Theorizing in Tongues
Critical Translation Studies and Epistemic Justice for Critical Geographies
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.14288/acme.9en2fo-2607Keywords:
translation and geography, epistemic justice, critical translation studiesAbstract
This paper draws on critical translation studies to support critical geographies’ efforts toward greater epistemic justice in language by challenging the hegemony of social science English. Such efforts often encounter the obstacle of the apparent untranslatability of certain concepts. We build on Berman’s ethical turn in translation studies, as well as Venuti’s notion of foreignization. We also draw on Sakai’s concept of heterolingual address, understood as intrinsic to scientific writing, as a means of undermining the hegemonic character of English and transforming it into a genuine lingua franca.
We propose four practical language tactics that offer a roadmap across different layers of textuality to make English more porous to other languages. These range from worlding and conceptualizing in multiple tongues to fostering unsettled reading through more choral writing and more hospitable editing, thereby implicating various actors in the collaborative work of sustaining heterolingual address.
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