Translational Epistemologies and Open Science
Towards Equitable and Sustainable Ecosystems of Knowledge Production and Dissemination
Hosted by Encounters in Translation Journal and Bodies in Translation Project
Time and place: Oct. 21, 2025 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM
HF12 – 12th floor of Niels Treschow’s Building
Registration is FREE for both in person and virtual attendance. The language of the event is English. Please register here.
Time and place: Oct. 21, 2025 2:00 PM – 6:00 PM (1.00-5.00 pm BST / 12.00-16.00 UCT), HF 12, 12th floor of Niels Treschow’s Building
Join Zoom Meeting: https://uio.zoom.us/j/64824765531 Meeting ID: 648 2476
Translational epistemologies, the theme at the heart of the Bodies in Translation project and the Encounters in Translation journal, engages with the use of translation by scholars in a range of scholarly domains ‘as a trope through which the local concerns of the appropriating discipline may be addressed’ (Baker and Saldanha 2011: xxi).
Translation has emerged in recent decades as a keyword in disciplines such as cultural history, anthropology and science and technology studies (STS). Moreover, since around the turn of this century it has become an institutionalized concept in medicine – as evident in the increasing ubiquity of knowledge translation and translational research activities that attempt to put research-based knowledge into practice (Ødemark and Engebretsen 2018).
Such expansions of the concept of translation have underscored the fact that translation is never simply a discursive process: it is a complex material and cultural process, even when the objects transported are words. The emergence of translational epistemologies further illustrates how taken for granted values of scientific endeavour – such as objectivity and universality – may be productively “replaced by problematization, agonism, and contradiction in the genealogical method” (Rimke 2010:251), in part by problematizing the concept of translation itself in scientific and scholarly practices, and between different forms of knowledge and epistemic cultures.
This event will provide a forum for engaging with epistemologies and scholarly initiatives that seek to open up spaces for equitable and ethically responsible reflection on translation within various ecosystems of knowledge and society at large. It will further report on recent attempts to create new, more sustainable spaces within which scholars with the requisite expertise can contribute actively to the debate on the politics and practice of translation in the context of knowledge production and circulation, irrespective of geographical location, race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, or migratory status.
Preliminary programme
14.00-14.10: John Ødemark and Mona Baker: Welcome and Introduction to Event
14.10-14.30: John Ødemark: Translational Epistemologies in the Bodies of Translation Project
14.30-14.50 Open Discussion: Led by Karen Bennett and Rasmus Tore Slaattelid
14.50-15.10: Julie Boéri: Encounters in Translation and the open science movement: A sustainable and equitable model of publishing
15.10-15.30: Open Discussion: Led by Jan Buts and Abdel Wahab Khalifa
15.30-15.45: Short Break
15.45-17.25: Less is More: Translational and Narrative Epistemologies beyond Corporate Publishing Structures.
Chair: Mona Baker. Speakers: Jan Buts, Karen Bennett, Abdel Wahab Khalifa, Luis Pérez-González, Rasmus Tore Slaattelid
This panel will address the impact of rising publication expectations on the quality of scholarly output, including the implications of using measures such as citation metrics and journal impact factors on perpetuating inequalities between and within the Global North and Global South. It is hoped that speaker contributions and the open discussion that follows will assist in articulating an alternative, independent, more equitable and more sustainable model of academic publishing.
17.25-17.45: Open Discussion: Led by Julie Boéri and John Ødemark
17.45-18.00: Mona Baker: Concluding Remarks
References
Baker, Mona and Gabriela Saldanha (2011) ‘Introduction to the Second Edition’, in Mona Baker and Gabriela Saldanha (eds) Routledge Encyclopedia of Translation Studies, London & New York: Routledge, xx-xxii.
Ødemark, John and Eivind Engebretsen (2022) ‘Challenging Medical Knowledge Translation: Convergence and divergence of translation across epistemic and cultural boundaries’, Humanities & Social Sciences Communications 9, 71. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-022-01088-6
Rimke, Heidi (2010) ‘Remembering the Sociological Imagination: Transdisciplinarity, the Genealogical Method, and Epistemological Politics’, International Journal of Interdisciplinary Social Sciences 5(1): 239-254.
Organizer