Digital Humanities and Translation in Africa: Bridging the Past and Future

Africa’s diverse linguistic landscape, rich cultural heritage, and the digital revolution have paved the way for the convergence of two influential fields: digital humanities and translation studies. However, there still remains challenges for these disciplines in Africa in facilitating the preservation of local languages, enhancing cross-cultural communication, and promoting the exchange of knowledge and cultures. One of the primary controversies in Translation Studies revolves around the challenge of authentic representation. Tachtiris calls for a ‘radical reconception of who translates, who reads, what is worth translating, how translation happens’. In Digital humanities, some tools such as Chat GPT have been suggested to be multilingual as it can support many languages. However, it remains ‘monocultural’ as it represents predominantly the English culture. Therefore, there are still controversies surrounding representation, appropriation, diversity, and inclusion in the process of shaping or popularising African culture.
This stream will explore the multifaceted controversy surrounding the role of digital tools and human translators in preserving or translating African culture across time and space. We invite presentations which address, but are not limited to, the following questions:
What role can the Large Language Models (LLM) such as ChatGPT play in the effective translation of African Languages and literary heritage?
Do LLMs reinforce the global dominance of English and some other European languages?
What do LLMs mean for linguistic diversity and language learning in Africa?
What is the role of human translators?
How have different translations portrayed African cultures, religions, genders, sexualities, feminisms or complicated understandings of the lived realities, past and present, of African subjects?
How can digital humanities and other digital humanities-related topic better serve the African community?

Please be in touch with Dr Mukile Kasongo (m.kasongo@bham.ac.uk), Dr Joseph Kunnuji (kunnujijo@ufs.ac.za) or Augustine Farinola (augustinef@africanresearchersnetwork.co.uk) to discuss your ideas.