Translation and Epistemic Justice in a Comparative Literature Context

Abstract

This essay examines the relationship between translation and epistemic justice within comparative literature studies, particularly in the context of systematic knowledge destruction in the Global South. Using the Israeli military’s deliberate annihilation of Gaza’s educational infrastructure as a paradigmatic example of epistemic violence, the author analyzes how colonial structures continue to perpetuate hierarchical knowledge systems that privilege Euro-American theoretical production over scholarship from the Global South. The essay identifies four primary structural obstacles to equitable knowledge production: colonial epistemologies that devalue non-Western scholarship, US-dominated academic formations that enforce conformity through funding mechanisms, neoliberal austerity regimes that defund public education, and state-sponsored censorship that restricts scholarly mobility and research access. In response to these constraints, the author examines innovative translation collectives in Cairo—the Turjoman translators collective and the Sikkat Ma’arif Translation and Writing Lab—that emerged following the Arab uprisings as alternative spaces for collaborative knowledge production. These initiatives demonstrate how collective translation practices can function as forms of critical pedagogy and community building, challenging traditional academic hierarchies through solidarity economies and embodied political engagement. The essay concludes with practical recommendations for North American scholars to incorporate internationalist epistemic justice into their practice through improved access initiatives, resistance to academic specialization, and pedagogical reforms that recognize translation as integral to knowledge production rather than ancillary to it.