Boka En | University of Vienna (original) (raw)

Papers by Boka En

Translation Studies, 2019

In recent years, there has been increasing interest in translation studies in translation project... more 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.

Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe, Nov 2016

In this article, we explore gender discourses in the Austrian far right to provide insights into ... more 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", Speci... more 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.

In this paper, we reflect on self-tracking practices in the context of neoliberal ideologies – pr... more In this paper, we reflect on self-tracking practices in the context of neoliberal ideologies – predominantly the quest for self-improvement as mediated by and affecting the individual. On the backdrop of Foucault's concept of governmentality and current academic research on the Quantified Self, we consider online accounts and reflections of people's self-tracking endeavours as they emerge from and exist in neoliberal frameworks. We will outline how they relate to and produce ideas of humanity as inherently risky, the construction of 'normality' based on individual parameters, as well as optimisation as a never ending imperative where new opportunities for improvement are paramount. Finally, we present and suggest ways of queering self-tracking in order to subvert and reconceptualise its practice in order to imagine and enable the emergence of different utopias.

This is a short paper introducing a workshop at the Researching Sex and Sexualities conference at... more This is a short paper introducing a workshop at the Researching Sex and Sexualities conference at the University of Sussex on 8/9 May 2015.

As social researchers, we ‘order’ our objects/subjects in a variety of ways to make sense of the world. This ‘ordering’ happens in a range of different ways. For example, research may rely on demographic markers such as gender, race or class, or categorise people using relationship categories. However, we employ a much wider variety of discursive devices than these markers, for example in our ways of framing particular relationships and living arrangements.
While ordering the world may very well be unavoidable, it is never ‘innocent’. Social research does not merely re-present an unchangeable outside reality, but takes part in the production of that reality. As our background assumptions enter both our analyses and our (re-)presentations of ‘the world’, we take part in producing it in one way or another.
In this workshop, we are going to approach the subject of negotiating intimate interpersonal relationships in social research via both an extract from a social scientific publication and a description of a (fictional yet) specific living situation. Based on an analysis of these materials and our reaction to them, we are going to reflect on how our research contributes to making some worlds more intelligible, and others less so. Going with the topical theme of this workshop, we are going to focus specifically on research on intimate interpersonal relationships.

To see a longer version of this Call for Contributions, please go here)

The online community reddit seems to offer countless opportunities for the expression ofsexual id... more 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.

Translators are often construed as mere intermediaries in transcultural communication, doing litt... more Translators are often construed as mere intermediaries in transcultural communication, doing little more than transferring packages of meanings that have been unambiguously defined by other parties that really matter. However, translation is hardly innocent, and translation is hardly powerless. Translators produce texts and thereby identities/realities, and this text/identity/reality production cannot happen without interference/intervention from all participants in communication (which includes those parties that are usually theorised as passive, such as translators or recipients). Submission to hegemonic discourses is not a neutral non-decision, but a political act. Therefore, translators take part in the construction of identities. Transcultural communication is an ideal site to expose the cultural constructedness of identities/realities, thereby deconstructing these identities/realities and enabling allegedly passive recipients to see through and behind social constructs.

Talks by Boka En

Einführender Vortrag über Performativitätstheorien (mit einigen Anmerkungen speziell für Studiere... more Einführender Vortrag über Performativitätstheorien (mit einigen Anmerkungen speziell für Studierende der Translationswissenschaft) – verbindet Konzepte aus Gender und Queer Studies und Science & Technology Studies.

Verfügbar unter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98tTTvljve4

Conference Presentations by Boka En

Presented at the ‘International Conference on Translation and Censorship in Literature and the Me... more 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.

Presented at the Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Gender Studies at the University o... more Presented at the Annual Conference of the Austrian Society for Gender Studies at the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna in September 2018.

Presented at the conference ‘Queer Translation’ at the Centre for Translation Studies at the Univ... more Presented at the conference ‘Queer Translation’ at the Centre for Translation Studies at the University of Vienna; March 2015.

Current Projects by Boka En

There has been increasing interest in Translation Studies in what has been called, among other la... more 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... more 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.

Publications by Boka En

Queer STS Forum, 2017

Boka En enjoys mountain biking and being outside in general. To the dismay of their co-authors, t... more Boka En enjoys mountain biking and being outside in general. To the dismay of their co-authors, they haven't baked pizza in months, but will definitely do so again. They are passionate about emancipatory pedagogy, e.g. in university courses on sexualities, relationships and intimacies, as well as the intersections between academia, art and activism.

Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum, 2017

Translation Studies, 2019

Gender and Far Right Politics in Europe, Nov 2016

To see a longer version of this Call for Contributions, please go here)

Verfügbar unter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98tTTvljve4

Queer STS Forum, 2017

Queer-Feminist Science and Technology Studies Forum, 2017

Polyfantastisch? Einvernehmliche Nichtmonogamie zwischen Befreiung, Subversion, Neoliberalismus und Heteronormativität, 2020

Was passiert, wenn wir uns in unseren Beziehungen nicht von vornherein durch Muster definieren un... more 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.