Boka En

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in translation studies in translation projects involving unpaid, “non-expert” translators. At the same time, the fields of science & technology studies and social movement studies have examined the social knowledge practices at work in social movements. This article discusses the case of a translation project by MiGaY, a Vienna-based activist organization dedicated to LGBTIQ* migrants in Austria. In 2016, MiGaY published a text on “coming out” that pays specific attention to the challenges faced by LGBTIQ* migrants. Drawing on Thomas Gieryn’s notion of boundary-work, this article examines how translation expertise is negotiated in relation to “translation”, “activism”, and “LGBTIQ*” questions. It proposes a distinction between identity position (e.g. an “expert” or “lay” translator) and knowledge practices (i.e. actual, contextually contingent knowledge processes), since these do not necessarily coincide.

In this article, we explore gender discourses in the Austrian far right to provide insights into the strategies used to construct, advocate and uphold a very particular gender worldview. Specifically, we focus on a 2008 publication by Barbara Rosenkranz (representing the far-right Austrian Freedom Party FPÖ), whose book supposedly reveals a conspiracy on the part of feminists, capitalists, Marxists, homosexuals, gender pseudo-scientists and the media that seeks to change human nature. We argue that her book and the discourses she draws on construct an elitist Other to the ‘average citizen’ and a threat to the continued survival of the Austrian nation and its people. We propose the concept of ‘Überfremdung von innen’ to describe the fear of becoming the Other from the inside.

Editorial for "Changing Worlds: Ideologies, Utopias and Ambitions in Science & Technology", Special Issue of the Graduate Journal of Social Science (2016, Vol. 2, Issue 2). Editors: Marlene Altenhofer, Leo Matteo Bachinger, Boka En, Jasmin Engelhart, Victoria Neumann, Nikolaus Pöchhacker, Mercedes Pöll, and Angela Prendl.

The online community reddit seems to offer countless opportunities for the expression ofsexual identities in specific groups called ‘subreddits’ – from those who playtheir part in the ‘maledom sexology’ to others who ‘celebrate’ ‘femboys’ or‘girls with glasses’ to ‘gay bros’ doing ‘guy stuff’, and ‘actual lesbians’escaping the ‘male gaze’. The short descriptions that sidebars in these subredditsoffer may appear to serve simply as a welcome to those whose identities theyclaim to represent. However, it is these very representations that co-producethe identities of those who could be included in them. Based on analyses ofsidebars displayed in subreddits, we explore which aspects of identity are seen– and thereby made – to be markers of personal and collective sexualidentities. By taking a closer look at what is said – and what is not – aboutboth those who create content and those who are seen as this content, we seekto elucidate how sidebars in subreddits serve to include and/or excludespecific behaviours in/from the normative visions of socially negotiated sexualidentities. Based on these identity re-presentations and their potentialeffects on the experience of reddit users, we examine how the unlimitedopportunities for the construction of one’s (sexual) identity that the Internetappears to offer turn out to be restricted by hegemonic as well as othernormative prescriptions of seemingly open and welcoming communities.

Presented at the ‘International Conference on Translation and Censorship in Literature and the Media’ in Valencia in 2017.

In this presentation, focusing on the German translations of ‘The Ethical Slut’, a self-help guide on non-monogamous relationships, as well as a manual entitled ‘Ultimate Gay Sex’ (in English) / ‘Gay Love’ (in German), we argue that translators, in attempting to make certain sexual realities more intelligible, may also be involved in trying to make them more palatable. This results in a process of deradicalisation, in which certain textual realities are suppressed and others cultivated.

There has been increasing interest in Translation Studies in what has been called, among other labels, ‘community translation’ (Olohan 2014; Fernández Costales 2012; O’Hagan 2011; DePalma and Kelly 2008), raising questions as to how non-professional volunteers translate (Presas Corbella & Martín de León 2014) and, relating to debates on general translation competence (c.f. Göpferich 2009; Lesznyák 2007; Pym 2003), addressing concerns over quality (e.g. in Zaidan & Callison-Burch 2011). Such discussions highlight the importance of various forms of knowledge in translation practices (c.f. Dam, Engberg & Gerzymisch-Arbogast 2005). At the same time, fields such as Science & Technology Studies and Social Movement Studies have shown significant interest in the role that knowledge plays in social movements, e.g. regarding interventions in policy processes, consciousness raising and organising (see Breyman et.al. 2017; Choudry 2014; Epstein 1996; Eyerman and Jamison 1991, Oliver & Johnston 2000). In this paper, we seek to bring together these two areas of research to provide a better understanding of the role of community translation in the social knowledge practices (Camic, Gross & Lamont 2011) of activist movements.

We consider the case of a translation project by MiGaY, a Vienna-based activist organisation dedicated to LGBTIQ* migrants in Austria, of which both authors are active members. In 2016, along with the relaunch of their (German) website, MiGaY published a text on ‘coming out’ that pays specific attention to the challenges faced by LGBTIQ* migrants, e.g. racism and xenophobia (also within LGBTIQ* communities) and trans- and homophobia (also within migrant communities). MiGaY then initiated a community translation project for translating this information into other languages, both to make it more widely available and to highlight diversity within LGBTIQ* communities.

At the time of writing, the project is ongoing, with more than 20 different translations being worked on, ranging from languages strongly tied to Austria’s history and current multicultural reality such as Turkish, Czech, Hungarian and Bosnian/Serbian/Croatian to other languages such as Japanese and Tagalog. The translators represent a significant breadth of backgrounds, from academics working on related topics, to professional translators not part of the LGBTIQ* community themselves, to LGBTIQ* individuals with no experience in professional translation.

The aim of this paper is twofold: First, to combine ideas and concepts regarding knowledge practices in social movements on the one hand and community translation on the other hand in order to gain a better understanding of how these two phenomena interact and intersect. Second, to analyse, based on semi-structured qualitative interviews and communication between MiGaY and the translators, the motivations behind engaging in this specific form of knowledge activism through translation (Baker 2006) and the ways in which the community translators bring their specific perspectives on LGBTIQ* topics in different linguistic/cultural backgrounds into the project. In this context, we also reflect upon one of the author’s own role in the project as ‘translation manager’, and the specific challenges that emerged in this multiply diverse community translation project.

In this ongoing project, we examine how radical queer discourses in English-speaking contexts are transformed into traditional LG(BT) discourses in their German translation(s). In particular, we investigate the de-radicalisation queer discourses undergo in translation processes as they are shifted into a tenor that, while claimed by some to be more palatable, ultimately harms both queer and LG(BT) agendas.

Queer discourses have been struggling to be recognised as a proper set of ideologies distinct from lesbian/gay politics ever since their emergence in the 1980s. Even today, (linguistic) spaces for queerness that supersede a simplistic equation of everything queer with homosexuality remain largely confined to the realms of explicitly dedicated academia and activism. By looking at various examples from LGBT and Queer literature as well as online sources, we analyse the erasure of the political and identity nuances of queerness as it is still particularly apparent in current translation practices.

Was passiert, wenn wir uns in unseren Beziehungen nicht von vornherein durch Muster definieren und einschränken lassen? Was bedeutet es, nicht zu leben, was ›normal‹ ist, sondern zu leben, was möglich ist? Und was ist überhaupt möglich? Wie können Beziehungsformen im queeren Alltag aussehen und wie können wir im queeren Alltag Beziehung formen? Unser Anliegen in diesem Text ist es, diesen Fragen nachzugehen und durch unsere Perspektiven und Erfahrungen anderen zu eröffnen, wie wir unseren Alltag leben und gestalten, um ein Bild davon zu vermitteln, wie queere Realitäten aussehen können.