Abstract:
For twenty-five years I have been engaged in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborative work with displaced, exiled and incarcerated peoples. These collective projects are examples of creative resistance and involve co-authoring different genres of writing in English; co-creation and translation into English; and shared intellectual and artistic projects. The most notable example of this collaborative work is my edited translation and collaboration in Behrouz Boochani’s book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Picador-Pan Macmillan 2018) which won many awards including the 2019 Victorian Prize for Literature in Australia and has been translated (from my English translation) into twenty languages. In my research I have referred to this multidimensional work with displaced, exiled and incarcerated peoples as a ‘shared philosophical activity’ and highlighted its political, aesthetic and epistemic significance.
I have now completed a new book that critically analyses many of these diverse and innovative projects: the publication is titled Creating New Languages of Resistance: Translation, Public Philosophy and Border Violence (Routledge 2025). This monograph addresses the literary, political and philosophical dimensions of my translation plans, processes and products. The different chapters also expand on important ideas such as the ‘kyriarchal system’, ‘horrific surrealism’, Manus Prison Theory and Nauru Prison Theory, and Australia’s carceral-border archipelago (Manus Island/Port Moresby in Papua New Guinea, the Republic of Nauru, the Australian territory of Christmas Island and the mainland, and Australian-funded sites in Indonesia). I employ transhistorical methods by incorporating research on coloniality and decoloniality; and the themes, topics and concerns in the new book critically analyse the global dimensions of the border-industrial complex by connecting the Australian context with international examples.
My research in this publication explores what it means to create new languages of resistance with a focus on storytelling, literary and artistic experimentation, and oral histories. Building on this narrative approach, I consider ways that translation practice can be interpreted as a form of public philosophy and how collaborative and innovative approaches to resistance create possibilities for new knowledges. This involves understanding creative resistance by incarcerated refugees in relation to their complex transnational networks with supporters such as translators. To illustrate these points I provide a comprehensive case study of the translations produced in relation to the 23-day siege in Manus Prison in 2017. The role of stories is central to this analysis, as is the expanding shared philosophical activity involved in producing a wide range of translation products. I also reflect on the role of reception, communication technology and social media as integral parts of translation planning, process and products. My new monograph illustrates the intellectual significance of translation work in combination with the shared philosophical activity. In this context I also raise several critical questions about terminology and theory. I discuss the unique ways that translation work, collaboration and reception operate together in experimental ways to produce knowledge relevant to challenging border regimes. By examining examples of collaborative projects, my book rethinks several pivotal points about public philosophy and considers epistemic issues. For instance, I examine the notion of the border-industrial complex and the philosophical and political influences behind it, and I explore different features of kyriarchy and the kyriarchal system. I provide critical reflection on writing and resistance in the context of Australian border violence to address issues pertaining to epistemic injustice. In my new book I suggests possibilities for analysing similar texts and cultural productions, and I create new spaces and frameworks for interpreting the relevance of displacement, exile and incarceration in relation to research, culture and politics.
About the Speaker:
Omid Tofighian is an Associate Lecturer in the School of Access Education at Central Queensland University. He is an award-winning educator, researcher and community advocate, combining philosophy with interests in citizen media, popular culture, displacement and discrimination. He completed his PhD in philosophy at Leiden University, Netherlands, and graduated with a combined honours degree in philosophy and religious studies at the University of Sydney. He has lived variously in Australia where he taught at different universities; the United Arab Emirates where he taught at Abu Dhabi University; Belgium where he was a visiting scholar at KU Leuven; Netherlands for his PhD; Egypt where he was an assistant professor (Philosophy; English and Comparative Literature) at the American University in Cairo; and intermittent periods in Iran for research. He is an adjunct lecturer at the School of the Arts and Media, University of New South Wales; an honorary research fellow at Birkbeck Law, University of London; faculty at Iran Academia; and the campaign manager for Why Is My Curriculum White? – Australasia. He contributes to community arts and cultural projects and collaborates with refugees, migrants and youth. He has published and translated numerous book chapters, journal articles and media articles, and his publications include Myth and Philosophy in Platonic Dialogues (Palgrave 2016); translation and collaboration in Behrouz Boochani’s multi-award-winning book No Friend but the Mountains: Writing from Manus Prison (Picador-Pan Macmillan 2018); co-editor of special issues for journals Literature and Aesthetics (2011), Alphaville: Journal of Film and Screen Media (2019) and Southerly (2021); co-translator and co-editor of Freedom, Only Freedom: The Prison Writings of Behrouz Boochani (Bloomsbury 2022); and Creating New Languages of Resistance: Translation, Public Philosophy and Border Violence (Routledge 2024).