As Clarke et al. (2015) remind us, translation has a double significance “as both an act of domination (the means through which power, hierarchy, and rule are re-inscribed) and a condition of possibility in which dialogue, talking back, and building connections and solidarities [...] become possible.” We take this double significance of translation as both a potentiality for engaged social research and a methodological tool in need of serious critical reflection. This conference asks: What can be gained or lost in the translation of knowledge? How can translation be used for community-oriented social research? How can it be used as a critical methodological tool?
SCHEDULE
June 2, 2023
10.00-11.00 Keynote: John Clarke, The Open University
11.30-13.00 Panel 1: ACTIVIST SCHOLARSHIP
13.00-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-16.00 Panel 2: SPACES OF LEARNING
16.30-18.00 Panel 3: ETHICS OF TRANSLATION
June 3, 2022
10.00-11.00 Keynote: Shahram Khosravi, Stockholm University
11.30-12.30 Panel 4: METHODOLOGIES OF TRANSLATION
12.30-13.30 Lunch break
13.30-14.30 Book Talk: Scholarly Podcasting: Why, What, How? (Ian M. Cook, 2023)
15.00-16.30 Panel 5: AGENTS OF TRANSLATION
17.00-18.30 Panel 6: ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
PROGRAM
Friday, 2 June 2023
10.00-11.00 KEYNOTE: John Clarke (The Open University)
11.30-13.00 ACTIVIST SCHOLARSHIP
Chair: Claudio Sopranzetti
Alberto Fierro (Wenner-Gren Engaged Research Grantee) – Developing Knowledge Between Activism and Academia in Latin America
Zimeng Yin (CEU) – From the Umbrella Movement to the Anti-ELAB Movement: A Bourdieusian Approach to Social Movements in Hong Kong
Klara Nagy (Periféria Policy and Research Center) – Workers' rights in the semi-periphery Worker-driven monitoring in the electronics manufacturing sector in Hungary.
13.00-14.30 Lunch break
14.30-16.00 SPACES OF LEARNING
Chair: Daniel Monterescu
Federico Giovannini (Independent) – Power and didactics in the Italian university under neoliberal governance: the case of the DISCI
Ahmed El-Mongy (Independent) – Learning in difficult times: the case of a prefigurative space in post-2013 Egypt
Kudzai M Munyavi (Mississippi University for Women) – Beyond Spirit Mediums: Using Academia to Debunk Myths of African Queerness: A Case of Zimbabwe.
16.30-18.00 ETHICS OF TRANSLATION
Chair: Jean-Louis Fabiani
Sudatta Ghosh (South Asian University) – Being a ‘Phool’: Researching Among the Nachnis of Purulia
Shabnam Singla (CEU) – Ethics of Inclusivity: Who should bear the burden of translating knowledge of marginalized experiences?
Rae Hackler (University of Bristol) – In Your Own Voice: Oral Histories as a Method Bridging the Gap Between Researcher and Researched
Saturday, 3 June 2022
10.00-11.00 KEYNOTE: Shahram Khosravi (Stockholm University)
11.30-12.30 METHODOLOGIES OF TRANSLATION
Chair: Johanna Markkula
Valentina Grillo (University of Vienna) and Tonmoy Chowdhury (Independent) – Power Dynamics in Humanitarian Context and Research: Postcolonial Reflections on Translation
Vic Riveros (Newcastle University) – Issues with connecting with an imagined community in diaspora space: the case of the Southern Cone Diaspora in the UK
12.30-13.30 Lunch break
13.30 -14.30 Book Talk: Scholarly Podcasting: Why, What, How (Ian M. Cook, 2023)
15.00-16.30 AGENTS OF TRANSLATION
Chair: Vlad Naumescu
Hitesh xxx (KU Leuven) – Gender and the EU: Topology of Gender Policy and Queer Culture
Ray Leiyi Lin (CEU) – Challenges in Knowledge Translation: The Use and Abuse of “Involution” on Chinese Social Media
Elmira Kakabayeva (Independent) – Family Ethnography, or How to Decolonize Creative Writing: A Case Study from Central Asia
17.00-18.30 ALTERNATIVE MEDIA
Chair: Ian M. Cook, Allegra Lab
Gulzat Egemberdieva (Humboldt University) – Nomadism ad Time Compression
Arne Vermassen (KU Leuven) – Reinscribing Affect into Secular Statistics through Science Fiction
Marcela Torres Heredia (University of Vienna) – The Role of Knowledge and Epistemology – between Colonial Reproduction and Social Alternatives: An Analysis Based on Women’s Experience in North Cauca Region