Research

I am currently Principal Investigator on a four-year AHRC-funded project, Genealogies of Knowledge: The Evolution and Contestation of Concepts across Time and Space.

My most recent, concluded research involved examining the use of translation, specifically subtitling, by various activist groups connected with the Egyptian Revolution. The project was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. It concluded with an international conference held in Cairo in March 2015, The Only Thing Worth Globalizing Is Disssent – Translation and the Many Languages of Resistance, and an article published in The Translator in April 2016.

A brief summary of the concluded project can be accessed on the website of the Centre for Translation & Intercultural Studies at the University of Manchester. See also the summary on the Arts and Humanities Research Council website. The project builds on and extends my earlier work on the role of translation and interpreting in protest movements, and more broadly in mediating political conflict. Relevant publications include the following:

• Baker, Mona (2013) ‘Translation as an Alternative Space for Political Action’, Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest 12(1) : 23-47.
• Baker, Mona (2010) ‘Translation and Activism: Emerging Patterns of Narrative Community’, in Maria Tymoczko (ed.) Translation, Resistance, Activism, Amherst and Boston: University of Massachusetts Press, 23-41.
• Baker, Mona (2009) ‘Resisting State Terror : Theorizing Communities of Activist Translators and Interpreters’, in Esperanza Bielsa and Christopher W. Hughes (eds) Globalisation, Political Violence and Translation,  Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 222-242.

Also of relevance and connected to this specific project:

• ‘The Prefigurative Politics of Translation in Place-based Movements of Protest: Subtitling in the Egyptian Revolution‘, The Translator 22(1): 1-21.
• Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, edited volume published by Routledge, 2016.
• ‘Beyond the Spectacle: Translation and Solidarity in Contemporary Protest Movements’, in Mona Baker (ed.) Translating Dissent: Voices from and with the Egyptian Revolution, 2016, London & New York: Routledge, 1-18.
• Video of Lecture at the American University in Cairo, 9 March 2015, titled Subtitling in the Context of Contemporary Political Activism
• A recording of a workshop on activist subtitling, organised by Mosireen in April 2014.
• Video of the First Annual Martha Cheung Memorial Lecture, titled The Prefigurative Politics of Volunteer Subtitling in the Egyptian Revolution, May 2014
• Interview with Free Word.
• Collection of videos from the Globalising Dissent conference, held in Cairo 6-8 March 2015: Trailer, Special Panel on Journalism as Translation organized by Mada Masr, Workshop on Filming Revolution, and Keynotes by Samah Selim, Leil-Zahra Mortada, Khalid Abdallah, Brandon Jourdan, Cristina Flesher Fominaya and Amro Ali.
• A review of the conference by Ahmed Refaat, published by Mada Masr

And on translation/interpreting and conflict:

• Baker, Mona (2010) ‘Interpreters and Translators in the War Zone: Narrated and Narrators’, The Translator: Studies in Intercultural Communication 16(2) : 197-222.
• Baker, Mona (2010) ‘Narratives of Terrorism and Security: ‘Accurate’ Translations, Suspicious Frames‘, Critical Studies on Terrorism 3(3) : 347-364.
• Baker, Mona (2008) ‘Ethics of Renarration: Mona Baker Is Interviewed by Andrew Chesterman’, Cultus 1(1) : 10-33.
• Baker, Mona (2008) ‘I’adat T’ateer al-Siraa’ fi-ltargama (Reframing Conflict in Translation)’, trans. Hazem Azmy, Fusul 74: 94-116.
• Baker, Mona (2007) ‘Reframing Conflict in Translation’, Social Semiotics 17(2) : 151-169.
• Baker, Mona (2006) Translation and Conflict: A Narrative Account, London & New York: Routledge.